A Report on Expenditure of Students Allowance by Students of Maktab

Student allowances are payments made to students to help them to meet the cost of living while undertaking their studies. This report based on statistics taken among the students to evaluate whether the allowance money is adequate for the students. First survey was about the opinions toward students allowances. There are 58% of students who disagree with the statement of monthly allowance is adequate. There are also 24% of students who extremely disagreed and 15% of students agreed that the allowance given is adequate and the balance 3% students extremely agreed. Based on the survey conducted there are many reasons given by students on their expenses using their monthly allowances. The first one is expenditure on buying books. There are 49% of students are agreed that they use the allowance money to buy books while 15% of students given their disagreement towards this statement. There are also 30% of students who are extremely agreed while there are 6% of students who are extremely disagree. Secondly is survey regarding the types of reading materials which are students spending. There are four types of reading materials which are usually purchased by students during their study life. Those are revision books, novels, magazines, and news papers. There are 34% of students who spending their monthly allowance on buying novels. This may be due to most students nowadays spending their quality time by reading novels compare to outdoor activities. There are also 24% of students spending their allowance on buying magazines and newspapers respectively while 18% of students spending their allowance money on buying revision books. This is maybe caused by enough notes given by lecturers which make the students purchase less on revision books. The next survey deals on the meals most spent on. For meals chosen in the survey which are breakfast, lunch, teatime and dinner. A total of 34 students surveyed. A total of 9 students claims they spend most of their daily pocket money on lunch shows the lunch meals is given most important by common people. Stand next to it is dinner where 10 students report that they spend most for dinner. 5 students spend the most for breakfast while no student participated in survey spends abundantly on tea time. This might due to Malaysian food ethics which involves cheaper and lights consumed for tea time. Breakfast coming 3rd on the

list maybe due to the fact most students rush to the classes and breakfast meal given less important by most people. Dinner which serves equal importance in daily life with lunch is given lesser important as most youngsters believes cutting heavy meals in evening time is an alternative way to maintain body mass compared to physical activity. The following survey is taken on the places students spend their dinner time. As per the survey, four common places were chosen which are cafe, restaurant, fast food and own food. 64% of the students spend their dinner time in cafe as it is the most convenient and affordable place for students. 27% of the students participated in survey eats in restaurant. This is maybe due to the hiking of daily living cost and restaurants charging more for food compared to cafes. 6% of students choose to prepare their own food for dinner. This might be due to their health consciousness and to reduce daily expenditure. A scanty of amount of students says they spend their dinner time in fast food chains. Fast foods are well known for their expensive bill and high calorie foods. Students with lesser health awareness might choose to eat in fast food joints mostly. Additionally fast food restaurants mostly placed in busy city centres and least accessible to most students. The next survey spans on the usage of student allowance. The allowance money spent mostly on broadband services followed by insurance and other expenditures equally. And a certain amount spent on car payment. 76% of students spending their allowance on broadband services. As internet playing vital role in everyones life and it is a necessity for the current students. Being an unavoidable commodity, internet services still having sky rocketing charges which takes up most of the allowance money. Other than that it is accessible and fairly affordable to everyone. 9% of the students paying for their insurance which is a part of tuition fee in most private and public institutes. This expenditure is a mandatory for most students. Equal amount of allowance money spent on others expenditure which includes food, clothing, daily needs and leisure activities. Some students in survey listed their car payment takes up to 6% of their allowance money. Car owned by only a small amount of students, use their allowance on monthly payment to less their loan burden later on.

The last survey shows the amount of money spent on mobile credit top up by students. In above chart we can learn that most students which is 43% of total student surveyed, spend RM 60 to 80 for top up every month. A slightly lesser amount of students spend RM 90 to 100 for top up where they take up 30% of the total surveyors. 15% f the students spend more than RM 100 for top up. Only 12% of students spend less than RM 50 for top up monthly. Owning a phone is common in every class of people. And mobile credit recharge is an unavoidable expenditure. As all of us connected through these. Money consuming devices its best for us to choose a cheaper telecommunication service provider. Additionally mobile internet service packages causes increase of credit recharge expenditure. In conclusion, the allowance provided to students should be raised in order to help the students. This will help them to avoid cutting cost for food and study materials as these are the things most students try save on. Setting up a lecture session to the students to on savings and wise management of money will be helpful too.