Advice to anyone who has got accepted to UWE and is looking for accommodation.

I figured i'd post this, as I really needed this advice as a first year student:

UWE accommodation at the student village is currently about £710 per month for 8 months, and is a total of £5669.20.
You do get electricity and water bills etc. paid for, but as a fourth year UWE student, I want to say this is a complete rip-off, so here's some advice:

- Start looking for accommodation in Bristol ASAP, for instance on filton avenue or gloucester road. Rent will only be around £300-400 a month, which is a huge difference. Say you get a 8-month contract, you will only have to pay £2400-3200, so over £2000 difference. This is a huge amount of money, and will definitely cover any extra costs by living further away from uni.

- If you can't access a student grant, and your parents won't happily pay for everything, odds are you won't be able to afford this. For instance I got about £3000 split into 3 segments: £1000 in September, January, and April for my maintenance loan. That is no way near enough the amount you need to pay for everything, as I still had food and social expenses.
I had to dip into all my savings, and work at around £7 an hour to find the extra £2700, plus more. It completely drained all my finances, for something that was not worth it. Sometimes you can't rely on parents to pay that much of a difference.

At first I thought that i'd rather live in halls at first, as it's close to uni so you can easily get your work done, and have a pretty good social life. Well that logic didn't end up working, here's why:

- You probably won't have that many hours at uni. Seriously, I only had 16 hours of uni in my first year, so you don't have to worry about being this close to UWE. I had days alone in my room just binge watching breaking bad, as I had nothing else to do. I could've just lived in a student house, the commute is only about 20-40 minutes.

- Social life MAY be better by living in halls, but not by a huge margin. I had very quiet roommates and we never really went out. Sometimes it happens, and you might be alone for longer than you think.
Also, you will more than likely have just as good, if not better of a social life living in a student house, as (a) you will live closer to the city centre, which is way more buzzing, and (b) you can always stay over at a friends place if you're lucky.

And final thing, if you have the option to stay at home and commute, I personally think this is the best option. It probably won't effect you as bad as you think, and will save you a lot of money.

Anyway I hope this might help someone, i'm only writing this big wall of text as i'm so disgusted by how much the UWE halls charged me for a single room and a tiny shared kitchen.

TL-DR: I don't recommend living in the UWE student village, as its way to expensive. It's pretty much a huge scam.