University Cost Calculator

The total cost of a UK degree extends well beyond tuition fees. For a three-year course starting in 2026/27, tuition alone is £9,790 per year (£29,370 in total), raised from £9,535. Accommodation ranges from £4,500 to £9,500 per year depending on city and type. Living costs, meaning food, transport, social spending and course materials, add another £5,000 to £8,000 per year.

What you pay for tuition depends on where you are from as much as where you study. The £9,790 cap applies to home students in England and Wales and to rest-of-UK students at Scottish universities, while Scottish students studying in Scotland pay nothing and Northern Irish students at home pay £4,855. International fees start at £14,000 in Scotland and run from £15,000 to £40,000 or more in England, with medicine and Russell Group courses at the top of that range. A medicine or dentistry degree of five or six years comes to £48,950 to £58,740 in home fees.

Enter your chosen university city, accommodation type and course length, and you get a year-by-year and total picture across three or four years, combining tuition, accommodation, living costs, travel home and extras. It separates what student loans cover from what has to come from somewhere else, since most students face a gap between the maintenance loan and what the year actually costs. Seeing that figure early is what makes planning family contributions, savings targets and part-time hours realistic.

The maintenance loan for 2026/27 tops out at £14,135 in London, £10,830 outside London and £9,118 living at home. Stack the outside-London maximum on top of tuition and the package is £20,620 a year, or £61,860 of debt across three years before interest is added. Plan 5 charges RPI only, 4.1% from 1 September 2026, from the day the money is drawn down, then takes 9% of income above £25,000 with a write-off after 40 years. Most graduates never repay in full, because at typical earnings the interest outruns the payments.

Beneath the headline the year breaks into a long list of smaller items. Halls in the first year run from £4,500 to £10,500, with catered halls costing more, and private rent in later years is £4,000 to £9,000 on the 45-week tenancies that are standard. Bills add £600 to £1,500 a year, food £2,000 to £3,500, and books and equipment £300 to £800, with individual textbooks at £30 to £80 and often available second hand. Society memberships come to £20 to £200, transport £200 to £800, and personal and social spending £1,500 to £3,500. Over three years that is £30,000 to £60,000 or more on top of tuition.

Whether the spending pays off depends heavily on subject and institution. Five years after graduating, the average UK graduate earns £30,000 to £40,000 against £20,000 to £28,000 for a non-graduate, and the lifetime premium for a typical graduate is £100,000 to £300,000. Medicine and engineering from a Russell Group university can mean £50,000 and above early in a career and six figures at 10 years, whereas creative arts, journalism and degrees with weak occupational links sit only marginally ahead of no degree at all. Graduate employment data by course is published through Discover Uni on gov.uk.

Several levers work on the cost side. Living at home saves £6,000 to £15,000 a year in accommodation, and part-time work of 10 to 20 hours a week brings in £6,000 to £12,000. Most universities run merit scholarships worth £500 to £3,000 a year, and it pays to apply for everything you might qualify for, including the hardship fund, disability allowance, an NHS bursary for medical and nursing students, and military scholarships. A degree apprenticeship moves tuition onto an employer and pays a salary while you study, and taking a year out to work first builds savings and experience. Cities such as Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle cost noticeably less than London, and every university now employs budget advisers whose time you have already paid for.