Increasing financial pressures driving more students to live at home and reject typical ‘student experience’

Students are increasingly likely to be working part-time jobs during term-time and commuting to university, with growing financial pressures altering the typical ‘student experience’.

The 2025 Student Academic Experience Survey (SAES) found that 68% of full-time students now undertake paid employment during term-time – a 12-percentage point increase from 2024.

This is the highest number of students in employment recorded by the SAES since the data was first released in 2015.

Data from UCAS has also revealed that 30% of university applicants in 2024 were planning on living at home during their studies.

These changes to the ‘student experience’ stem directly from sky-high rental prices and the growing cost of university accommodation

This is similarly the largest documented percentage of students living at home, and the year-on-year percentage increase, since the data was first recorded in 2015.

These changes to the ‘student experience’ stem directly from sky-high rental prices and the growing cost of university accommodation.

At the University of Warwick, for example, Whitefields, which was previously the cheapest accommodation option at £91 per week, is set to be demolished.

Alternative cheaper options, such as shared bathroom accommodation in Westwood, are no longer available, while others, from Rootes to Tocil, continue to increase in price.

These trends have led to increased concerns regarding the efficacy of universities in preparing students for employment.

Notably, worries have emerged that students who commute from home or work alongside their studies will be less involved with ‘university life’, and therefore less able to engage with opportunities to enhance their employability and skills.

These concerns arose after a study conducted in Nottingham found that the cost of a typical ‘university lifestyle’ is forcing students to shun this experience, in favour of commuting and working.

Balancing two part-time jobs with university studies has not necessarily been easy, but it has really helped me to establish my way of approaching time management, organisation and my own priorities

Second-year Bath Spa student

An investigation by The Boar in December similarly found that many students are being priced out of the typical university social life, as external financial pressures continue to take priority over socialising.

This worry, however, is not shared by all people, with one second-year student at Bath Spa University telling The Boar: “Balancing two part-time jobs with university studies has not necessarily been easy, but it has really helped me to establish my way of approaching time management, organisation and my own priorities.

“I would also say that commuting to university has strengthened these qualities even more.”

The student also argued for the benefit of commuting on their personal health and wellbeing: “Living at home this past year, I even found myself focusing on getting better sleep, improving my eating habits, and putting more time into my appearance, all of which have turned my student experience into a very positive one.”