Living in Abz is far pricier than uni suggests

Uni isn’t as cheap as it’s made out by Aberdeen experts.

Assuming these experts know what services the uni provides, the uni estimated figures broken to potential applicants seems to underestimate the minimum costs of certain aspects.

Accommodation

For example, self catered university halls are predicted at a range of £276-£532 monthly, which is about £69-£133 p/w.

But for what is actually available, the range is actually in the range of £356-£576 monthly – that’s about £89-£142 p/w.

That’s £80 more per month than stated as a minimum.

Hillhead has no rent price cap

At Hansen Apartments, the new accommodation at Castlegate, some are paying £142 p/w for the luxury of a single room instead of sharing.

“But I get free wifi here”

Food

Food costs are said to be around £120 per month, £30 a week.

But only with a small appetite and very thrifty shopping technique. The average student probably spends approximately £35 on a weekly shop (£140 a month).

And that doesn’t include the odd Grub meal deal for £4.95 that keeps us all sane.

But that’s expensive

“And this only lasted 5 days”

Other costs

Predicted at £140 a month on top.

For an active and involved university life taking part in societies, sports and social events these figures really add up.

A peak gym memberships for a month at ASV is £17.70.

Then paying for club memberships, for Lacrosse is £30 to sign up for a year, so for 9 months that’s £3.30 a month.

Equipment you might need for your sport can be anything equate to £8.90 a month (£80-£200, one off buy)

Uni club clothes don’t even get included in that.

If you want to buy stuff to lounge around in, a hoodie and pair of joggers will set you back £68

Because the uniform costs so much, some people wear them all the time, getting more for their money

In the nine months of a year of uni, that’s £900 more than the uni expected.

So if you’re prepared to use the lower end of the listed figures, you’d would have to work very hard to live under such funds, with very few Skite Wednesdays and Grub meal deals – but then it wouldn’t be Aberdeen uni, would it.