Students can’t wait to start up their own firms
As tuition fees soar and job prospects dwindle, a need for cash and business
experience has led to a surge in undergraduate enterprise
Rachel Bridge
Published: 27 February 2011
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Coventry students set up an indoor market stall to earn while studying (Richard Lea-Hair)
The stall selling men’s casual clothes at Coventry indoor market has rather unconventional
trading hours. It is open for just three hours on Mondays, not at all on Tuesdays and shuts at
4.30 on Wednesday afternoons.
But then the three friends who have recently taken it over are no ordinary entrepreneurs —
they are first-year students at Coventry University and run the stall between lectures.
The three, who are all studying for a degree in enterprise and entrepreneurship, pooled their
savings to buy the £7,000 lease. They hope to generate enough profit to start another business
after they graduate, so they won’t have to join the growing number of unemployed graduates.
Students will increasingly look at ways of how they can combine studying with having an
income
Andrew Haylock, 18, had the idea of taking on the stall and persuaded his fellow students
Kangwa Changachanga and Derik Anyang, both 19, to join him.
“Through working on the stall we are learning negotiation skills, sales skills and gaining
confidence in dealing with people. These are all entrepreneurial traits that we need to
develop,” he said.
As tuition fees soar and job prospects dwindle, a growing number of entrepreneurial students
are choosing to start businesses at the same time as doing a degree or higher qualification.
They hope not only to be able to fund their studies, but also to secure employment after
university.
Many universities and colleges are actively encouraging students to become part-time
entrepreneurs. They are happy to offer them advice, office space and even start-up grants.
David Wick, course tutor for the enterprise and entrepreneurship degree at Coventry, said: “I
am pleased that they are taking the initiative to start their own business.
“I think students will increasingly look at ways of how they can combine studying with
having an income. Starting your own business can be a good way of managing your time and
working when you want to.”
Wick said that while having a market stall is unusual, over the past four years Coventry
University has supported more than 100 business start-ups.
At Lancaster University, Sarah Cooper has started her own marketing and design firm while
in her final year studying marketing management. She began it with £300 from her student
loan.
The firm, Black Zest Solutions, is doing so well that Cooper, who is in her twenties, has
ditched plans to look for a job when she graduates and intends to run the business full-time
instead.
Cooper, who lives in Caton, a village outside Lancaster, with her boyfriend and two small
children, said: “When I went on a placement in my third year I realised it was extremely
difficult to get a job in the marketing industry and that people who had graduated the
previous year were really struggling.
“But now I am at a point where I won’t need to get a job. Doing this has given me the
confidence to know that I am going to be fine when I leave.”
She said she received a lot of support from LUSU Involve Enterprise, a ground-breaking
initiative run by Lancaster University’s students’ union to help students get their business
ideas off the ground. It put her in touch with prospective clients and even gave her a £130
grant to get business cards printed.
Joe Buglass at LUSU Involve Enterprise said that since it was set up in 2005 it had helped
students start businesses as varied as producing handmade greeting cards to high-altitude
photography. More than 40 of the ventures have since gone on to become thriving businesses
beyond the campus.
Buglass said: “Students have always wanted to be entrepreneurial but the opportunity was
never there. We offer support and guidance and contacts with entrepreneurs that students
would not normally get.
“We are trying to create a space where they can come and tell us their ideas and nobody will
laugh at them or tell them they can’t do that. We will discuss it with them and take them
seriously and offer help if we can.”
LUSU Involve Enterprise provides grants of up to £1,500 and will offer advice for two years
after the student has graduated.
Paul Wellings, vice-chancellor of Lancaster University, said he was keen to see students start
businesses. “Entrepreneurship is embedded in Lancaster University’s culture. We strive to
give our students every chance to excel academically, as well as offering them ways to
increase their employability and encourage their entrepreneurial side.”
Adrian Dutt, 28, has also done away with the need to find himself a job when he leaves. An
undergraduate at the Somerset College of Arts and Technology, he started an illustrating
business in his second year and now gets commissions to illustrate CD covers, advertising
storyboards and graphic novels. He said: “The experience I have gained is going to stand me
in good stead. I have now got a lot of connections I can build on once I finish being a
student.”
Peopleperhour.com, a website that matches businesses and skilled freelancers, said it has had
a fivefold increase in the number of students bidding for work on the site in the past 18
months.
Xenios Thrasyvoulou, People perhour’s founder and chief executive, said: “Students are
being hit by rising inflation and huge increases in tuition fees. But at the same time, more and
more are displaying encouraging signs of entrepreneurship and setting up their own
businesses.
“The phenomenon of working students is hardly new, but this generation of entrepreneurs is
looking beyond traditional student jobs like bar work and setting up small, profitable
businesses in their chosen future profession.”