A Minimum Income Standard for Students 2025

<p dir="ltr">The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is an approach developed by the Centre for Research in Social Policy<br>(CRSP) at Loughborough University to determine how much money different groups in the population need to have a minimum acceptable standard of living. This HEPI Report builds on the MIS for students published in 2024, which focused on second- and third-year students in shared private rented accommodation, by developing a new MIS for first-year students and students in both university-owned and private halls. Based on focus groups with students situated across the UK, the authors constructed and costed a minimum basket of goods and services to develop an estimate for how much students need. The result is an estimate of what first-year students and students in halls need to participate fully in the world around them. The findings from 2024 have also been uprated, allowing us to estimate, for the first time, the full living costs for the whole of a student’s time in higher education.<br></p>