Living Expenses

If you budget wisely, student finances can go a long way in London.

The cost of living is often a worry for students.  There is no escaping the fact that London is an expensive place but it can be costly to live in any big city. Tens of thousands of students move to London each year and by taking a sensible approach to money, they can enjoy London life without worrying about finances.

The living expenses of individual students at university vary considerably according to personal circumstances and choice. Basic prices for food, personal costs, bills, insurance, etc will be fairly consistent wherever you study - expenditure more specific to London and Imperial relates to accommodation and travel.

You must have sufficient funding in place before enrolling on your course. It is important to consider the real costs involved and underestimating this figure could have a negative effect on your studies and in rare cases can result in a student withdrawing from their course, or accruing substantial debts.

As a rough guide, the following estimates for the academic year 2011-12 reflect the minimum you might expect to spend to live in reasonable comfort. Estimates cover accommodation, food and travel within London but exclude tuition fees.

Accommodation

Living expenses will depend upon the type of accommodation that you have. A guide to accommodation costs can be found on the College's accommodation website

Tuition Fees

A guide to Tuition Fees for 2011-12 can be found on the College's Tuition Fee website

Travel Expenses

Student Oyster photocards can be bought for use within London on trains, underground, buses and the London Docklands Light Railway. If you travel regularly on public transport it will be cheaper to buy a travelcard rather than single tickets. Transport for London (TFL) offers a student travelcard which gives a 30% discount to full-time students over the age of 18. Travel costs are dependent upon the zone you will be travelling from. A travelcard for Zones 1-6 will be required to travel from Zone 6; the weekly cost of this is illustrated in the table above. Travel costs are cheaper if you are travelling from Zones 1,2,3,4 and 5; further details can be found on the TfL website.

Please note that travel outside the capital is not budgeted for in the table above.

Field Trips/Study Visits

Some of our courses involve compulsory attendance on one or more field trips or visits. Wherever possible an estimate of the costs involved will be given to you at the time an offer of admission is made. If you are sponsored, you will need to make your financial sponsor aware of any such additional liability.

Future Years

In general, you should budget for a 5% increase in costs per year for each year of your course. Students also need to take into account that there may be some unforeseen expenditure.

Overseas Students

As part of the new visa requirements if you are a non-EEA student you must have sufficient funds for fees and maintenance for the whole period of your study. The estimates above do not include the cost of flights or insurance. You should also budget for any initial 'start-up' costs and if you are planning on arranging initial short-term accommodation upon arrival in London, you will need to budget for this expense in addition. We would estimate that students could need up to £750 for initial costs such as an accommodation deposit, flights and so on.

Funding Tools

Websites which have useful 'calculators' are:

• UCAS Budget Calculator
• UNIAID Student Calculator

Budget Planner

Before you begin your course, it is a good idea to plan what income you expect to have throughout the duration of your studies and match this against your planned expenditure. The following table may be a useful aide for this: