Survey: Student Budgeting 2025

Varsity is investigating student finances, and wants to hear from you!

As Michaelmas term gets started, we hope to provide a sense of how students build their budgetsRyan Teh for Varsity

by Varsity News

Wednesday October 8 2025, 11:23am

As the cost of living increases, Varsity wants to offer readers an idea of how students support their studies, and an idea of typical student budgets.

Last week, Varsity reported on the two-fold increase in rejections to the University Financial Assistance Fund, and found that three colleges raised rents above inflation 2021-2025.

The Varsity Budget Survey

As Michaelmas term gets started, we hope to provide a sense of how students build their budgets. In 2023, Varsity reported on students’ average spending, and we want to see what’s changed two years on.

Please complete this anonymous survey by midday Wednesday 22nd October to share how you fund your studies, and your weekly budget.

Support Varsity

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as £1, to help with our running costs. Many thanks, we hope you can help!