How much money does a student need per month?

Editor's Note: A first-year undergraduate student in Chengdu, Sichuan province, recently complained online that her mother refused to raise her monthly allowance to 4,500 yuan ($633) even when she said her current allowance 2,000 yuan was not enough to cover her expenses, sparking a debate on how much money a college student needs per month. One expert shares his views on the issue with China Daily:

Students should pursue education, not comfort

Even for a college student studying in a first-tier city in China, 2,000 yuan is enough to cover all his or her monthly expenses. In fact, for a college student in Chengdu a monthly allowance of 2,000 yuan is more than enough. According to a survey conducted by a bookkeeping platform, the average monthly expense for an undergraduate in cities other than Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou was less than 2,000 yuan in 2019; for Chengdu, it was 1,900 yuan.

Claiming that she can hardly afford new clothing and cosmetics with her 2,000 yuan monthly allowance, the undergraduate student in Chengdu criticized her mother for refusing to raise her pocket money. Her "meager" allowance, she said, prevented her from buying branded goods that her hostel-mates enjoyed. Her attitude suggests she is influenced by fellow students' lifestyle and consumption habits.

By the time a person enters a college, she or he should have developed a healthy consumption habit. And a youth should adjust her/his consumption according to her/his family income.

Yet most youths get to stay alone and enjoy autonomy only when they enroll in a college. So that is when they should learn how to plan their expenses and manage with the money they get from their parents.

On a deeper level, the money they spend in college should depend on how much they value their parents' hard work. As such, students should learn to manage their expenses by developing healthy consumption habits.

Besides, some college students could take up part-time jobs to meet their monetary needs if they feel their parents don't or can't send them enough money. In this way they can also learn to meet the requirements of life in the future and develop healthy consumption habits.

More important, they should always bear in mind that education is their top priority in college.