The latest Minimum Income Standard for Students update paints a stark picture: first‑year undergraduates now need about £418 a week, including rent, simply to participate in university life at a minimum acceptable standard — and the maximum maintenance loan in England, set at £10,544, covers only around half of those costs. According to the HEPI summary of the 2025 research, produced with TechnologyOne and Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy, that shortfall forces many students to juggle near‑full‑time work alongside study or to rely on unseen parental support. (The HEPI summary was published on 12 August 2025.)

The update emphasises a clear “first‑year premium”: students living in halls face substantial one‑off set‑up and settling costs — from laptops and bedding to fresher‑week spending and the early inefficiencies of learning to cook and budget — that push their weekly needs above those of continuing students. Researchers used focus groups across five cities to build a student‑specific basket of goods and services, arguing the methodology mirrors established living‑wage approaches and so gives a robust picture of what “minimum” actually means for students.

Regional and lifecycle differences are large. The research translates weekly needs into three‑year totals of the money required to meet minimum standards: roughly £61,000 outside London and about £77,000 in London (excluding tuition fees). Coverage by maintenance support varies: students from Wales fare relatively better, with around 63 per cent of costs met by the maximum maintenance package, while those from Northern Ireland receive support covering nearer 42 per cent. The researchers warn that the gap between costs and support has created a “hidden parental contribution” that now often exceeds £10,000 a year for English families.

That gap has consequences for how students experience higher education. The report and accompanying briefings estimate students would need to work over 19 hours a week at minimum wage to reach the MIS threshold, a burden that researchers say erodes the time available for independent study and extracurricular activities. Independent survey evidence from the Student Academic Experience Survey 2025 shows a rapid rise in term‑time employment: 68 per cent of full‑time undergraduates now undertake paid work during term — the highest recorded level — and many respondents report negative impacts on wellbeing and perceived value for money.

Much of the pressure comes from small but cumulative day‑to‑day and seasonal costs that university budgeting guides — and many applicants — routinely overlook. The research lists everything from storage between academic years, insurance for devices used outside halls, and modest room personalisation budgets, to recurring laundry charges in halls and higher social spending when building friendships. These items are not luxuries in the researchers’ framing: they are prerequisites for participating socially, maintaining mental health and avoiding exclusion.

That mismatch between lived costs and official guidance is compounded by outdated public information. UCAS’s money and student‑life webpages still draw on pre‑2020 survey data in places and report “typical” weekly spending figures and fresher’s week averages that do not reflect the first‑year premium or many of the smaller set‑up costs identified by the MIS work. Research authors recommended that admissions information should compare the support available from a student’s home nation with their expected costs at the point of application — a reform that, at the time of the update, had not been adopted.

The researchers put policy solutions at the centre of their recommendations. They call for maintenance support to be redesigned around five principles — simplicity, transparency, independence, sufficiency and fiscal neutrality — and urge targeted measures such as a dedicated first‑year boost and higher parental contribution thresholds so families only contribute when they themselves meet a minimum standard of living. The report suggests these changes could be funded without increasing overall public spending, including proposals to adjust student‑loan repayment mechanisms so those who gain most from higher education shoulder a fairer share.

Those recommendations arrive against an unforgiving economic backdrop. Food and energy costs remain important pressures in student budgets: the MIS authors and allied commentary note that food inflation has been elevated this year and that rents typically rise faster than headline inflation. Ofgem’s quarterly price‑cap announcement set the typical dual‑fuel cap at £1,720 for July–September 2025, which will alter household and student energy bills for the coming term. Meanwhile, the TechnologyOne briefing highlights labour‑market strains — employment growth has slowed and vacancies have fallen in recent months — which risks reducing students’ ability to plug shortfalls through part‑time work in the places they study.

Taken together, the evidence points to three systemic risks if no action is taken: widening inequality of access to higher education, deterioration in the quality of the student experience, and jeopardy for the sustainability of the sector as increasing numbers of students balance study with precarious, often low‑paid work. Advance HE and HEPI survey work underscores that the rise in term‑time employment is reshaping students’ day‑to‑day lives and course engagement, and the MIS authors warn this slow “participation implosion” could go largely unnoticed until harms are entrenched.

The choice facing policymakers is stark. The MIS update presents a simple moral and fiscal question: does the country maintain a model of mass participation without ensuring the basic material conditions for that participation, or does it reform support so that “being a student” is not, for many, synonymous with poverty and overwork? The report’s authors argue that honesty about costs, clearer budgeting information for applicants, and targeted, tested changes to maintenance support would protect access and the quality of student learning without blowing up public finances — but only if political will follows the evidence.

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Source: Noah Wire Services