Person starts uni.
Person is assured all rent will be paid for, and all loan/savings is for living costs.
Person chooses to spend some of said loan/savings on something important to themselves.
All promised rent is withdrawn- and even a family Christmas is withdrawn.
This seems very very different to what people seem to be assuming here, someone spending money needed for something else on frivolity. This is separate money to the essentials! If all is correct here then not a penny which is meant for essential anything has been spent.
I can't imagine having parents so utterly low that they would turn me away at Christmas for a personal choice on my own body. The immediate here is the money concern. The long term is living knowing your own parents would sooner see you alone at Christmas, potentially homeless, because of a picture on your skin. Knowing that having perfect clean skin is more important than me, myself, my personality and part in the family, just so disgusting.
However as others have said, be cautious. This may indeed be a dramatic attention seeker who you haven't known long. It's wise to have caution, and not invest too much because there are those who crave attention, there are those who lie for monetary or personal gain, or simply don't see what they are doing as lying. And people will even lie about MH issues too. Caution is needed before too much investment.
Although as much as I'd wish parents so scummy as this didn't exist, it is entirely feasible, which is so sad. I personally didn't go uni and one of the main reasons was my parents refused outright to even be assessed for contribution, let alone pay any, as I'm pretty dumb and probably would fail. They were right in the end, I am thick as shit, but I wonder how it'd have gone.