No – A luxury lifestyle is a far cry from reality for most student savers
Professor Kevin Sharpe at Queen Mary University argues the lifestyle of your average student is becoming increasingly flamboyant.
To the contrast of earlier decades – when apparently students went far hungrier – Sharpe says modern undergraduates represent a “champagne generation”.
He suggests students waste loans on indulgent items like BlackBerries, LCD TVs, and smoked salmon sandwiches. The result of this spending is debt, but Sharpe’s view of student life barely compares to the real deal.
Students do eat out more today. But we’re not drawn in by the whiff of exotic, expensive dishes. Instead, we’re enticed by the bold print of “student discount” on the windows.
The best way to go about eating out as a student is to head to a buffet armed with Tupperware and sneak home a stash of leftovers for the week’s dinners.
A particular “luxury” Sharpe alludes to is bottled water. He clearly doesn’t recognise its necessity.
Not only does bottled water keep us awake in stuffy lecture theatres, empty bottles work wonders for a cheap night out. Fill them with smart price vodka, slip them into a bag, and you have yourself a cheap night out supermarket style.
The professor fails to realise that, far from getting careless about our money, we’re actually doing the opposite. Students are investing in penny-saving tactics; not new luxuries.
Lifestyles change with modern times, and nowadays it is simply a case of higher living standards as society has progressed.
As health and safety laws tighten, the tolerance of filthy carpets and communal bathrooms has withered. Meanwhile, cheaper and grimier accommodation is seldom available.
Students are forced into the more expensive market as there is no viable alternative. Most would argue that the real drain on their loans is not careless spending, but accommodation costs which loans fail to cover.
We find ourselves resorting to overdrafts before our course has even begun to cover hefty accommodation bills.
Also, Sharpe hasn’t considered the current economic climate and the subsequent need for businesses to cater to the skint amid a recession.
If that means we can swap 6p noodles for a taste of Waitrose, that’s one thing worth cracking open the bubbly for.
Ellie Neves
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