Study at Cardiff | International

Fees & living costs

Cardiff is one of the more affordable of the traditional university cities meaning you'll have more to spend exploring the UK and Europe.

Tuition fees 2013/4

Living costs

In addition to your tuition fees, we estimated that a single student living in University accommodation for the year 2012/13 was likely to need an average of £7,636 for a full academic year or £3,818 for one semester. Students who are on a budget can live on less if they wish to do so. The minimum cost of living as recommended by UKBA for studying outside London is £800 per month.

These estimates include accommodation, food, books, clothes, travel, telephone and social expenses.

Our living costs calculator can help you decide what your average living costs would look like based on international student expenditure at Cardiff University.

When we carried out a detailed survey of what Cardiff University students were spending we found that it costs on average 15-20% less to live in Cardiff than most other cities in the UK. Some of the advantages of Cardiff include:

• Cardiff is a compact city and the University is in the middle - therefore you won't have far to travel between the University, city centre shops and your accommodation.
• Cardiff is also very flat making it easy to walk or cycle around. Many buses and taxis serve Cardiff and are very reasonably priced.

The table below compares the Russell Group of Universities and the average cost of rent for students per week. You can see that Cardiff is one of the more affordable locations and is a massive £45 a week cheaper in rent alone than London.

If you'd like useful tips about how to make your money last a little longer, a useful web page can be found on the financial support pages here.

This chart does not include other items such as food and entertainment which are also significantly more expensive in other cities, especially London.

Source: Agreement (ARLA) September/October 2010