In news likely to forever dispel the image of impoverished students eating cold baked beans and drinking pints of beer with four straws, freshers starting university this term will be armed with about £6,000 worth of electrical goods.

Marks and Spencer questioned 500 18 – 25 year old undergraduates and the contrast to the classic student image – as immortalised in the Young Ones - could not be more marked:

• Seven out of ten of those questioned owned a laptop or a PC worth up to £1,000.


• Almost all had a music system and mobile phone – 94 and 95 per cent respectively.


• 71 per cent will be taking a television and 60 per cent a DVD player

Only 29% have a personal-organiser type computer, which is a surprisingly high figure considering how superfluous such a gadget is at University. Worryingly for parents more than half of those questioned had no idea whether their possessions are insured!

Peter Longstaff, head of general insurance at Marks & Spencer Money, said:

"These new figures reflect just how much more reliant on gadgets we have become. And what can't be ignored is the significant value that all these modern day possessions amount to."

The availability of credit to students is also having a big impact on their spending patterns. A Natwest survey in July said that the current average level of debt for students leaving university was over £12,000.