With the exception of London, Cambridge is the most expensive city for students to rent accommodation according to a recent study conducted by www.easyroommate.com

The study, based on the analysis of 25 university towns and a survey of 1,122 students, showed that the average monthly rent for students in Cambridge is £450, whereas students in Cardiff and Belfast only pay around £250. Oxford is the third highest with an average monthly rent of £398.

For Cambridge students who don’t live in college accommodation of any sort, a look at the website that conducted the study shows that the vast majority of advertised rooms indeed cost £450 per month or over. A graduate student from Wolfson College, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed this and said that she will be paying a monthly rate of £465 this year.

However, the study does not show the large differences between and within the different Cambridge colleges when it comes to college accommodation prices. Patrick Kirkham, a third-year natural scientist from Pembroke, said that he pays “about” £320 a month for an average room just outside of college, whereas Hanna Järvi, a third-year student from Murray Edwards pays £500 for a room which, according to her, is less expensive than some other rooms in her college. Fiona Stainer, a student at St John’s College, said: "Our rents vary between about £250 and £350 a month depending on the size and facilities."

This shows that in reality some Cambridge students pay less than the UK monthly average of £357, and some pay a lot more. However, these figures usually include charges for bedders and in some cases also a kitchen fixed charge. None of the students speaking to Varsity were sure of the exact breakdown of their room price, meaning that these raw figures cannot necessarily be used to compare the actual room prices to those of other university towns.

Last year a Varsity investigation highlighted the problems these varying rent costs can be for students, in particular the problem of non-standard rent charges accross the different colleges.