Keele named as the cheapest university town in the UK

New research analyses weekly rent rates, travel costs, student gym membership, as well as price of a cinema ticket, pint and kebab in 50 student towns and cities

Students looking to keep an eye on the pennies should head to Keele in Staffordshire

Keele in Staffordshire has been named as the most affordable place in the country to be a student for having among the cheapest weekly rent rates and travel costs than anywhere else in the UK, according to a new study.

The findings have been compiled by the team at credit card company marbles.com to help students come to an informed decision when applying to university from this autumn.

As well as weekly rent and travel prices, the study has also looked at the average cost of student gym membership, a cinema ticket, pint, and kebab at 50 university towns from across Britain, news which will no doubt be welcomed by young people seeing as how English graduates are now leaving their studies with more debt than any of their anglophone counterparts.

Applicants, therefore, will also be keen to hear Keele also boasts the cheapest pint out of all cities included in the research, at just £2.50.

Hand-in-hand with a pint goes the all-important kebab (obviously), and the cheapest uni town for one of those is Leeds at just £3.96 per portion. Startlingly, this is less than half the price of a kebab students would find around Imperial College in London which comes in at an eye-watering £8.38.

Top 10 cheapest places in the UK to be a student:

1. Keele (Keele University Campus)
2. Queen’s, Belfast
3. Loughborough
4. Coventry
5. Birmingham
6. Glasgow
7. Strathclyde (Glasgow)
8. Lancaster
9. Leicester
10. Leeds

Towie fans know will be well-aware that those in Essex pride themselves on keeping up appearances, so it should come as no surprise to learn the cheapest student gym membership can be found in Colchester at ony £6.60 per month, compared with Warwick where access to a gym sits at a staggering £33 a month.

Film buffs should head to Loughborough where a student cinema ticket costs only £4.50. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive movie experience is in London where a student ticket costs a staggering £12.

Those keen to keep an eye on their bank balances will also be unsurprised to learn universities in the capital have made up the last nine in the list, with SOAS, University of London coming in last as the most expensive.

Thomas Cross, product owner for the marbles card, said: “Towns in the North and Midlands offer great value for money to people who, not only won’t have that much spare cash, but will leave their university with quite a lot of debt. Those little treats - like a kebab or trip to the cinema - are really important to students, so it’s definitely worth checking out our list to see where their money could go further.”

Click here to see a complete breakdown of the results