Second-year studies reveal the facts of financial life: Working and saving hard

MARK DANDO hopes to get a work placement with a local firm through his computer studies course at Swansea University. He will be paid about pounds 110 a week. He will take just a few weeks off for a holiday and hopes to be able to save quite a bit.

Last summer he worked as a porter in a hospital near his parents' home in Yeovil, Somerset. He did several night shifts and managed to save about pounds 1,500.

That gave him a good financial start to the academic year. He gets no grants, but has not had to go into overdraft as his parents help him out sufficiently.