The reality is, I’m exceptionally luckier than most estranged students, Niall explains (Picture: Niall Hignett)
‘Yeah, three-hundred-fifty quid mate.’
Standing in my uni’s car park, the stranger handed me the cash, and drove off in my ‘06 Renault Clio. It got wet inside when it rained, and the speakers only worked if I drove over a pothole, but I was sad to see it go.
Just a few hours prior I’d driven myself to university in Durham to study law.
I didn’t need my car anymore because I wasn’t driving back home, but I needed the money.
That’s because I’m an estranged student – someone who has little or no contact with their parents while in higher education. There are roughly 10,000 of us.
It was an awkward few weeks starting uni from this position – everyone I’d met was fixed on socialising, and getting the most out of the experience.
But my focus was finding work so I could afford to be there.
In the first few weeks, I needed a deposit for my next year’s housing, and had been quoted a few hundred pounds for a guarantor scheme – that was on top of my rent, food, and textbooks, which already amounted to more than my loan.
The bank of mum and dad wasn’t going to pay for me, like many of my peers.
I got the max loan after a laborious process of submitting evidence to Student Finance England, with the university confirming I’d flogged my car upon arrival as proof I met the narrow definition of estrangement.
But it still wasn’t close to enough.
Niall’s focus at university was finding work so he could afford to be there (Picture: Niall Hignett)
It’s not just covering living costs that I was worried about. Without the obvious back-up plan to return home, I needed to create a financial safety net for myself.
That meant earning as much as possible, and spending as little as possible.
For example, I haven’t ever been to an expensive ball or college formal – or even bought one of those Hogwarts-esque gowns.
Thankfully, the posh-boy aesthetic wouldn’t suit me anyway – but it’s isolating nonetheless.
And I had financial anxiety, constantly.
But that’s not uncommon in my situation with 84% of estranged students reporting worrying about money ‘all the time’ while at uni.
So, a couple of weeks after arriving, I got a job as a bartender – working evening and weekend shifts.
I spent more time serving drinks than I did in lectures or seminars in that first year of university.
Niall experienced constant financial anxiety (Picture: Niall Hignett)
This took a toll on me. I got hit-and-miss grades, mainly doing worse in the subjects where the lectures and seminars were on a Tuesday, since I worked Monday nights to 3am.
Having worked so hard to be the first in my family to go to uni, it was deflating to feel ‘not good enough’.
I’m not unique in this sense. Compared to the average student, 13% less estranged students get the 2.1 or above needed for most grad schemes.
The feeling that I must work harder, with the added mental health strain, makes …read more
Source:: Metro
