The Economy (according to students)

Photo: David Menldrey. Available from: http://bit.ly/17vuzpc

Anybody who knows anything about politics, knows that the economy is massively important. If the economy is rubbish, you aren't going to get votes. It really is as simple as that.

Something that many governments - including our own - forget is that young people care about the economy too.

If you did a survey asking people to describe a student, the term 'skint' would feature quite prominently.

Students are skint.

Over the Christmas break, I thought it would be a splendid idea to get myself a job and earn a bit more money for when I came back in the new year.

One major flaw in my (otherwise foolproof) plan was that I had to get a bus into work every day. Combining this with the fact I was on minimum wage meant that it was going to cost me more than I was set to make - at least it seemed that way.

I was mortified when I realised I was heading back to uni with £64 in my bank account. I had spend more than fifty quid getting into work, only to be terrorised by people desperate to find the best bargains in the boxing day sales.

Thinking about this made me realise that young people are completely neglected by politicians when determining economic issues, and we get no freebies and subsidies.

Old Student Finance isn't as helpful as they'd have you believe, either. My loan falls £500 short a year on my accommodation alone - apparently being in the 40p tax bracket isn't as great as it seems.

This lack of money is the exact reason why you'll see hoards of students invading pound shops and Primark stores nationwide, flashing their NUS cards at every given opportunity.

Many people out there will argue that students have no money because they go out and spend it all on alcohol. If only they knew the truth...

The vast majority of the time, us students get a bottle of Tesco value vodka (AKA paint stripper) before hurrying off to the cheapest club selling £1 drinks, which actually works out a lot cheaper than a middle age trip to the pub for 'a few'.

Students, believe it or not, are actually pretty good with the lack of money they have. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to listen to a few young people when figuring out economic policy.

Mr Osborne would never go for that though, obviously.