The stereotype of UK university students as lazy—lounging on the sofa watching cartoon reruns between their eight contact hours—couldn’t be further from the truth today.

Students in England now need to work over 20 hours a week just to meet a basic standard of living (with no ‘nice to haves’), even when receiving the maximum maintenance support, a new report reveals.

These part-time jobs aren’t funding pints at the students’ union or months-long summer trips; they’re keeping students afloat. Today, many have to work to cover rent, energy bills, and food, all of which have risen sharply in recent years.

A Minimum Income Standard for Students report from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), TechnologyOne, and the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University reveals how much first-year students need for a socially acceptable minimum standard of living, covering the basics and enabling full participation in university life.

The report calls for a Minimum Income Standard for students, proposing £260 a week for first-years to cover living costs excluding rent. With rent included, that figure rises to £418. It notes these amounts are a “common baseline for all students,” but the income required can vary, especially in cities where rent or other costs are significantly higher or lower.

The report finds that students need £61,000 to get through a three-year degree (or £77,000 if studying in London), and that’s before paying any university tuition fees.

First-year students face even higher expenses than their peers due to one-off ‘setting-up’ costs, like buying a laptop and kitchen utensils, and ‘settling-in’ costs, such as a wristband for freshers’ week activities.

In England, the maximum annual maintenance loan for students from low-income households is £10,544, covering only about half of a fresher’s living costs.

Nick Hillman, director of HEPI, told Dazed: “Maintenance support is currently woefully inadequate, leading students to live in substandard ways, to take on a dangerous number of hours of paid employment on top of their full-time studies or to take out commercial debts at high interest rates.”

Even with the minimum wage for 18- to 20-year-olds rising from £8.60 to £10 an hour this year—an annual boost of £735, bringing earnings to £5,250 for students working 10 hours a week—the report finds they’ll still need to work well beyond 10 hours to cover living costs.

“This is the case regardless of where they live or study, even if they receive the maximum amount of maintenance support,” the report states. “For example, a first-year home student from England will still have to work more than 20 hours a week at minimum wage, a student from Northern Ireland or Scotland 16 hours, and a student from Wales 15 hours.” 

One student quoted in the report recalled a recent open day at their halls of residence, where costs were advertised as £10 more per week than current rates. “So the next year of students will have to pay more than us already,” they said.

While the report makes clear that maintenance support falls far short of what students need across the UK, it also argues there’s a case for improving young people’s financial literacy.

One student said financial literacy “just generally is not well enough taught,” explaining that some young people receive their maintenance loan, having never seen such a large sum in their bank account before.

They recalled knowing someone who, within the first three weeks, had spent “pretty much all” of their student loan. “He budgeted about £10 a week from halfway through October to the end of December, until he went home,” they said.

For many university students, the cost of living and the pressure of managing money, often for the first time, are taking a toll on the whole experience. Working alongside studies leaves little room to join the ski team just for the weekly “snowcials,” sip discounted coffees in the union, or loiter in the library. Their jam-packed schedules don’t even allow them to live up to the student stereotype.

If the government implements the proposed Minimum Income Standard for students, it could free up time to fully embrace university life, without racking up debt or spending every spare hour working.