STUDENTS

It's no secret that students are in greater debt than ever before, but as a new academic year begins many are being packed off to university with an Aladdin's Cave of pricey possessions. According to Endsleigh, a specialist insurance company for students, those starting university this term will typically bring consumer goods worth between £3,000 and £7,000.

Instead of a rusty bike and a few old posters, the average student will bring a laptop, sound system, television, DVD, personal organiser and mobile phone. About a fifth of them are likely to be driving their own cars, with some universities having an even higher proportion of student drivers. A recent survey by Marks and Spencer also highlighted this pattern, saying students wouldn't be starting university with "a tin opener and a head full of academic dreams, but with kit worthy of any hi-tech modern house, worth up to £6,370".

"Because their parents are paying for them, or students themselves are funding their education, they want more," says Simon Thompson of the website Accommodation for Students. New halls of residence are run by private contractors, some with broadband in the room, widescreen TVs, en suite bathrooms, on-site health clubs, swimming pools, swipe-card entry and 24-hour surveillance.

This is a huge change from a generation ago, when students were caricatured in The Young Ones as living in cash-strapped frugality, with bare cupboards and second-hand clothes. Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, says that university is now a "consumer experience" for many young people.

"Students might not be rich, but they are comparatively better-off than students once were, and all the talk about debt and fees masks this. They have an expectation of a level of support from their parents that would have been unthinkable in the 1970s," says Professor Furedi. He also says students who are steeped in this affluent, consumer-culture can cause problems for their lecturers. Students can think the "customer is always right", he says.

But it's not all easy living for students, he says. There is a greater polarisation in wealth than before, with some undergraduates facing great financial hardship. The National Union of Students (NUS) emphasises this financial pressure, and says that after paying their rent, students are living on an income below the job-seekers' allowance. Different surveys give very different impressions of student finances.

The NUS says students outside London are expected to live on between £23 to £43 per week after rent, which it says is below the "subsistence level". This stark picture is compounded by the level of graduate debt, which has climbed steeply to an average of over £12,000.

"The image of a student as portrayed in The Young Ones is out of date," says NUS Vice President, Welfare, Helen Symons. "This is because the students depicted were much better off than students of today. In the early Eighties they received maintenance grants, housing benefits, travel costs and even unemployment benefits during Christmas and Easter vacations."

But a survey from the Royal Bank of Scotland says students are still finding cash to enjoy themselves, spending an average of £121 per week after rent and collectively blowing £18m per week on alcohol alone. The biggest three expenditures were rent, alcohol and food, ahead of clothes, going out, cigarettes, eating out, phones and books and course materials.

This kind of energetic spending is not going to be covered by the government-backed student loans - and the funding gap is being met by extra borrowing, both from families and from banks or credit cards. The Consumer Credit Counselling Service says its advisers have had cases where students have run up debts of £10,000 on credit cards. The NUS also says that, rather than being spoiled, students are paying their own way as never before.

They now have jobs as a matter of course, with 58% holding down extra-curricular work commitments during term-time. If they're spending on laptops and clothes, it's money they have worked hard to earn, says the students' union. Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University, believes that when trying to measure changes in how students live it's important to look at the bigger picture of how the rest of society has changed.

"Universities are microcosms of society outside," he says. So students, along with everyone else, are likely to spend more, borrow more and work longer hours to meet the repayments. But he says that although students are sharing the upward trend of affluence, many are still facing a genuine shortage of cash. They might like going out for the night, but baked beans are still on the menu. (Source: BBC News)

Students pay an average of almost £7,000 a year for their education, making Britain the third most expensive country in the world for study. That's without the introduction of the £3,000 top-up tuition fees. The Global Higher Education Rankings report found that British students pay an average of £6,763 a year, a figure made up of tuition fees and living expenses, minus the average grant available.

This is second only to New Zealand and Japan. The study, the most detailed international comparison of higher education costs, blames 'scrawny' British grants, the high cost of living and the number of students living in the London area, one of the most expensive cities in the world, for Britain's ranking.

The cheapest place to study is Finland, where one year of education costs an average of £1,820, followed by Holland at £1,826 and Sweden, which comes in at £2,186. The rest of Europe clusters into a band with costs ranging between £2,914 and £4,030. If grants are taken out of the equation, tuition fees and living costs in Britain combine to cost students an average of £7,353 a year.

According to the survey, British students pay an average of £2,020 in tuition fees each year and take out loans totalling £2,642. In Finland, higher education costs students the equivalent of £590 a year, in Japan, students pay £9,974, while in the US students pay around £8,400. British students receive an average grant of £597, compared with £275 in Finland. American students receive around £2,120. (Source: The Guardian)