English at the University of Liverpool

Gosh I'm so sorry, I've only just seen this! I have no idea if this is still relevant to you so I'm really sorry for the lateness of this reply.
However, I personally love Liverpool, it's my home and I'm born and bred here but I did live in another city for three years so have experienced life outside and consider myself relatively unbiased. Like all cities there are good and bad areas, but the city centre is quite student friendly as are areas outside the city centre such as Wavertree, Kensington and Mossley Hill. The city centre isn't huge but everything is in close proximity such as bars, clubs etc.

in my opinion, Liverpool is very artistically vibrant, in the city centre, we have 5 mainstream theatre's (possibly more and this isn't including the more underground art performance type), various art galleries and museums, such as the Walker, (good selection of classical art in a beautiful neoclassical building), the Tate, Maritime museum, a large Liverpool specific museum (Museum of Liverpool) and, in my opinion our best, the world museum, which has quite a range of exhibits from ancient Egypt (including real mummies!) To space and time and has a small aquarium and bughouse as well as far more.

There is a lot going on in the sense of the biennial art festival, films and performances at the bombed out church (a hollow church structure that's exactly what it says on the tin but has been turned into an alternative entertainment hub), a lot of live bands at good venues, and then a variety of things outside of the city centre to see, such as Speke hall (a Tudor manor that is open to the public), the Liverpool music festival and Africa Oye held at Sefton Park, and of course Beatles tours of their old houses/haunts etc.

Price wise I think Liverpool is a fairly cheap city, I imagine you could get by as a student fairly easily. There are cheap pubs and student specific clubs and nights. Outside of cheaper and student places I'd say price of meals, alcohol etc is about average to that I've seen in other cities?

I hope this was of some use.