Regional students doing it tough in Sydney

Regional students are doing it tough in Sydney as cost of living pressures continue to rise.

Research undertaken by the Australian Scholarships Group (ASG) has shown that students from regional Australia are consistently underrepresented in higher education participation rates.

Vince Callaghan from ASG said students from regional areas were paying around two and a half times the amount of money on living expenses than their metropolitan counterparts.

“Student finances is not just about the cost of studying, it’s about how to afford day-to-day life, such as rent and food,” Mr Calaghan said. “ASG’s research shows that the living costs for the average student living at home while undertaking higher education studies is around $10,000 per annum.  Students who need to move out of home to be able to study can expect their living expenses to be around two and half times more than that, at around $25,000 per annum.”

Mark Farthing is just one of thousands of regional students who move to Sydney to study. Mr Farthing grew up in Wollongong and spent the first year of his university life commuting to and from his parent’s home.

Mr Farthing worked out that his total face-to-face hours at university were less than the amount of time he spent sitting on a train and decided to move to Sydney.

“I commuted in my first year which was hellish, but it gave me an idea that it was the course for me,” he said. “Moving to Sydney was one of the best decisions I’ve made in terms of making new friends getting out of Wollongong, broadening my horizons… in Glebe I met a lot of new people and living so close to campus is better than commuting two hours door to door.

“It was a good decision to move here but it is very expensive.”

Mr Farthing said he was lucky because his work at Telstra was a good “buffer” for his financial expenses. During his undergraduate degree in international studies Mr Farthing was working 30 hours a week and found himself so time poor that he had to drop back a subject.

Mr Farthing said that the biggest shock to his budget was unexpected expenses.

“The other year I had my wisdom teeth coming through and I couldn’t actually afford to get anything done unless my parents were able to support me,” he said. “It’s things like that where you have to make sacrifices in terms of unexpected costs.”

Mr Farthing said that students trying to live and study in Sydney were at a disadvantage due to the relatively higher cost of living in the inner city.

“The problem with Centrelink and youth allowance and rent assistance is that a person who is living in Sydney, in Glebe or the inner west gets the same amount of rent assistance as someone who’s living in Bathurst when the prices between the two cities are considerably different,” he said. “There needs to be some type of means test.”

To help students struggling to make ends meet ASG has released an Education Cost Calculator at www.asg.com.au/calculator and released a survival guide so students and parents can be better informed about budgets and where help is available.

“ASG’s How to Survive Uni and TAFE – without living on two-minute noodles is designed to highlight the facts for students and parents, to help them navigate through the costs, find where to get help and how to make it work,” Mr Callaghan said.