Foreign: Students living 'luxury lifestyles'

Students are graduating with record debts because of their increasingly “luxurious lifestyles”, according to a leading academic.

luxury lifestyles

Students are graduating with record debts because of their increasingly “luxurious lifestyles”, according to a leading academic.

They are leaving university owing more than £20,000 each after spending huge sums on Marks & Spencer food, Ipods and flat-screen TVs, it was claimed.

Kevin Sharpe, professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London, said typical student flats were now more like the trendy apartments seen in Friends, the Manhattan-based sitcom, than grimy bed-sits from The Young Ones.

The comments were branded “extraordinary” by the National Union of Students.
It follows concerns that students are being saddled with decades of debt following an increase in university tuition fees coupled with a significant rise in the cost of accommodation.
But Prof Sharpe said too many students lived an “upper-middle-class lifestyle” that they could not afford.

“In the town where I live at weekends, students pour not from Aldi but from Waitrose, with bottles of wine and champagne as well as bottled water, expensive foods and snacks,” he said. “Taxi drivers lament the vacations, when their trade is depressed and whole parts of the city lose their bar and restaurant customers (I can hardly remember going out for dinner as a student).

“Student homes are often equipped with large LCD TVs, Sky boxes and, as burglars have been quick to spot, several high-end laptops per dwelling, offering richer pickings than normal domestic residences.”
He added: “I queue behind students who often spend more than £5 on a snack lunch at Marks & Spencer before boarding the bus. On the journey to campus, some are plugged into the latest and fanciest iPods, while many more spend the half-hour on mobile calls at peak times.”
Research suggests that the average student already leaves with debts of up to £23,000, although some analysts claim the figure could be as high as £40,000.

It is feared debt levels will rise in the future. Ministers are about to launch an independent review of the student loans system and tuition fees. Vice-chancellors are pressing for a significant increase in the existing £3,200-a-year fee.

A study last month by the Confederation of British Industry recommended hitting undergraduates with a “triple whammy” of significantly higher fees, more expensive loans and an increasingly stringent system of grants.

But writing in Times Higher Education magazine, Prof Sharpe insisted that many students did not help the situation by squandering money on “a luxurious lifestyle”.
He said the old-fashioned stereotype of students living in houses “held together by accumulated grim” had been replaced by “posh pads”.

He added: “While for many that is doubtless ?nanced by the bank of mum and dad, for those less well off but understandably anxious to keep up with their peers, the inevitable consequence is debt – and substantial debt at that.”

Wes Streeting, NUS president, said: "I think it is frankly extraordinary that he's under the impression that students are graduating with £23,000 debts because they're spending their time quaffing champagne and living luxurious lifestyles.
"The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of students are having to work longer hours in low paid jobs or dip in to already overstretched family finances just to get by. This is not a good time for students on campus and I think Professor Sharpe needs a reality check."

By Barnebys