STUDENT NUMBERS: 1400424, 1407808, 1404702
BUDGETING
INTRODUCTION
EMPLOYMENT
Student finance plays an important role within education in England. It is very controversial as some students struggle with money while others are swimming in it. A number of universities try to offer student funding to pupils who need it in addition to the funding they receive from Student Finance England (SFE). Research shows that students are motivated to go to university due to the increased job opportunities. However, some of them are concerned about the amount of debt they will owe when they graduate and how long it will take them to repay it (London South Bank University, 2005). They worry this can result in financial difficulties in the future (Minty, 2015). This research has allowed us to consider the different student opinions on matters such as the amount of loan they receive and whether interest should have to be repaid on loans. We developed areas of our questionnaire around this subject.
STUDENT FINANCE
We dedicated a whole section of our survey to finding out about students that work whilst at university. We wanted to look at whether they felt it affected their university experience and also what their main reasons for working were. In the basic information sample we showed that the percentage of students who work is 51% and the percentage of those who don’t is 49%.
Figure 18 shows us that 32% students receive
We found data relating to student spending in the UK created by the NUS. This table shows most of their money goes towards food shops (£100) and other necessities (NUS, 2013). This helped us to create a question that would allow us to see how The University of Chichester compares.
between £3000-£4499 from student finance. Only 26.4% of students receive between £1500-£2999. 20.8% of students receive £0-£1499. 17% receive £4500-£5500 from student finance. This loan is worked out on the level of the student’s household income so the less your parent earns the higher your loan is.
After looking at the literature our main aim is to find out how students deal with finance at The University of Chichester and the problems they face with it. Within this we have been able to create 3 areas that interested us most and that we wanted to base our research on. Our 3 main objectives are:
FIGURE 18
To look at the average student budget and see what affects student spending, To look at students that work whilst at university and see why they work as well as looking at if working affects the overall experience, To look into students opinions of Student Finance England (SFE) and see what Loans, Bursaries and Grants they received from SFE and the university.
FIGURE 11
Figure 12 Shows that the sample year
BASIC SAMPLE INFORMATION FIGURE 5 The average age of our sample was 21
Figure 5 shows the average monthly spend of students at The University of Chichester and how this is split into different
Slightly higher than the average age of the
spending categories. Students spend the most on rent monthly which was to be expected as it is the most costly. The average food shop works out at £107 per month, being the second largest expense which is in line with the UK average as according to the NUS the average monthly student spending on food shopping is £100 (NUS, 2013). From our sample 17 students have to travel a significant distance to get to university and so this could explain why the monthly travel is spend is so high. Students at The University of Chichester spend significantly less per month on Tobacco and Alcohol then that of the average student which is £72 monthly (NUS,2013). This could be because only a small part of our sample smoke but we didn’t ask this question and so we don’t know if this is the reason why.
students attending The University of Chichester. This could be because of an outlier; one student was significantly older than the rest of the sample at 51. Our sample also showed 24% of students at The University of Chichester being mature (over 21) rather than the real value of 16% (Which.com).
Figure 19 shows the different groups of
group influences whether or not they work. It shows that 60% of third year students have a job, while 55% of second year student also have a job. Only 13% of first years have a job which was expected as during the first year you are more likely to try and settle in and may be more interested in socialising. An NUS survey had a different result. Their sample shows that the majority of students don’t work whilst at university (NUS, 2008).
FIGURE 19 Figure 20 shows that 67.9% of students FIGURE 12
Figure 13 Shows opinions on whether or not
working lessens the academic experience. Respondents were those who worked as they have the most accurate view. Most people felt it slightly lessened the academic experience (55%) and some people felt it didn't really (22%). Only 3 people had a strong opinion on the matter and felt it greatly affected the experience.
Figure 6 shows the difference in spending on
FIGURE 1
55% of our sample were females compared to
45% males. The University of Chichester consists of 62% female students (Which.com) and so our sample is a slightly inaccurate representation of the university as a whole. Therefore we will not go into depth with splitting gender when processing the data collected. FIGURE 6
alcohol and tobacco between different year groups. 1st year students spend more money on alcohol and tobacco than any other year group. Could be because 1st year students are more likely to go out to clubs or bars than 2nd years due to the difference in work levels. It is surprising to see that 3rd year students also spend more on alcohol than 2nd year students as they have a lot more work and so you would expect that they are less likely to go out drinking.
FIGURE 2
One of our main objectives was to look into the working status of students at The University of Chichester and how this affects their finance. We will later go on to compare this with things like: their monthly spend and more specific spending.
49% of people don’t work during university
term time. 43% work part time and 8% work full time.
We compared this result with a survey the Guardian conducted, so we can see the difference between students at the University of Chichester and overall students in the UK.
Figure 7 illustrates the amount of students
who feel some of their spending is excessive, and shows the difference between those who do budget and those who don’t. Students who don’t budget are more likely to spend excessively than those who do. This fits in with our predictions.
slightly higher than the average of the UK. Our sample of students in full time and part time jobs is lower than the average.
FIGURE 21
Compared to the academic experience people had a stronger opinion. There were less ‘Slightly’ and ‘Not Really’.
CONCLUSION FIGURE 14
Objective 1 We managed to create an average student budget for our sample where the largest expense was rent and the smallest Following the correlation on monthly spend
H0: There is no significant difference in the frequency of students who spend excessively between those who budget and those don’t.
H1: There is a significant difference in the frequency of students who spend excessively between those who budget and those who don’t; those who budget are less likely to spend excessively.
P>0.05
FIGURE 15 FIGURE 8
Figure 9 Shows the relationship between the
REFERENCES
The Guardian. (2015). One in seven students work full-time while they study. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/ education/2014/aug/11/students-work-part-time-employability. (Accessed: 10 December 2015)
The Guardian. (2015). Wages throughout the country: how does your area compare?. Retrieved from http:// www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/nov/24/wages-britain-ashe-mapped. (Accessed: 11 December 2015)
NUS. (2008). NUS Student Experience Report. Retrieved from: http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/4017/ NUS_StudentExperienceReport.pdf. (Accessed: 10 December 2015)
London South Bank University. (2005). Survey of higher education students’ attitudes to debt and term-time working and their impact on attainment. Retrieved from: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2005/ TermTimeWork.pdf.(Accessed: 4 December 2015) LSE Research Online. (2010). Does the fear of debt deter students from higher education?. Retrieved from http:// eprints.lse.ac.uk/21010/2/Does_the_fear_of_debt_deter_students_from_higher_education. (LSERO).pdf. (Accessed: 4 December 2015) Ucas.com, (2015). UCAS Search tool - University of Chichester - Overview. [online] Available at: http://search.ucas.com/ provider/561/university-of-chichester?Query=hospitality&Vac=1&AvailableIn=2014&page=1&ret=providers (Accessed 11 Dec. 2015).
We decided to do a test to see if the correlation was significant.
campus students study at and their monthly income. Students in Bognor Regis have an average monthly income of only £367.74. Students who study in Chichester receive a higher average income of £506.25. This could be due to those students who work having different wages. Research shows that Chichester has a higher average wage than Bognor Regis as larger towns and cities have higher earnings (The Guardian, 2015).
H1: There is a significant correlation between the number of hours worked by a student and their monthly spend. The greater number of hours worked, the higher the monthly spend of the student.
P=0.0
Objective 2 We looked at why students worked whilst at university as we wanted to see what motivated them. They were motivated
mainly to pay for bills but no one was motivated to provide for their family which was a surprise. This shows that maybe students didn't get enough income from other places. Students feel it did affect both the social and academic experience of university. It may have been only slightly but overall it did affect both of them for most people.
Objective 3 Finance England as they would like to be able to choose the amount of student loan they get as well as they feel the government should subsidise tuition fees like Scotland and Wales do. The amount of loan that students receive seems to be fairly equally spread and there is a large difference between students. A lot of students at the University of Chichester that we surveyed receive no bursary or maintenance grant which was a surprise as most students do. This could be due to sample that doesn't reflect the whole population.
P<0.05
REFLECTION & IMPROVEMENTS
We can reject the null hypothesis and therefore there is a significant correlation between the number of hours worked by a student and their monthly spend. FIGURE 16
Figure 17 shows students most
important reasons for working. A number of students need to work in order to pay their bills (53%). 32% of our sample considers that it is a good idea to gain experience from working whilst at university, while a few people believe that their salary can cover a social activity cost as well as feeling enjoyment from work. Out of our sample no ones most important reason for working was to support their family.
Figure 10 Shows the correlation between a
student’s monthly spend and income. There is a positive correlation between the two. On average students spend more when they have a higher income. There are three main sources of student income: parental support, paid employment and Student loan/bursary. Those with a higher income have more money to spend and it is likely that they are used to having that amount of money and so have no need to save.
was course equipment. The average student budget was what we expected and was on par mainly with the average UK student budget. The main factors that seemed to affect budget were: Year - Different years spending on certain things were much higher. For example weekly spend on alcohol and tobacco (Figure 6). Income - Students average spending increased as their income did. There was a significant association between the two (Figure 10). Whether they budgeted—Those who budgeted spent less excessively and therefore probably spent less overall.
We managed to gather some opinions of student finance, overall it seems that students aren't overly happy with Student
Pearson Correlation:
FIGURE 9
NUS. (2013).Student contributions to the UK economy. Retrieved from http://www.nus.org.uk/Global/Student% 20contribution%20to%20the%20UK%20economy.pdf. (Accessed: 4 December 2015)
and income we broke up income and decided to look just at work. Shows the correlation between a the hours student’s work and their monthly spend. There is a positive correlation between the two. On average students spend more when they work more which you would expect as they would have more income. There is a stronger correlation here as it isn't influenced by other sources of income.
H0: There is no significant correlation between the number of hours worked by a student and their monthly spend.
FIGURE 4
Minty,s. (2015). Young people's attitudes towards tuition fees and debt in Scotland and England. Retrieved from http:// www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/21642052/55_i_d_BERA2015_Minty_Paper.pdf. (Accessed: 4 December 2015)
believe that the government should subsidise tuition fee whereas 7.5% believe that it should not be subsidised by the government. (Humphreys, 2015) posted a similar question on his blog about tuition fees and an overwhelming 77% of people who took put in his survey believed that they shouldn’t pay for tuition fees whereas only 23% disagreed. This clearly shows that most students believe that the government should subsidise tuition fees which may improve general attitudes towards student finance .
working lessens the social experience. Most people felt that working either slightly (26%) or greatly (30%) lessened the social experience. Few did feel that it didn't really have much affect but this could be because these people don’t do much socially.
We must accept the null hypothesis and therefore there is not a significant difference in the frequency of students who spend excessively between those who budget and those don’t.
Our sample of students who don’t work is
Figure 21 shows that 88.9% of students
Figure 14 Shows opinions on whether or not
We decided to test to see if there was a significant difference between the two and so we completed a Chi-square.
P=0.206
FIGURE 20
FIGURE 13
Chi-square:
UK as a whole: 42% of students do not work at all during term time. 45% have a part time job and 13% have a full time job (The Guardian, 2015).
believe that they should be able to choose the amount of loan they receive. 26.4% believe that they should not be able to choose the amount of loan they receive and 5.3% have no opinion on the matter. This could be because some students believe that the money they possess the better their experience. This is true to an extent as the more money you have the more likely you should be able to participate in different activities and have a better lifestyle.
We decided to look at how this compares to opinions on whether working lessens the social experience.
FIGURE 7 FIGURE 3
students who receive different amounts of maintenance grant and bursary. Students who do not receive a bursary and maintenance grant is the largest group (34%). The second largest group is students who get between £3000 and £4250 worth of bursary and grant (32%). 24% receive a bursary and maintenance grant of between £1000 and £2999. 10% receive a bursary and maintenance grant of between £1 and £999.
Our response size (53) was not entirely a true reflection of the students at the University of Chichester (5679)
FIGURE 17
FIGURE 10
The NUS have also researched a similar topic but their results differ. They say that 45% of students work because they do not want to own any debt. They also report that 46% of respondents work because it can be used to put in their CV for their future work which supports that students work to gain experience (NUS, 2008).
(UCAS,2015). This would have helped us to come to a better understanding and conclusion on our topic. Therefore, our data only applies to 0.9% of the students of this university which doesn’t provide a well-rounded judgement of students’ finances. If we had managed to get more responses it would have been a better representation. We could have made the survey live earlier as this would have given us more time to spend on analysing. This would have been especially useful as one of our group members dropped out leaving just 3 of us. An extra person would have significantly reduce the workload for our group members as well as giving us another perception of our data. It would have also helped us to improve of number of responses as each member of the group is exposed to different people in the university. Looking at our survey we could have asked some more specific questions such as hours spent in lectures, last years overall grade (2nd year and above) and the effects of working during term time and holidays. This could have provided us with a pattern of how much time is spent working in term-time and holidays which may have affected students’ overall grade. It would have given us more options when comparing the data and would have helped show the academic link to working whilst at university. In relation to Question 12 we could have separated Bursary and Maintenance Grant as some students receive both whereas other may receive one or the other. This would therefore not show a true reflection of how many students receive both Bursary and Maintenance or neither. This could have shown us the percentage of students who both bursary and maintenance or neither and how money is given to them. We could have considered whether or not to include a prize draw as this gave us a lot of respondents that weren't filled out correctly. It was clear that some people didn't fill it out properly just to have a chance of winning a prize. This would have made it easier to collect the data and export it into SPSS.