how do students afford to rent?

[Samcro]

I live in a university town, lots of new build student accommodation, walking past one the other day it was advertising rooms form 230 pounds a week.
dh has worked on these sort of rooms, they are small with tiny ensuite. so curious, how the heck do they afford that, add in tuition fee's, transport(this particular one is not in close walking distance to university) I assume they don't pay heating costs? council tax(at that price I assume its included) but still ....how?

A lot of my friends have uni aged DC. One of their daughters is in very expensive (brand new) accommodation, and they pay for it upfront for the year. The daughter is then able to spend the maintainable loan how she wishes.

The cost of student accommodation is a big factor in for us- DD is very surprised that a lot of her friends are choosing courses that are a commutable distance from home, so I've had to explain to her not all parents can top up loans and not everyone is confident they will find a part time job.

I think the cost of student accommodation is often taking the piss. When DS was little DH and I planned to buy a house where he went to uni, have DS live there and charge some house mates rent. 20 years later, you can imagine how well that worked out

thanks for the answers. the place I saw that price is not what i would call near the university. did seem expensive.
nearly every new build in our town seems to be student accommodation, I did think that was to stop the BTL of family type homes. seems I am wrong.
out of interest if students don't pay council tax who makes up the shortfall for the council? someone must as they still get bins emptied as so on.

£230 would be the top end at my DCs' universities. One is paying £125 p/w (room in a flat of 5, shared bathroom) and the other £150 p/w (en-suite room in a flat of 8) at two different universities. Both have all bills included.

Either parental help or student loans. Or a mixture of both.