Well, getting a job is hard, but when you're somewhere where people use your degree as an excuse to turn you down you're totally screwed. So you have to move to find a job, because a job will never come to you.
In your friend's case he has to scrounge/beg/borrow (not steal) £750-1,000 in order to set himself up once he has a job, and he needs train fares to commute to where the jobs are in the interim, so perhaps £1500 over all. In my case I had a little money left over after my second degree, and my parents helped.
Your student depts don't exist from a budgeting point of view until you are working any way, so you ignore them.
In my case I was lucky and well qualified, but no one down here is refused a job for having a degree, so your friend is clearly in the wrong place.
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