Cardiff is most affordable city for students

CARDIFF is the most affordable city in the UK for students, according to a new survey.

The Welsh capital has among the lowest student rents at £384.23 a month, the fourth lowest in the UK, the NatWest Student Living index found.

That’s slightly less than the £396.79 monthly student rent in Swansea and well below the average of £584.32.

Cardiff students also spend less on monthly household bills at £36.80, compared to an average £43.10.

And they spend £16 less than average a month on fashion, at £23.50, and less on going out at £26, compared to an average £33.40.

But the survey found respondents in Cardiff spent just 82.2 hours studying each month, well below the average 137.7 hours across the 36 UK universities surveyed.

Cardiff students spend lower than average time socialising at 26.4 hours a month compared to the highest number of 38.3 hours reported by peers at Reading University and 27.9 hours by Swansea students.

Cardiff may be affordable for students but they don’t necessarily need to budget the most. Cardiff students who took part in the survey have the second highest term time income at £1,476.50, the data shows.

That’s nearly double of that for students in Glasgow who have the lowest term-time income at £786.60 a month.

Students in Cardiff get most of their money from jobs and loans. They get just £158.60 a term from their parents on average, the seventh lowest amount of the universities surveyed.

Students in general spend most of their entire income on food and household items with those in Cardiff add a monthly bill of £45.56 for alcohol to that, just below the UK student average of £50.87 but still the fifth highest in the UK.

Students at universities in Wales – including Swansea and Aberystwyth – take three of the five top spots in the survey for spending on alcohol.