Academic costs
You might think that once you’ve paid your tuition fees, you should get everything provided – exercise books with you name written on them, a pencil, some crayons – just like primary school. But no – unfortunately, your tuition fees are just the start of it.
For a start, even though we’re at the beginning of the 21st century, books are still a vital element of every degree course.
Strangely enough, some students when confronted with a long reading list of academic titles, get a bit over-excited and rush out and treat it as a shopping list. Don’t be tempted. You certainly won’t need them all and, even if you do, that’s what a library is for.
With any luck, the list will be prioritised. There’ll be main texts and secondary texts. You may well want your own copy of the main ones. If so, your first port of call should be the university’s second-hand bookshop (if it has one). Or look for posters about your department from students trying to flog their old course books. If you’re lucky, you’ll get everything you need for half the usual price – maybe even less. Don’t worry if someone’s already written notes in the margins or highlighted bits. They may save you a lot of trouble. Try also www.amazon.co.uk for second-hand books as well as discounts and special offers on new titles.
Get hold of your reading list as early as possible, so that you can look for pre-enjoyed books before everyone else on your course buys up the complete stock, leaving you to buy your books new.
Whether you buy your books cheap or not, you’ll probably spend more on books during the first term of each year than at any other time. www.sellstudentbooks.com has stacks of cheap second-hand books, lovingly thumbed by their previous owners who then pass them on to the next generation.
Different courses have different demands for books. On an English course, for example, you need loads of books, but most of them are quite cheap and you might find quite a few of them second-hand. For biology, it may only be a few books a year, but they all cost a limb. For law, you not only need lots of books, but they’re all almost criminally expensive.
Many students feel they need a computer for typing up essays and for e-mail and internet access. Or for programming or spreadsheets if that kind of thing is part of their course. All universities have computers available for student use, so you may be able to get by without having your own, but often there aren’t really enough to go around or the opening hours don’t fit in with your through-the-night attitude to essay crises.
A buzzing, whistling, tea-making state-of-the-art computer will set you back a grand, but you can get a pretty good one (either second-hand or new) for a few hundred. Arts students should be able to get away with something more basic, but scientists or design students are probably better off investing in something superfast and superclever to cope with the hi-tech software their courses are likely to use. As a (very broad) rule of thumb, laptops work out more expensive than desktops, but a laptop may work out infinitely more convenient if you’ll be going home over the holidays or moving house during your time at university.
Some universities have their own computer shop and some of the big companies do student discounts or clearance lines – try www.dell.co.uk, www.hp.co.uk and www.pcworld.co.uk for starters. Apple (click here for details) offer students free iPod deals and 10-20% discounts, but you're still paying way more than you would if you bought something from a different brand. It’s your call whether you really can justify the expense, but if you’re going to think about a personal bank loan for anything, a computer may be the right thing. Then again, that’s what birthdays and Christmases are for.
Your choice of course affects the academic costs as much as your choice of university, but both factors make costs swing like pants in the breeze.
In this respect, art is just about the most expensive course you can do – all those oil paints and canvasses don’t come cheap – but it’s far from the only one with costs attached. Archaeology, for instance, means getting down and dirty with the digging once in a while. And no one’s going to be falling over themselves to pay for your field trip costs.
All courses have some costs – think ahead to work out what they might be. If in doubt, ask the university department before you apply.
Last updated on: 07 October 2008