I have two database tables: users and students. A student is a user, but has extra data (address). I have a belongsTo('User') relationship in my Student model.

If I now query the Student model like this:

$this->student
    ->with('user')
    ->first();

I get this result:

{
    "id": 1,
    "user_id": 12,
    "street": "Petershof",
    "house_number": "3787",
    "postal_code": "8161 NM",
    "city": "Tienhoven",
    "user": {
        "id": 12,
        "email": "bvierdag@yahoo.nl",
        "first_name": "Nathan",
        "last_name": "van Dijk",
        "name": "Nathan van Dijk"
    }
}

However, I want to flatten the result, so that the user fields are in the parent (Student) object. Like this:

{
    "id": 1,
    "user_id": 12,
    "street": "Petershof",
    "house_number": "3787",
    "postal_code": "8161 NM",
    "city": "Tienhoven",
    "email": "bvierdag@yahoo.nl",  // = user field
    "first_name": "Nathan",        // = user field
    "last_name": "van Dijk",       // = user field
    "name": "Nathan van Dijk"      // = user field
}

I have tried to use leftJoin('users', 'user_id', '=', 'users.id') instead of with(), but then I lose my virtual attribute 'name' (defined in the User model) and also can't query relations of User anymore.

How can I achieve this in a clean way?