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11th October 2019

Survey suggests Manchester students spent £24m on freshers’ week

A Yolt study has found that students in the city are spending more than the national average, partly due to Manchester’s inexpensive student life
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Survey suggests Manchester students spent £24m on freshers’ week
Photo: Magnus D @ Flickr

Manchester students spent £24m over the freshers’ period, according to figures from banking app Yolt.

Yolt surveyed 2,000 students across the country and calculated the average Manchester student spent £325 – £42 more than the UK average of £283.

A breakdown revealed that grocery shopping constituted the majority of spending, with course supplies the second highest expense.

Although often considered central to the student experience, socialising was ranked as third for total costs.

Beverly Agyekum, a third-year Politics and Modern History student at the University of Manchester said: “Everyone thinks freshers’ is expensive because of the partying culture that comes with the period, but in reality it’s expensive because we are settling into a new city and a new home, each year I’ve been in a different accommodation and each year settling into a new place has been expensive.”

Manchester has a reputation for inexpensive student life, having ranked third in a top 10 of affordable student citites compiled by What Uni’s? back in May. A Top Universities list of cheapest student cities placed Manchester in second place.

Yolt, the banking app behind this research, aims “to help people stay on top of their money and budget with ease, providing easy and efficient access to their finances by harnessing the power of Open Banking and the greater control it gives people over their financial data.”

Cristel Lee Leed, Chief Marketing Officer at Yolt, remarked that, “Freshers is a long-standing tradition at many universities across the UK and is a great introduction to all that student life can offer.

“Whilst the average spend during the period may seem quite high as a proportion of the average student monthly budget – it’s encouraging to see that most students are already recognising that budgeting is a life skill. Many students are starting out well before university and actively taking control and prioritising their budget to cover their living costs whilst at university.”

In Manchester, the beginning of the academic year provides a welcome increase in revenues for establishments across a city that has close to 100,000 students across its three major universities, according to Invest in Manchester. 


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