Top 50 Most Affordable University Towns Revealed

New research by TotallyMoney reveals the top 50 most affordable university towns across the UK and puts the University of Warwick in first place. The Free Credit Report and comparison specialists looked at the Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018 to rank their top 50 universities in order: from most affordable, to least. The research considers the weekly rent of university halls, cinema ticket price, monthly gym membership cost, cappuccino cost, meal cost, the price of a pint at Wetherspoon, the cost of a doner kebab, and the price of a cab from the town centre to the university.

Taking the top three

Taking first place is the University of Warwick, with a weekly rent of just £72, and cinema ticket and pint costs of £6.50 and £2.39 respectively. It also has the second cheapest kebab cost at £3.99. The University of East Anglia takes second place, which has the cheapest weekly rent at £54. However, it’s slightly higher costs for everything else pushes it further down the rankings. Third place is Swansea University, which performs well due to its reasonably priced £20 gym memberships, and weekly hall rent of £89. The cost of a pint is also at the lower end of the scale at £2.19. Students looking for more beer for their buck should head to Keele University, which has the cheapest pint price at £1.99.

Least affordable London

London universities were shown to be the least affordable, mostly due to higher-than-average accommodation costs. All seven of the London universities surveyed ranked in the bottom eight. Last was London’s Royal Holloway, which has the highest weekly halls rent of £169, and the highest cab fare at £43. Second from last was King’s College, which has a slightly cheaper weekly rent of £150. However, pints were the most expensive of all those surveyed at £3.85.

Each town broken down

Based on the research, TotallyMoney has created an infographic showing how each town performed, which includes the average cost for each data point surveyed. TotallyMoney’s Head of Brand & Content, Joe Gardiner, said: “While some students see the costs of higher education as something they simply have to put up with, affordability will always remain a priority for others. “That’s where our infographic can help. Students will know they’re looking at the top 50 universities across UK, but now they can choose based on other aspects that could be important to them — whether that’s rent, the cost of travel or a pint, or something else.” For a full breakdown of all 50 universities, visit: https://www.totallymoney.com/content/best-university/