The cheapest standard self-catered room London School of Economics (LSE) publishes costs £226 a week, up to £391 for the dearest (2026/27). The maximum maintenance loan outside London is £10,830 a year — £208 a week across a full year.
| Cheapest self-catered room | £226/week |
| Dearest standard room | £391/week |
| Typical contract | 38 weeks |
| Cheapest room, whole contract | £8,573 |
| Dearest room, whole contract | £14,869 |
| Max maintenance loan (outside London, 2026/27) | £10,830/year |
| Cheapest hall as share of max loan | 79% |
Official 2026/27 fee table PDF (version 05, Feb/Mar 2026) publishes annual and weekly figures per hall, room type and contract length; no conversion was needed. Low for a self-catered single = Lilian Knowles House single en-suite £225.60 (51wk, £11,505.60); on shorter contracts the cheapest self-catered singles are Butler's Wharf £231.00 (41wk) and Sidney Webb House en-suite £257.25 (40wk). High = High Holborn Residence self-catered single room with queen bed £391.30 and single en-suite £390.60 (38wk); plain single room there £373.10. NOTE: High Holborn fees include 5 weekday breakfasts, so it is not purely self-catered. Excluded: studios (Sidney Webb large single studio £382.20, double studio £389.90; Lilian Knowles single studio £326.20; Robeson House single studio £300.30) and shared twins (Butler's Wharf self-catered twin £152.60 pp). Partner residence urbanest Westminster Bridge, listed in the same LSE table on 39/50-week self-catered contracts, ranges £251.92-£498.53 and would raise the top figure to roughly £500 if included. Many LSE halls are catered (fee includes 6 dinners + 1 brunch weekly, no opt-out) and are excluded here. Contract lengths across the table: 31, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 51 weeks; 38 is the standard UG self-catered year (20 Sept 2026 - 12 June 2027).
Take the maximum loan, pay for the cheapest hall, and £2,257 remains for the year — £43 a week across 52 weeks for food, transport, books and everything else. Most students don't get the maximum loan: entitlement tapers with household income, so the real gap is usually wider and made up by part-time work or family.
The 11 universities nearest London School of Economics (LSE) on cheapest published room, plus the cheapest and dearest of all 37. The full table has every one.
| University | From | To | % of max loan |
|---|---|---|---|
| University College London | £154 | £403 | 57% |
| Coventry University | £154 | £232 | 55% |
| University of Reading | £166 | £227 | 61% |
| Durham University | £169 | £226 | 61% |
| Aston University | £172 | £178 | 70% |
| Imperial College London | £174 | £425 | 63% |
| Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) | £177 | £300 | 62% |
| University of Liverpool | £177 | £234 | 64% |
| University of East Anglia (UEA) | £178 | £210 | 68% |
| King's College London (KCL) | £200 | £433 | 74% |
| London School of Economics (LSE) | £226 | £391 | 79% |
| University of Bath | £98 | £295 | 34% |
University-published self-catered rooms run £226–£391 a week for 2026/27, on contracts of about 38 weeks.
The maximum loan (outside London) covers the cheapest hall with £2,257 a year to spare — but only at the maximum, which most students don't get.
No — these are the university's own halls, from its own price list. Private halls and shared houses vary more in both directions; the university figures are the ones that are actually published and comparable.
Rents read 18 August 2026 from lse.ac.uk; loan maxima from GOV.UK. Loan entitlement depends on household income and where the student lives, not where the university is.
Rents checked 19 August 2026 from each university's own pricing pages; loans from GOV.UK. This is information, not financial advice.