The Student Room Group

Catered or Self-Catered?

Hi I'm going uni in 2025 and was wondering what people's opinions were on catered vs self-catered. This is because I am eligible for the full maintenance loan and was looking at doing catered so that I could focus on first year and not stress about cooking and budgeting for food. However, I don't know if this is a good idea because of the pros and cons but it would be great if I could get some advice from anyone who has done catered or self-catered.

Thanks :smile:
hi there! i also get a full maintenance loan but i decided for the last two years to still be self catered. a main factor for me was location - the restaurants and eating facilities at your university may only have certain opening hours and they may also be a distance away. it depends whether you would like to leave the building and walk perhaps somewhere else to have a meal. on campus unis are more convenient but for city unis where the halls are further away, would it be worth going to campus just for a meal?

also sometimes if you’re catered, you won’t get a kitchen at all in your flat. my friends found it difficult to socialize with their other flatmates because they didn’t have a common space to hang out in like the self catered flats did. again though, this is specific to halls/unis - some still provide a kitchen as you can get half catered (for example they provide one meal a day for five days or something like that) or you can have a small kitchen with a toaster and a kettle for snacks etc.

check with the uni specifically! i know my friends got theirs included in their halls included in the price while mine would’ve been on top of my price. i’m in housing this year so it’s very inconvenient for me to go to campus just to eat dinner every day. but it is specific to the kind of person you are as well. i think uni is all about learning independence and cooking for yourself etc but if you would prefer not to have to worry about that, that is completely fair enough. either way, you can probably get a catered package later on in the year if you change your mind😌

hope this helps!
(edited 3 months ago)

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