Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Higher tuition fees result in less alcohol consumption

According to recent information from Save the Student, a website devoted to saving university students money, with higher tuition fees students are going out less.

Due to the recent tripling of university tuition fees along with general rising costs of living, students may be taking more care to save money this year.

According to Save the Student, there has been a significant drop in the number of nights students go out every week.

First year students this year statistically go out less than final year students – a drop to 1.23 nights every week from 1.57 nights every week.

Furthermore, students may indeed be spending less on alcohol as well. UK students across all year groups averaged spending £19 per week.

This is down from an NUS study last year that indicated that students across all years spent an average of £28 per week.

“I’m not surprised,” University College fresher Chris McCann told Palatinate. “People have less money to spend, so they budget accordingly.

“I know more people pre-drink because it’s cheaper. Or they just try to cut down in general.”

However, this shift might not necessarily indicate that students are actually drinking less. All the data means is that students spend less time and less money drinking.

Earlier this year, Palatinate reported on Durham’s increase in alcohol consumption from 16.5 units last year to 18.8 this year, according to another university advice website, studentbean.com.

Evidently, Durham’s innovative student body may have therefore managed to pull off the impossible. On statistically less money, Durham students have managed to drink statistically more alcohol.

Of course, there are a few things that are also skewing the results. The first is simply that there’s a significant time overlap between the studentbeans.com survey and Save the Student.

Additionally, the studentbeans.com survey focuses on the results from alcohol drinkers alone.

Whatever the numbers may say, however, Save the Student does recognize that these results might not mean as much as they appear to.

“This news does not necessarily mean that students are drinking less, as it may be that the typical student is simply becoming more price sensitive to pennies spent at the bar,” said Owen Burek, founder of Save the Student in a statement.

But the bottom line is that many students who may wish to follow the preceding years in sheer volume of alcohol consumed will need to be creative.

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