[onei]

Also, cooking for yourself forces you to learn about the cost of food and how to budget. Sooner or later, you're forced to cook something from scratch because because it's cheaper than takeaway or pre-made alternatives (and generally tastes better).

The flip side is that there's no shortage of UK students who have no clue how to budget, spend all their money on booze and then have £3 to last them two months until the next student load comes in. Perhaps raising the minimum age to purchase alcohol to 21 isn't such a bad idea ...