Revealed: Bristol students receive average £17,200 from their parents across their degree

Just how much of daddy’s money supports Bristol students?

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The average Bristol student receives £17,200 from their parents across their degree, according to High Flier’s 2024 survey.

Bristol students are given just over 17 grand during their degree from their parents, placing them 9th in the list of the 24 Russell Group unis along with Bath, St Andrews, Aston, Lancaster, Leicester and Loughborough. 

The data from High Fliers’ 2024 UK Graduate Careers Survey, interviewing a total of 14,000 graduates this year, revealed a lot about student payments and additional funding needed to complete their education.

According to Save the Student Money Survey 2024, the average student received £171 a month from their parents, meaning they are given £6,000 from their parents over the course of their three year degrees. Bristol, as we may well expect, is way above this average with parents contributing up to three times that per year. 

What may come as a shock is that Bristol was not at the top of the list. Whilst Bristol students on average do get more from their parents than Oxford and Manchester, where students receive £15,900 and £15,700 respectively, the parents of students at other universities contribute far more.

Durham Students receive an average of £21,600 from their parents and students at London universities, are given around £25,000 from their parents over the course of their degrees. Imperial students took the top spot, receiving the most from their parents according to the survey, with an average of £31, 700 across their degree. 

This information has been announced at a time when university students are feeling the economic crunch like never before, and the situation is not expected to improve any time soon.

The Autumn Budget, delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves did not include any major plans to better the state of our bank accounts and it has been announced that tuition fees will rise next year. 

The survey highlights how studying at university remains a privilege, reserved for those who can fall back on their parents for financial support and suggests that our student loans simply do not go far enough to support our time at university.

This sentiment was echoed by Martin Birchill, the managing director of High Fliers, who told The Times: “The real cost of living at university now far outstrips the maintenance loans that are available to students to pay for their living costs during their degree—and the gap continues to widen each year.”

He also suggests that 50 per cent of university students would be unable to complete their degrees if they hadn’t received money from their parents. 

The lowest ranking Russell Groups from the survey were the University of Sheffield, amounting to £10,900, and Queen’s University Belfast, receiving just £7,400 from parents – four times as less than Imperial’s number one spot.