BE IT working in bars, restaurants or even as party magicians, more than 30,000 students will take part-time jobs this year to pay their way through university.
As thousands weigh up the cost of a degree, Glasgow has today emerged as the most cost-effective university to study at in Britain, and Durham the most expensive.
According to the Student Living Index, an alternative league table covering 21 British universities, the average student could save more than £1,000 or the cost of 100 takeaway pizzas, by choosing to live and work in Glasgow.
The survey of 2,163 undergraduates ranked each town by the cost of living and how much a student could expect to earn in part-time work. It also threw up some interesting statistics . . . like the fact that students spend nearly £1 billion a year on alcohol — three times more than they do on books and course materials,.
It showed that while the average undergraduate spends an average £181.30 per week on living and housing costs, it also revealed that the same student could earn around £102.80 per week for part-time work.
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In Durham, while the cost of living was £10 less at £171.90 per week, a student here can only hope to earn around £56.50 from term-time employment. From that, over one academic year, a student could in theory save more than £1,000 by choosing Glasgow over Durham.
The most expensive town to live in was Cambridge, at £168.90 per week, with St Andrews the cheapest at £86.50. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most expensive city for housing was London where an average rent is £81.48 per week compared with £52.10 in Liverpool.
The research carried out for the Royal Bank of Scotland also revealed that British students will spend over £8 billion in housing and living costs over the coming academic year.
The largest part, £2.5 billion, will go on rent; £950 million on alcohol; £670 million on food; £540 million on going to the cinema, dinner and nightclubs; and £330 million on books and course materials.
The Student Living Index also revealed that students next year will earn an impressive £1.5 billion as 40 per cent of all students work part-time for extra cash. Of those the hardest working are at university in Aberdeen and London, where 61 per cent are in part-time employment of on average 15 hours per week. Students in Liverpool work the longest, at 17.7 hours per week, whereas Bristol undergraduates work the least, at 10.7 hours per week.
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One of the most surprising findings was that despite facing huge debts, fewer than two in five students considered the cost-of-living in a city when they chose to go to university and 35 per cent said they were not prepared to manage their finances when they arrive.