How do you afford to go to a University in London (UCL/Imperial/Kings/Queens)

The thing that restricts my university choice is the cost of living. being the broke person that I am... london is completely out of the question... But I might want to study CompSci at Imperial so I was wondering what costs were like so I can compare it to other universities. It will obviously be a bit more but how much more is the question

How much do you pay for accommodation and where do you find accommodation?
How much do you end up spending each week?
How do you afford the living costs? (wealthy parents is not a valid answer) -_-
Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

guest115

Original post by Someboady

Hi, I'm hopefully going to be studying in london later this year, and here's how I plan on affording it. The accommodation at LSE that I applied to is around £210 a week. It is catered 5 days a week for just dinners, so some food costs still apply. Transport will also be costly, especially in 2nd and 3rd years. Looking at a few graphs, I think it will cost around 10-14 thousand a year to study in london.

How I plan on financing this... well I have a maintenance grant of £5,200 or thereabouts, and I'm currently working weekends and plan on working more regular hours during the summer holidays to build up some money - I think you can get quite a substantial amount by doing this. If you don't manage this, then you could apply for deferred entry and have a gap year and work for even longer. By doing this, its definitely possible to attain enough savings to carry you through the first couple of years.

Reply 2

CHEETS

It's very expensive. I couldn't afford halls in my first year so ended up in a draconian YMCA with a curfew. But it was £500 a month with all meals and utilities included so it saved me LOADS of money (this was yrs ago obvs, but still cheap relatively). It was right next to my uni, so ZERO transport costs. Ended up spending all 3 yrs there!

I basically lived a DRACONIAN lifestyle for the first year or so. Since food was included in my rent, I made sure not to spend AT ALL on food otherwise. If I REALLY needed a change, I had a Tesco meal deal or a sub of the day (which was £2 but they don't do them any more :frown:

!!) I also took a tethering contract on my phone data (unlimited) so I didn't have to pay extra for YMCA WiFi or a dongle. Restricted going out to free entry (pre-10pm, guestlists etc.). I guess a big saver was that I don't drink much. I never drink when out and mainly just contributed a few quid towards shared alcohol for room parties/prelash etc. My monthly spending used to come to £60 in first year!

I worked through all the summer holidays. In my penultimate year, I did quite a well paying internship (leading to a well paying future job) so loosened the purse a bit in final year (went out for meals etc.). That's the good thing about London. You have great access to a lot of high-paying firms and don't have to travel for an entire day for each interview. Even if you don't want to be a City robot, there's no harm doing an internship somewhere that pays interns way more than they deserve to fill the coffers.

I'm now a graduate student again, and although this is considered a relatively expensive town, it feels unbelievably cheap compared to London.

I think after rent (which can't be helped), alcohol is where you can really save. The no drinking habit enforced during my stingy undergrad days basically turned into a lifelong money-saver since I subsequently never felt the need to spend money on alcohol when I was working (and hence saved more), and still don't now as a student again (so I spend less of my savings).

Basically, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you won't be living the suavest life for the next 3-4 yrs. You will have to force yourself to do without things that your richer friends may have. But pull through and it will all be worthwhile.

How do you afford to go to a University in London (UCL/Imperial/Kings/Queens)

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