Starting from 2nd January, National Rail increased fares by an average 2.3%.
As many university students are dependent on trains to get home this announcement stirred up a lot of emotions among students at De Montfort University.
“I’m already paying £17 to go home even with a railcard and as a student it’s not really affordable so if the prices go up it’s going to be harder for me to go anywhere” said Vanathy Manoharan, 18, a psychology student from Sheffield.
Tyler Arthur, 19, a journalism student from Milton Keynes was also concerned about students’ financial situation.
“I think that students will suffer, not everyone has a special rail card… A train might be convenient, but having money is definitely more convenient than that,” he said.
Even students who are not taking the train as frequently as other students are opinionated about the rising fares.
“Personally, I don’t really use the train that much but I think it’s a bad thing as it leaves us wondering Why should the average train fare change? But I know some of the national rail fares has increased and I know some of my friends are annoyed by the amount of trains that have changed and that they don’t like the fare change and how it’s going change for next year,” says Miles Taylor, 20, a creative writing and drama student from London.
Even though most DMU students seems to have a negative respond to this development, some students could see a positive outcome of the increased ticket price.
Jagdeep Jutley,18, an architecture student from London were more understanding of the changes.
“I feel as if the change is neither good nor bad, clearly it will cause for an increase in price for everyday users of the National Rail Line. However, the extra money may be used to better improve the quality of trains themselves and could contribute to renovation of stations which would in turn increase popularity of certain stations thus certain areas in the city.”
