In the heart of Leeds, our dedicated initiative – Essentials at Leeds University Union (LUU) – is making a significant impact on students’ lives through addressing the fundamental challenges of cost of living, increased expenses, and a core understanding of student needs.
As the Basic Needs Coordinator at LUU, I can say that this isn’t just another support service. It’s our calculated response to a national crisis that has been brewing for years – one that has seen students increasingly struggling to meet their most basic requirements for survival, let alone academic success.
The concept of “basic needs” has emerged as an important concept in higher education, particularly as the cost of living crisis deepens its grip on students across the UK. These fundamental requirements encompass:
- Food security: Access to nutritious and sufficient food
- Housing: Safe, stable, and affordable accommodation
- Health and wellbeing support: Availability of medical and mental health services
- Financial stability: Resources to manage expenses and avoid financial stress
- Personal safety: A secure environment free from harm and discrimination
For too many students, these essentials – that used to be taken for granted – have become luxuries.
Staffordshire University’s recent pilot of a Student Basic Needs Survey revealed that nearly all students (93 per cent) are worried about the cost of living, with maintenance loans proving woefully insufficient to meet expenses.
Nearly two-thirds reported going hungry at least once, and one in ten reported not eating at least once in the month because they simply couldn’t afford to. Most disturbingly, 6.5 per cent of students reported being homeless in the previous 12 months.
This isn’t an anomaly – it’s a pattern repeated across the country – and one we see daily at our Essentials hub.
Abandoning the gloss
The real value of home undergraduate student fees has now dipped below £6,000, while universities face increasing pressure to support retention, continuation, and student success. This financial squeeze particularly affects institutions with larger intakes of students with transition, financial, and social capital support needs.
For students, the situation is equally dire. Changes to student finance, cost of living pressures, and fewer part-time working opportunities have created what some experts call “precarious learners” – students whose basic needs insecurities place them on a tightrope between academic success and failure.
The figures suggest that more and more, governments are failing to ensure students’ basic financial needs are met, undermining their ability to live with dignity and benefit from the education they’re incurring lifelong debt for. Even with academic success, they’re still being set up to fail.
Recent polling by Wonkhe and GTI/Cibyl reveals stark differences in students’ sense of belonging, support networks, and mental health depending on their financial situation. Students experiencing financial difficulties were significantly more likely to feel disconnected from their university community and to experience poor mental health.
And yet, policy responses remain fragmented. Aside from a few exceptions, the UK still glosses over the harsh realities of student life, driven by a strange fear that acknowledging student hunger could hurt recruitment. Perhaps that’s why the US has strategic Basic Needs Centres, while UK students are directed to discount-hunting webpages instead.
The role of LUU Essentials
At LUU, we’ve transformed our approach to student support through Essentials – known to those who engage with it as a comprehensive “Basic Needs Hub.”
We’ve moved beyond the traditional food bank model to create a holistic support system that addresses multiple dimensions of student insecurity.
What makes our model particularly effective is our recognition that student needs don’t exist in isolation. Food insecurity doesn’t exist separately from housing precarity or financial stress – they’re interconnected challenges requiring coordinated solutions.
- Food security: Our Food Pantry offers non-perishable items, stationery, and hygiene products to all students facing food insecurity. We’ve established strategic partnerships with local organisations like Rainbow Junktion to ensure students can access hot meals, network with peers, and connect to additional support
- Financial assistance: We encourage students to access various financial support systems including grants, bursaries, and financial assistance funds to help with tuition fees, living expenses, and unexpected costs. We provide educational sessions on managing finances and making informed financial decisions
- Community Building: We run weekly events from Valentine’s biscuit decorating to clothes swaps that create a sense of belonging. We ensure our space is safe and inclusive, promoting a culture of respect and support.
The balance is delicate. As I often tell my team, it’s about balancing the expectations with also making sure students’ voices are heard and their needs are met. It’s quite a difficult role to explain and to also do, because we’ve got to have the data to back what we’re saying, but then we’ve also got to make sure that students are understood and they know that we’re here for them.
Our approach is intentionally responsive rather than prescriptive. Students can collect up to five items (including a maximum of two toiletries) per visit, but our service extends far beyond this transactional support. We do events every week, trying to be innovative in the ways in which we do things, to make sure that students know that we’re here for them, but we’re here for them, and whatever that means for them.
Beyond food banks
Our structure at Leeds mirrors developments in American higher education, where institutions like Portland Community College and Rutgers University have established strategic Basic Needs Centres that address multiple dimensions of student insecurity through data-driven approaches.
When we received funding from the university to establish Essentials, we never expected it to transform as it has. While other students’ unions have food pantries that they run differently, we’re all trying to figure out the right approach for our specific student populations.
I work closely with our advice service and help and support team – without them, it would be remarkably difficult to do my job. While we haven’t established a formal referral scheme yet, I can provide information about various support services.
My longer-term aim is to develop a referral system that functions seamlessly so students can get the best support possible.
To this end, I’ve been working with the Financial Wellbeing team at the university to expand our collaborative efforts. After all, everyone shares the same ultimate goal – ensuring students at Leeds have the best possible experience.
Beyond survival to belonging
The transformative impact of LUU Essentials is evident in the testimonials we receive:
Without the support of you and the team, I would have struggled to access support.
Thank you for being so nice and friendly, you have made the impossible possible.
Thank you for understanding my circumstances, having a family makes it harder to make ends meet but you believe in me and want to support.
But perhaps the most telling indicator of our success is how students relate to our space. When we first opened, international students constituted 80-90 per cent of our service users, a figure that has now balanced to around 40-50 per cent as awareness has grown across the student body.
The personal connection matters enormously. All the students that visit Essentials know my name, which is wonderful but also presents a challenge – many won’t come in if I’m not there. That’s something I’m actively working to change, because that’s literally not what I want. Our service needs to be bigger than any individual.
This highlights a complex truth – while the provision of material goods is essential, the sense of dignity, belonging, and community that comes with it may be equally important.
The future of student support
Coming to university is brilliant, but students have got to have a solid foundation in the first place to be able to thrive. As we know, everything affects everything.
You’ve got to be willing to overcome hurdles, but it is hard. You do feel like you’re on a tightrope sometimes, because you can have a debate about what is essential and what isn’t, what constitutes basic needs and what doesn’t.
But basic isn’t boring. Equally, students shouldn’t have to wake up in the morning and think “I don’t want to have a good time today because I can’t.” It’s such a balance, but like anything, when it is a balance and you can strike that balance, then that’s all that matters.
As we continue to navigate the challenges of student life at LUU Essentials, we remain committed to evolving and expanding our services. Our goal is to ensure that every student at Leeds University has the support they need to succeed academically, socially, and personally.
I’ve begun partnering with different organizations in the city as well, which has been really rewarding. It’s about creating more of an impact not just within the university but beyond that, which I think is critically important. Students don’t always realize this isn’t just an issue affecting them individually – let’s face it, we could all do with an extra couple of hundred pounds every month, occasionally.
The experiences of institutions like Staffordshire University and our work at LUU points toward a need for sector-wide adoption of basic needs measures and comprehensive support systems. Without addressing fundamental insecurities related to food, housing, and finances, we cannot expect students to focus on academic pursuits without undue stress.
In the words of Lee Elliot Major, Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter,
These are troubling findings if you believe that academic potential should be realised from wherever it surfaces. They also raise difficult questions about whether fee-paying students are being short-changed by a system failing to provide adequate support for basic living while at university.”
LUU Essentials represents more than just a support hub – it is a lifeline for students in need. By addressing basic needs, we create a community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. You can’t please everybody, but at the end of the day, what you can do is try and make things better for people.
As we build toward a more inclusive future for all students, basic needs aren’t just add-ons but foundational elements that determine a student’s ability to succeed.
