The chart shows student expenditure over a three-year period in the United Kingdom. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The bar charts illustrate the changes which took place in student spending in the UK from 1996 to 1999.

Overall

, expenses by those students allocated for essential purposes including accommodation, food, bills, household goods,

travel

, children and course

expenditure

saw a decrease, except for essential

travel

while

that for non-essential spending witnessed an opposite trend over the period. Looking in more detail, accommodation went down gently from 23% to 20% but remained the second rank between 1996 and 1999 in terms of the payment students used , followed by spending on Food, bills, and household goods which

also

experienced a slight drop by 3% from 20% to 17%. It is noticeable that students spent less by 3% on courses(a decline from 10% to 7%)

while

more by 2% on essential

travel

. Meanwhile, investment for children made up the lowest percentage of the total at about 1% in 1996 and was not presented three years later.

In contrast

, there were moderate increases in non-essential expenditures, except for non-essential

travel

. Entertainment had the highest figure for the spent-on category in 1996 at 26% of total

expenditure

, rising even

further

by 5% after three years.

Similarly

, Non-essential customer items and credit payments grew by 4% to constitute 16 % of total

expenditure

although

spending on non-essential

travel

underwent a 1% fall and stood at 3% of total

expenditure

in 1999.