Birmingham Student Sessions – Good for business, bad for students

A university financial adviser has hit back at stores for promoting discounts which target students, encouraging them to spend rather than save.

The annual Student Sessions event returns to Birmingham’s Bullring on Thursday 12th October between 4pm and 10pm.

A number of stores will be offering discounts, offers, and freebies for those who are looking to splash the cash, or in other words, their finance allowance.

The event comes just after Student Finance is released, tempting students to spend their money in shops like Selfridges and Topshop rather than on rent and food.

Jacqueline Brophy, Birmingham City University’s Childcare and Finance Adviser speaks about how students need to plan financially for the long term.

She said: “It is difficult when your student funding comes through and you get bombarded with adverts for goodies.

“My advice is to budget and spread your money across the months until your next funds come through. It is also wise to check the discounts and see if you want or need the item, or if you are buying it just because it’s discounted.”

One in six students will have spent their entire loan within the first month of University, a VouchersCodes.co.uk survey found

By targeting them and their money, this could be one reason graduates leave university with so much debt racked up.

Mohammed Omar, who studies at South City College said: “The discounts aren’t amazingly different to what we are already offered with UNIDAYS and NUS cards.”

The NUS Card and UNIDAYS App offers those in school, college, and University discounts to multiple stores and restaurants for a year period, at a small annual cost of £12

Esther Johnson, a student at Aston University, commented: “The event is unhelpful for budgeting as it provides temptations with discounts.

“The discounts aren’t as good as they’re made out to be, whilst the stores are getting more money out of already poor students.”

Some freshers see the positive side to the Student Sessions event, such as Kiran Acharia, a business undergraduate at Birmingham City University.

He said: “We get the fashion we want for a discounted price; I can’t see how this isn’t a good thing. These items are necessities to students”

We contacted Birmingham Bullring’s management team who were unavailable to comment at the time.

Sources:

Saw the event in my News Diary and decided to look into it with a different point of view to explore the negatives of stores encouraging students to spend. This is an event I attended and spoke to students at to gain their view so therefore accounts for my article which stemmed from an event.

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