Nearly a third of school leavers believe that university is not affordable and more than half believe the cost of living will impact their career prospects, reveals a recent survey. Iona Bain, is a consumer finance expert, and is on hand to give her advice and discuss other options for prospective students in September and beyond.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Around half of school leavers have reconsidered going to university in the past year due to
00:07 the rising cost of living. And the Centre for Economic and Business Research has actually
00:12 done some digging into the numbers and looked at just how much money students could save
00:17 if they opted for remote learning instead. And what they found is that students could
00:20 save up to £6,555 a year if they went for remote learning over a traditional education.
00:28 And that's because they'd be accumulating less debt, they'd be saving on everyday living
00:33 costs and crucially they would be able to earn whilst they learn at the same time. And
00:37 that's really valuable for more and more young people now.
00:40 It's the way the student of today will study changing. To avoid the huge costs associated
00:45 with going to traditional universities, nearly three quarters of school leavers would consider
00:50 distance learning as a viable alternative, perhaps with the influence of all the time
00:54 spent studying from home during Covid under their belts. Furthermore, perhaps the rising
00:59 cost of living has boosted the following figure. 39% now want to have the ability to earn while
01:04 they learn. A further 29% are seeking a better balance between their education and other
01:09 life commitments. And nearly a quarter want to live at home rather than moving away to
01:14 university.
01:15 Younger people are way more open to remote learning and realise that actually it can
01:22 be a viable way to get an education. And actually if you look at the results of this survey,
01:27 85% of school leavers think that switching to flexible learning would improve their mental
01:33 health and wellbeing. So for lots of young people it's actually preferable to study online.
01:39 And this could be for a whole host of reasons. Through the current financial crisis, money
01:43 worries have increasingly become an issue for the younger generations, which has led
01:47 to money, rather than other factors, informing some of their big decisions.
01:51 We can't underestimate the psychological impact of this cost of living crisis on young people.
01:58 You know, lots of people of all ages are lying awake at night worrying about how they're
02:03 going to pay for basics like their housing, their energy bills, their food shop and so
02:08 on. And young people are no different. And if you go to university, these days, the maintenance
02:14 loan that you receive, increasingly it's not able to cover those basic expenses. And for
02:20 young people, the impact of those financial worries can actually then lead to them performing
02:26 worse on their course and not able to engage as much with their course.
02:30 But the good news is students won't be missing out. Iona believes alternative courses can
02:34 be just as rewarding as more traditional and more expensive ones.
02:38 They're realising that they don't have to sacrifice a high quality education. And also,
02:43 they don't necessarily have to, you know, give up on having a rich, well-rounded social
02:48 life. And also, their career progression and job prospects, you know, you can have just
02:55 as much of a positive, successful outlook if you go to the OU in terms of your future
03:01 job prospects as you can do if you go to a traditional university.