Students from the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol are driving buses to earn a five-figure salary to try and help pay off debts. Jonas Nkala, 22, is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Bristol, studying for a business and law degree and his days involve catching up on his uni work at his bus depot and even arriving to lectures in his Stagecoach uniform.
He is part of a growing number of students, The Times reports, working as bus drivers and helping to fill what has become a national shortage, with almost one in 10 positions being vacant. Jonas works between 38 and 60 hours a week and, since the beginning of the tax year, has earned £23,000 in the past nine months.
He said that many of his peers were more than happy to live off of their maintenance grants alone and did not understand how he found the time to work and study. He said: "A lot of them don't know what hard graft is."
