How expensive is it to study in London? Depends who you ask

The campaign aligns with the British Council’s Study UK initiative, focusing on employability, world-class education, and student life in London. The dedicated website features university profiles, will have content on platforms like X, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and invites universities and businesses to contribute using a campaign toolkit.

It’s all lovely stuff, but what I couldn’t find anywhere on there was information on costs.

That could be a problem – given that London is the now fourth most expensive city in the world. In HEPI/Savanta polling a month or so ago, students in London were 8 percentage points more likely to have missed out on social experiences over cost concerns, and 12 pp more likely to have canned off extracurriculars for the same reason.

Drop-out risk outside of London was 27 per cent – rising to 49 per cent in the capital – and co-curricular opportunities like internships or departmental research opportunities saw a 16 pp differential. Students in London were also 12 pp more likely to find travel to work a challenge.

The HEPI report that followed said that including rent, students need £21,774 a year in London to meet its Minimum Income Standard (MIS) for students – one that figures on how much money they need not just for clothes, food and rent but for full participation in university life. The sort of life advertised in the “Study London” campaign.

You could, I suppose, make an argument that costs vary from provider to provider – at least for university halls and/or specialist materials or equipment – but surely on the main things like private sector rent, going out and so on, there ought to be some kind of consistent information on costs for prospective students.

So I thought I’d look at the members of London Higher’s cost of living webpages to see what they say. Caveat – I may not have found them all with my google searches.

Birkbeck was quite a good start – telling students that a rough guide, and to help students begin their budget, to allow for £16,000 to £17,000 per year (around £1,300 to £1,450 per month) to meet essential accommodation and living costs. It’s especially good because for the whole period between 2017 and last year, it had been saying £12,000 to £13,000.

Brunel tells UG students that they’ll need between £940 and £1,420 a month, and PGs between £1,160 and £1,600 a month. The odd thing is that as part of that, it was saying food and groceries would cost £150 a month 8 years ago – and now says they’ll be £160 a month. Really?

At City, University of London, there’s some estimates of costs in categories that have very wide variation bands – undergrads are told that they can expect to spend between £150 and £500 a month on food, for example. If they were to guess the upper end each time, it’s fairly close to HEPI’s London minimum income calculation – but the supposed lower end of £1,020 a month will feel pretty far-fetched to plenty of students – even if they are out in Uxbridge.

At the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, the estimated guide of what a student should expect to pay per week in London comes to £348.50 a week – quite a bit less than the HEPI MIS. The estimates on housing, bills and food have all increased since 2021 – but the cost of entertainment, travel, books and equipment, broadband/phone and “other” (toiletries, clothes, laundry, photocopying, printing) have somehow been static for three years.

At The Courtauld, the “recommended budget” for accommodation is £315 per week – although “privately rented accommodation varies considerably” but will “often not include the cost of utilities and may require a more extensive transport budget, depending on the location”. This time the recommended budget for food is “£50+ per week”. It was two years ago as well.

The University of Greenwich doesn’t seem to guess at costs at all – but does refer students to a budget planner and a budget builder.

At Goldsmiths, the guess on accommodation costs has gone from £110 – £318 a week in 2020 to £158 – £337 a week now. Arguably the problem here is that its guesses on internet, TV licence and mobile phone (£6 – £15 a week), food (£30 – £40 a week) and entertainment (£20 – £50 a week) haven’t changed in four years. It’s at least updated the guess on utility bills – from £10 per week in 2020 to today just saying “variable”.

At Guildhall, students are told that living in London (accommodation, food and travel) is likely to cost from £1,300 to £1,550 a month. That’s exactly the same figure that it was quoting in May 2022.

Full marks to Imperial – it has likely costs for living in London in three bands, by week, month, 9 months and 12 months, has breakdowns that come from its student experience survey, and updates the numbers every year. Excellent stuff – although even its central estimate of £21,171 a year is below HEPI’s “minimum”.

King’s says that “as a broad estimate of the funds needed to live to a reasonable standard in London”, it currently estimates that students should allow approximately £1,800 per month for living costs in addition to tuition fees. That’s much better than this time last year – when it was telling students that they should allow £1,265 per month for living costs – which just so happened to match the £1,265 per month that UKVI was saying students needed in their bank account to enter the country – a figure that hasn’t changed in many years.

Kingston has detail on all sorts of costs in a lower and upper range – covering everything from personal costs to cocktails. To be fair, most are more than this time last year – although then they were “calculated using The Student Money Manual”, a reference missing from this year’s calcs.

I couldn’t find anything at the London Contemporary Dance School.

At London Met, “it is estimated that a single student living in London will need approximately £1334 a month to meet basic living expenses such as accommodation costs, food, books and equipment and other necessities” – adding that “this is in line with Home Office recommended figures for living inside London”. It was giving that figure last year too – and has only increased by about £100 since 2021.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says that London is an expensive city but that “with some planning and budgeting” should be “possible to live, study and enjoy yourself”. Unlike last year’s guess of £15,180 per year, it now doesn’t offer an overall figure, nor one on housing costs – but does say that gas, water and electricity “may cost an additional £2,500 for a calendar year for those in private housing”. The source on that is listed as the average annual gas and electricity cost for a 3 bedroom house provided by British Gas, and the average annual bill for water and sewerage charges across England and Wales households as provided by Discover Water. I make that £2,113 a house – a rare moment of a university appearing to hugely overestimate a cost.

At London South Bank, each category of weekly costs is given a lower and upper limit for those in both university and private accommodation. The total on the upper end of estimates for private accommodation comes out at over £28,000 – although on the lower end, I’m not sure what kind of entertainment you can buy on £15 a week, even in Elephant and Castle.

Middlesex has a whole page that says it’s “a guide to help you plan your finances while you’re studying”. But then it just lists words – accommodation and bills, food and drink, transport, entertainment, “wellbeing”, clothes and shopping and “other” – with no sources on how one might guess what they cost.

Queen Mary has some good spreadsheets that suggest that international students will spend £18,980 a year outside of fees – and they’ve been updated every year for the past few years. Good stuff.

RADA doesn’t put any figures on costs, and Ravensbourbe reminds students that they’ll face tuition fees and living costs – but doesn’t offer any estimates on the latter. I couldn’t find information on costs at Rose Bruford either.

The Royal Academy of Music has two “typical essential monthly costs” examples – one for a student in halls, one for those in a house share. Bizarrely, its guess on bills for the latter has gone from £100 a month last year to £36 a month this year. And for those in halls, the cost of socialising, course costs (such as reeds, concert clothes, tickets to concerts, sheet music and books) and extras (like toiletries, laundry/detergent and clothes) somehow haven’t gone up since 2020.

Full marks to the Royal College of Art – there’s a breakdown of costs that comes to circa £22k, which is roughly where HEPI has things.

At Royal Holloway, there’s a page aimed at international students that suggests total living costs of £7,980 – £11,990 – the problem is that it hasn’t been updated since 2021. There’s also a page for postgrads that estimates students will need £12,500-£15,800 per year in living expenses – that page hasn’t changed since 2022. Yet another page – which I assume is aimed at home undergraduates – estimates the same costs on phone, travel, books and equipment, entertainment and sport and clothing and personal items that it was listing in 2020. I know, I know, Egham isn’t really London – although its costs very much were last time I was in the town’s chippy.

The Royal Veterinary College says that students should create a budget “based on what you currently know” and “can reasonably predict” to enable them to make a “useful and informative forecast”. A link to a “flip book” on living and course costs doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2019.

SOAS has a webpage on the costs that students might face – but to estimate them, students are sent off to other websites. St George’s says that living costs will “vary” depending on individual lifestyle choices and so recommends that all prospective and current students build an online budget plan using sites like MoneySavingExpert or MoneyHelper.

St Mary’s seems to have applied quite a dramatic update to its estimates of costs – last year it was telling students in private accommodation that a minimum budget could be £620 a month – a figure that is now £1,040. Funny old place, Twickenham.

At the LSE, our future economists are told that they should allow approximately £1,300 to £1,400 per month for all living expenses, including accommodation, travel, food, laundry, study costs, and other personal expenses. That hasn’t changed since last year, has only gone up by £100 since 2017 – and is some distance from HEPI’s MIS.

It’s a better picture at Trinity Laban – there students are told to allow £17,500 – £28,500 per year for accommodation and living expenses. The problem is that that’s based on figures “updated as of April 2023”, likely to be some distance from that which students will experience in September 2024 or later.

At UAL, the “Dean of Students office” no less recommends that the average amount required for monthly living costs in 2023 is £1,600 a month. No word on 2024 or 2025, although at least it’s not claiming that your weekly food shop will be £35, as it was claiming last year.

UCL warns students that in addition to their tuition fees, their main costs as a student will be living expenses including accommodation, food, travel, entertainment, books, clothes, etc. A couple of clicks on and there’s guesses on food, course materials, mobile phone and health and wellbeing – although the source of said guesses is “the Save the Student survey for 2023 and uprated by 10% to reflect the current rate of inflation”. That’s a survey that also said that 18 per cent of students were using a food bank and 22 per cent said they often skip meals to save money.

UEL “understands that cost of living is a big concern to students” and even has “a dedicated Student Money Advice and Rights Team (SMART) who can provide one-to-one advice”. It doesn’t, however, seem to offer any advice on the costs students might face.

I’m missing out the University of London and the University of Reading, and while Roehampton seems to have all sorts of help on offer, it doesn’t seem to have anything on estimated or likely costs.

In the past UWL didn’t have any numbers, but new this year it says it can cost an individual student between £1080 and £1950 per month, although I doubt there’s much in the way of decent accommodation on offer even in Ealing at £550 a month.

Meanwhile at Westminster, being in a “large and potentially expensive city like London” means that on average, students “can spend around £475 per week on rent and living costs”. That’s the same figure it was headlining with in 2022, despite some of the components going up since – although apparently, next year Westminster students will pay the same that they did 2 years ago for contents insurance, travel, course essentials, clothes, personal items, sports memberships and going out.

So, a huge mess. Most of the numbers are not sourced, many seem to suffer from not being updated, few seem to have been updated even for inflation, none warn students about future inflation, and crucially very few of the pages suggest anything close to the MIS that the HEPI research establishes.

Collaboration over promoting London is good – but perhaps London Higher’s members could also collaborate on something more useful and accurate that warns students about the London higher costs that they will inevitably face.