City still good value for students

5:40am Monday 11th August 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Student rents have risen by almost 20 per cent in four years, research suggests today – but Bradford still offers good value for scholars.

An undergraduate can now expect to pay £61.64 a week, up almost £10 from £52.44 in 2004.

The figures, based on 46,000 properties in 73 cities, have been published by website accommodationforstudents.com.

London was still the most expensive place to study, with an average weekly rent of £102.65, the research showed.

The best value towns were Middlesbrough, Stoke, Wolver-hampton, Crewe and Bradford where rents are between £40 and £45 a week.

The highest in Scotland was St Andrews, where rents topped £82 a week, followed by Edinburgh and Glasgow with average prices £71.06 and £69.34 respectively.

The findings showed some “hotspots” where rents have risen well above the national average – renting in Exeter now costs around £78 a week, up 35 per cent in five years.

Traditional universities such as Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester are still good value, with rents between £52 and £57, but others are rising fast – in Leeds, increasing student popularity has seen rents rise by seven per cent in the past year to around £62 a week.