70% of new students will bring their own laptops to university

Such Young Ones-type images of impoverished students are challenged by research from Marks and Spencer.

Instead today's students are more likely to have an expensive laptop and a range of hi-fi equipment.

According to Marks and Spencer, students starting college this year will be taking equipment worth up to �6,000 with them.

Although students will be borrowing thousands, the survey shows that many of them will have been kitted out by their families with expensive equipment.

Big debts, big spenders?

And the survey says that the current generation of students have far more high-value possessions than the students of a generation ago.

Hundreds of thousands of students are expected to be starting university courses this term - and the survey claims that they will be taking kit worth between �3,300 and �6,400.

While the rising levels of student debt have been well-publicised, this survey also points to the growing levels of purchasing power among young people - and the willingness of affluent parents to support their student children.

The survey says that 70% of students will have their own laptop; 71% will take a television; 60% will have a DVD; 95% have a mobile phone and 29% have a personal-organiser type computer.

"The possessions of today's students comes in sharp comparison to those of an archetypal 1970s student," says the survey.

Instead of starting at university with a few old books, a record player and a tin-opener, it suggests the current group of freshers have electronic goods not dissimilar to other non-student adult households.

While poorer students have complained of the financial hardship of university, there has been a contrasting rise in credit available to young people, which has allowed students to buy more goods.

A survey published this summer by the NatWest bank said the current average level of debt for students leaving university was over �12,000.

Police responding to an increase in thefts against students have said they are often targeted because they have more consumer goods than the average person.