Classes hadn’t even begun at university when I had the feeling that I was different to my peers.
Again and again, I heard stories from my classmates about all the different countries they had travelled to in the summer break and the weekends spent at their ‘holiday homes’.
My new friends were shocked to hear that not only had I never been on a ski trip, I’d never left the country at all. I didn’t even have a passport.
Every time the topic of travel came up, I dreaded having to talk about it. I’d be met with pity as if I was an injured party – something that I had never even considered.
This was when I realised how much of a class divide existed at university – and this was just the start.
Growing up, I always knew I’d have to work hard for the life I wanted.
At 16 I could just about keep my head above water as I drowned in a pool of revision cards. Meanwhile, my parents were simply trying to keep us all afloat.
Money was always a cause of stress. My dad was made suddenly redundant in 2015, when I was age 14, and became self-employed buying and selling vinyl records online.
My mam has always been a civil servant but after having to take time off for child care, it became more difficult to make ends meet.
Growing up, I was always surrounded by this fear of money and the trouble it brings.
Watching my parents suffer showed me that a world without obstacles simply did not exist – at least not for me.
Still I worked hard and, despite worrying about my parents’ financial woes, by some miracle I passed my GCSEs.
Though I was hopeful for the future while doing my A levels, I was overwhelmed by the career options presented to me.
I wanted to pursue a creative field like writing and film, and dreamt of being a music journalist at NME, or the BBC.
But, it felt like in order to succeed in the creative industry, you had to be based in London to really make it work. Coming from the North East of England – Northumberland – I was really disheartened.
I wasn’t alone in feeling this way either: apparently, 43% of those in the North East strongly feel that where they live affects their ambition of achieving their dreams.
My hopes crashed again when course leaders discussed finance.
While my friends applied to their courses, I faced a calculator with numbers on it I could not imagine, figuring out how much student finance I would get based on my parents’ income, and how much that would leave me for rent, electricity, food and university supplies like textbooks.
But I decided to apply all the same – I knew that I deserved the opportunity just as much as anyone, and I had to hope my part-time job and the student loan would be enough.
I worked hard both in and out of school and eventually it paid off: in August 2020 I was accepted into Newcastle University.
I felt a sense of pride I had never allowed myself to feel before. This achievement was entirely my own and suddenly my future seemed wide open again.
Only, when I arrived at uni, I realised there was a significant class culture divide.
Suddenly, I was hearing about life at private schools, and it felt as if those who had been there had an advantage above everyone else – they’d been able to access the top teaching and resources.
There was also a lot of stigma around having a regional accent. It seemed people were deemed ‘more sophisticated’ when their accent was closer to RP.
A lot of students with regional accents feel embarrassed as they do not see a lot of representation of themselves in the careers they are striving for – media, and otherwise.
As we settled into uni life I found myself in financial turmoil as I tried to juggle the cost of rent, food, and other basic necessities
And of course there was the difference in how we holidayed too – I had never been skiing or even to an airport.
Even though we had all used the same revision guides and sat anxiously in the same exam halls just months earlier, it was clear to me that we were worlds apart.
It wasn’t just our home lives that separated me from my middle-class peers though.
As we settled into uni life I found myself in financial turmoil as I tried to juggle the cost of rent, food, and other basic necessities. My friends suggested I apply for a student overdraft but, for me, applying for one was harder than paying it off.
Having never been able to afford a holiday that didn’t involve staying in a Travelodge, my only photographic ID was a provisional driving licence, which wasn’t acceptable. Without a UK passport or a full driving licence, I couldn’t secure even a minimal overdraft.
For my entire three years at uni, I’d take daily trips to the library for bank statements and birth certificate copies, all of which led nowhere. Each glimmer of hope for financial stability was quickly dashed, all because of my lack of a passport or having no credit score.
Meanwhile, everyone I knew effortlessly accessed their overdrafts with a few taps on their bank app.
Feeling different from my friends was one thing, but having no money put a strain on even my closest relationships. They didn’t understand what it was like to not be able to borrow money from their parents if they were coming up short.
Sometimes I was forced to ask my flatmates to cover me for the rent and pay them back a few days later. This caused a lot of tension – they were worried that, if this became a recurring problem, we could lose our tenancy.
I felt really guilty about this but also felt like I could not open up about the personal problems in my life.
The stress of my money issues often meant I was unable to enjoy social events, even house parties. I was always so worried about next month’s rent and it’d make me ill with worry.
I’d have no choice but to share a drink at the pub, borrow from friends to cover debts, and at one point I even had to stretch a £20 note to cover simple needs, choosing soap over sandwiches.
Again though, this is nothing new. Apparently one in four students regularly go without food and other necessities because they cannot afford them, and that figure rises to over three in 10 for students that come from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.
It shouldn’t be that way. Surviving should not be more challenging than studying.
Yet for me, the pressure of making rent left little room for focusing on my studies. Often, I found myself wondering what it was all for and even considered leaving my course all together.
In 2023, I graduated with a 2:1 degree in Journalism, Media and Culture. Alongside freelance writing, I am now working full-time as a customer service assistant at Tyneside Cinema – a job I really enjoy.
Though I successfully made it through university, my experience would have been easier with guidance on financial aid, budgeting, and mental health resources.
That way, instead of sitting alone in the library at night, worrying about affording groceries, I could have had a real support system.
In some ways, an element of class and culture shock can be a positive thing as it allows us to educate ourselves about people from different backgrounds to our own.
Yet, I think universities should do more to foster community spaces for people who are struggling with this change in culture. To have somewhere where you can meet like-minded people who are facing the same problems as you would’ve been beneficial – I would’ve felt less alone.
I’ll never know now, but it’s not too late to make significant changes for young people. Because we cannot allow the financial challenges faced by working-class students to continue impacting their chances of a bright future.
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