For Keerthana Krishnadas, the hunt for the perfect graduation dress began on day one of her course. 'I had to make sure I looked 10 out of 10, I couldn't compromise on that,' she told BBC News. Her solution? Thrifting. She snagged her dream dress for about £80 - a bargain, she insists, given that it will likely be worn exactly once.

Keerthana is among hundreds of thousands of UK students graduating this summer, all facing the same existential question: How do you commemorate a major life milestone without your bank account filing for divorce? Costs pile up fast - transport, accommodation, clothing, and those 'extortionate' official photographs, as Tom Allingham of Save The Student puts it. Professional packages at the University of Salford start at £30 for a digital image and climb to £350 for about 20 prints with frames. At the University of Manchester, renting a cap and gown costs £43 for undergrads and postgrads, and £57 for PhDs - because apparently, a doctorate buys you a slightly more expensive robe.

Students are getting creative. Ehis Oboh, now armed with a master's in international business, enlisted his tailor brother in Nigeria to design and make his suit. 'When you have the funds, there's no pressure,' he said. 'But if the funds are not there - let's say, there's pressure.' Wendy Adu Amankwah went the bespoke route, too: her mother, a designer, spent a week crafting her graduation look. 'I'm her daughter, so she had to put in every [effort],' Wendy noted.

Alicia Munhupedzi turned to Depop - the second-hand clothing app that sold for $1.2bn (£890m) earlier this year - for a quick, cheap dress. The pressure was real: she slept only two hours before her ceremony, surviving on 'water, good vibes, energy and a coffee.' Keerthana also felt the weight of the moment, waking at 5 a.m. and spending two hours getting ready. But was it worth it? 'Yeah,' she said. 'I couldn't compromise on that.'

According to Save The Student's analysis, the average maintenance loan falls short of living costs by £502 per month, a gap often filled by parental support, part-time jobs, and debt. So, graduates are left to balance pride with pragmatism. As Allingham noted, for first-generation university students, 'it's a big deal for the family and there's a pressure to celebrate it - even though those students often come from a lower income background.' In other words, the cap and gown might be rented, but the pride is custom-fit.