Top of the list is Edinburgh, with a gross annual yield on a four-bedroom property currently standing at 6.59% or £2,216 a month, research from Zoopla has revealed.
As a result, parents investing in a buy-to-let property here for their student children could fund three years’ worth of tuition fees in just 17 months.
Following Edinburgh, Glasgow investors could receive an average monthly rent of £1,425 or 6.49%, covering three years’ tuition fees in just over two years.
And Stirling follows with a gross yield of 5.76% or £1,382 monthly rent on four-bedroom properties.
Elsewhere, the media hub of Salford comes in fourth with an annual yield of 5.66% or £1,394 monthly rent.
Heading across to Northern Ireland, Belfast, home to Queens University, is fifth, providing an annual income of 5.64%.
However, it would take over three years to finance the cost of tuition fees due to relatively low rental prices compared to the rest of the UK.
Worst performers
At the other end of the scale, university towns towards the south of the country are the worst performing.
Kingston-Upon-Thames is bottom with an annual yield of just 2.81%. Nevertheless, it could take just 15 months to fund the cost of tuition fees with the average monthly rent standing at £2,438.
Hatfield, home to the University of Hertfordshire, places second at 2.88% in 22 months, followed by High Wycombe with 3.02% for 25 months and Stoke on Trent with 3.13% for 52 months.
The average yield from a four-bedroom property in a UK university town currently stands at 4.27% with an average monthly rent of £1,725 – such an investment could fund the cost of tuition fees in 27 months.
Lawrence Hall, spokesperson for Zoopla, said that parents keen to help their children through the high costs of university may consider the value of buying a property in a student town.
He added: “It also comes as little surprise that with the slowing growth in the property market in the south, buy-to-let investors in the north can get the highest proportional rental returns”.
