You have spent too much on Christmas presents so you cannot afford to turn the heating on - and it's freezing outside - you are missing your friends at home and the comfort of family cooking, and you are anxious about exams you have not revised for. For students, it can all add up to a case of new year's melancholia.

University life can be daunting at first, and long cold nights without the boyfriend or girlfriend you have left behind, without the prospect of a drink in the pub with your mates - either because you are too poor or are swatting up at the last minute - can leave you feeling low.

Whatever the reason, you might be feeling that being a student is not all it is cracked up to be. You might even be thinking about leaving university. "Statistically, early January is a time when many students drop out," says Diane Nutt, head of retention and research at the University of Teeside. She describes this time of the year as a "critical" one for students.

However, the bleak mid-winter period may be only a trigger for more deep-seated problems. "Students also want to leave because of an accumulation of personal reasons," Ms Nutt says.

So, to whom can students turn if they are stuck in something deeper than a garden-variety post-Christmas rut? Veronica King, vice-president of welfare at the National Union of Students, says university student unions provide counselling services and personal financial advice while an academic tutor can help with workload.

But, in the past, university counselling services have been criticised as under-equipped to deal with an increasing number of students. David Berger, chairman of the Association for University and College Counselling, says such services are widely available, but the extent to which students use them varies according to university.

The services are there for students, but few seem to use them. "Typically 4%-10 % of the student population will access the counselling service," Mr Berger says.

So, there should be someone there to help you if you think you cannot cope. Counsellors "talk [students] through their options, which are often greater than they realise," Ms Nutt explains.

"Sometimes students can be helped, but in the end there are some [who] will leave. Some students realise they're not ready yet and [will] come back later. Research suggests the majority of students who drop out return to higher education in the next 10 years."

The January blues could mean university is not (yet) for you. But dropping out need not be viewed negatively, Nutt says. "What we need to do is enable students to make the right choices. If the choice is to leave we need to encourage them to leave as a positive decision, and not to see it as failure but as the beginning of another opportunity."