More than three-quarters of students are worried that soaring costs will affect their academic success, according to the research done by the Office for National Statistics ONS Last week, and the University of Manchester said it would give its full-time students a one-off payment of 170 to help with the cost of living, as part of a 9 m support scheme. It said it would also provide e-books, scrap library fines and put in other measures to help with rising costs.
The ONS said its survey was the first official research of its kind, experimental, and based on the views of 4,000 students.
One in four said they had taken on new debt because of ballooning food and energy bills. Nearly half said their mental health had suffered.
The ONS said that 91% of higher education students had reported that their cost of living had gone up compared to last year, with the same proportion worried about the rising cost of living.
Nearly one in five people said they had considered moving back to their family home and commuting to their university.
In September, a September survey conducted by Save The Student found that four in five of those asked had considered the possibility of dropping out of university. More than eight in 10 of those asked said they worried about making ends meet, with the average maintenance loan falling short of living costs.