Money Box Live: The Cost of University

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

About a quarter of a million 18-year-olds in the UK secured a university place this summer and are now preparing to head off to their chosen institution. The numbers increased by about 5% at a time when the costs associated with getting a degree are also rising.

There's a patchwork of different funding models across the UK, but for students in England and Wales tuition fees have gone up for the first time in eight years. We take a look at how tuition and day-to-day costs are funded across the UK, and hear from students about their housing - another major cost that has been increasing.

Debt is also now a major part of the university experience, with students in England graduating with an average debt of £53,000. One graduate explains how she has struggled to make a dent in her debt over the past 10 years despite holding well paid jobs.

Felicity Hannah is joined by Tom Allingham from the student money website Save the Student and Clare Dickens, director of the Student Life team at the University of Wolverhampton.

Presenter: Felicity Hannah Producers: James Graham and Helen Ledwick Editor: Jess Quayle

(This episode was first broadcast at 3pm on Radio 4 on the 10th of September 2025).

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:06.0	On BBC Sounds, savings, credit cards, car finance, reclaiming, insurance, investing, power of attorney, decision, indecision, analysis, paralysis.
0:15.8	Don't panic.
0:17.0	The Martin Lewis podcast is now twice weekly, helping you navigate our complex consumer world.
0:22.3	In one, I'll walk you through a big money-saving topic step by step.
0:26.2	Then in the new question time, you set the agenda and ask whatever's on your mind.
0:31.0	Within reason, the Martin Lewis podcast, now twice weekly.
0:34.4	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:37.9	Hello.
0:38.9	For a lot of people, the years they spend at university are some of the best of their lives.
0:44.2	For today's freshers, they are certainly some of the most expensive.
0:48.5	Tuition fees in England and Wales are rising this September for the first time in
0:52.3	eight years, with a smaller hike in Northern Ireland.
0:55.3	And on Saturday, Moneybox heard reports that maintenance loans only cover half the cost of
1:00.4	undergraduate life. So you don't need to be a math student to have some questions about whether
1:05.5	the numbers add up. And that's what we're looking at in today's Moneybox Live podcast.
1:10.4	Let's start with a conversation.
1:11.7	Plenty of families will be having this September as they help their teenagers get ready for uni,
1:16.6	how the money is actually going to work.
1:19.0	This is 18-year-old Elizabeth and her mum Helen,
1:21.7	and I've visited them as they sorted through her uni shopping at their home in Lim in Cheshire.
1:26.6	Right, let's go through what we have bought so far.
	...

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