To ask how do you/your child pay for uni?

[wishparentingwaseasy]

My eldest is off to a central London university in the autumn and I have just completed the student loan calculator.

We (as its household income not students income or lack of) are entitled to £9,000 for fees and £6,500 for living expenses. The cheapest halls is £5,000. I daren't look how much for non halls accommodation. Leaving £1,500 for everything else including food, books etc. £37.50 based on 40 weeks.

AIBU to wonder if that is doable?

It is certainly unlikely that they will be travelling home.

[frikadela01]

Working part time obviously. .. only students I've ever met who didn't have been funded by their parents.

[frikadela01]

FYI I have no experience of London but when I went to uni you actually paid more to live in the halls. Much cheaper to live in private renting.

[Breadrocks]

If they are able to have a decent part time job it's doable. But I did a humanities course, so not many hours in 'class' and was able to work 20 hrs a wk in term time, full time in holidays. If working term time isn't possible, I'm afraid they're going to struggle without savings or family support. £1500 a year is tough in most places, but will be much harder in London where everything is more expensive. Sorry, just being honest. If they have a regular, decently paid Sumer job where they can work lots of overtime and you're able to let them live rent free at home, that will help.

[HoppityVoosh]

Yep, working. I used to work in retail in a university city and I think 3 people out of the 40+ staff were actually from that city. The vast majority were students living away from home.

[SirChenjin]

DS1 goes off to University after the summer holidays. It will be a mixture of student grant (we're in Scotland, he will get a maximum of £4750) a bit of money from us, some from Granny and a part time job. He's hopefully going into halls - hopefully it will be doable, otherwise he will have to come home and commute.

[Breadrocks]

Rent free in the holidays I mean, obviously rent during term is unavoidable.

[TheBoov]

London's always been a scarily expensive place to be a student. Most work, and at least there are plenty of jobs available there. Tougher if he's studying science, engineering or medicine and has little time.

[Dontunderstand01]

When I was a student fees were £1k per year, so a lot cheaper. My max student loan I could get was £3k per year. My parents paid my tuition fees, my 3k loan just about coveredmy rent, and I worked 20 hrs a week. I would work full time over summer hols and christmas. This, and my overrdraft floated me, and I occasionally asked my parents for extra help. I lived on a very strict budget and lived in the cheapest possible student digs.

I hope to be able to pay my DS's tuition fees and would expect him to get a loan or work to pay for the rest.

[BarbarianMum]

I took a gap year, lived at home, worked and saved every penny. That money supplimented my loan and took me through.

As that's not possible, suggest a summer job and saving to help through next year. Repeat next year.

My parents helped with course books, phone card (old days) and start/end of term transport. Could you do that?

Don't worry too much about him having very little money. That is part of the student experience. He will have a roof over his head and will not starve.

[LaurieFairyCake]

I think £40 is fine for food/going out. Dd will get a part time job on top of that. Even 10 hours a week in London at £8 an hour gives an extra £80 a week on top. They can easily do 5 hours a day at weekends. £120 is loads of money.

Even if they have a demanding course you can still do it in a 40 hour week Monday to Friday.

[Dontunderstand01]

Also, should have added, student halls are very expensive. I would suggest live in for yr1, to get to know people, and then move to student digs. This is what all of my friends did. Some of them were very well off and parents bankrolled everything. One of my housemates took out a student loan and invested the money in an iSA because the rate outstripped the interest accrued. Madness!

[Pinot4me]

When my daughter went to Uni - taking into account, all her living costs, food, books, rent etc there was a £7500 pa shortfall. Her Dad and I were separated. We decided that we'd each pay 1/3. She funded her third by working part time. We felt it was important that she 'bought in to it' too!

[321jenny321]

My DD will get around £5000 in a loan. We plan to give her £200 a month (more if I can increase my hours at work) and she will need to get a part time job. It really will be a struggle for us and her. She will also hopefully have around £2000 saved from working.

Gets me very cross that those from low income familes dont have to think twice as they get £10k in a mix of loans, grants and bursarys, but if your household income is £40k+ you are thought of as rich! Also dont get me started on why I should support an independant adult.

[Scholes34]

I'm bracing myself to have to budget to give DC1 £300 a month towards living expenses, once she's taken out the tuition fees loan and maintenance loan. We're just above the threshold to get no grants. That will be just about manageable and we'll have a savings policy pay out round about the time DC2 goes away two years later, followed by DC3 two years after that.

[frikadela01]

321Jenny I come from one of those low income families and still lived on a very tight budget working around 20 hours a week in a shop... its not easier although I do appreciate where you're coming from and agree that those just over the threshold in any walk of life be it student loans benefits etc are often the ones that struggle.

[WorraLiberty]

My DS is only 16 at the moment but he plans to commute to uni, so he can still live at home.

God knows if it will be possible or if he'll even feel the same way when the time comes.

[GunShotResidue]

Dontunderstand I've been looking into how best to help DD when she's at uni (very hypothetical at the minute) and was suprised to read this: www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/should-i-get-student-loan

My sister works during the holidays and lives very frugally during term time. But she has the maximum funding. Friends of hers are working all year round, one has three jobs.

[Betsyblue]

Yes when I went it was £1k fees and £3k a year loan which just covered my rent. My parents gave me £40 a month (I think).

I just got a job to cover the rest. Most of my friends did too. I worked about 15 hours a week I think, often more. In the holidays I had two jobs and saved all of that money. I used to work 8am- 12am in my holidays quite often and still had more energy than now .

[Kelly1814]

When I was a student i had a variety of term time jobs, then went home and worked all the holidays.

[IloveJudgeJudy]

Luckily, kind of, I wasn't working when DS1 applied for his first year of university, so he got the maximum loan available. This year, when he applies again, I will have been working, so my money will be taken into account . I don't know how that will leave us. He has been working 1 day/week atm and got a Christmas job. He's intending to work all over the summer apart from a week when he will be coming on holiday with us. We also pay for a £25 grocery delivery once a month and he doesn't pay when he stays with us. It's still tight, though, and he isn't in London.

His friend, who is in London, is subsidised by his parents at £250 per month, but they aren't poor (not rich, either, though). The friend is in a shared house in his second year, but that's very expensive and pretty difficult to get hold of.

My friend at work's son is in London and has been commuting for the first year . He is intending to live in rented next year, but has done nothing towards that. She has now said that he will have to get part-time work next year and pay her if he lives at home as she's cross that he hasn't sorted his next year accommodation. She thinks he doesn't believe her, but she's going to go through with it as she's paid for everything in his life so far. He's never had a job at all. They are paying his travel atm which is around £400 per month, I think.

[Schoolchauffeur]

We are in Scotland so Dd gets tuition fees paid and took out the full amount of loan she was allowed ( about £4500). We paid her student halls which was about £4400 self catering but included all bills/utility. She has lived off the rest and also works about 15 hours a week term time in retail, but it's a zero hours deal so in certain quiet periods she sometimes only has 4 hours a week. She can normally increase the hours to almost full time in uni holidays as we live within commuting distance of uni city where she works. She has saved money for a uk holiday out of these, pays petrol, phone etc and hasn't asked us for any other help.

Next year she is going into a private flat which costs £420 PCM plus elec and wifi costs. She is well organised financially and is trying hard to be independent so wants us to reduce our contribution next year to see if she can manage more on her own. So I think we'll end up paying about £200 a month.
And the year after that DS will start probably in a more expensive city much further away, so we are expecting that to be more expensive!

[popcornpaws]

In scotland, tuition fees paid and full amount of loan she was allowed.
We saved to fund uni for her and we pay her rent (nearly 5grand a year) but its worth it to see how well she is doing now.

[BackforGood]

It is doable, but they will be a lot more comfortable if they can get work as well - either holidays or term time or both. London of course is the most expensive place to live ~ my ds took that into account when deciding where to go. I actually think that accomm sounds cheap for London. Tbh, I wouldn't expect them to be coming home mid-term - the terms are pretty short you know!

[ahbollocks]

My mum and dad shoukd have contributed 200 a month for me but couldn't afford to ( 5 of us kids very close together)
I worked 30 hours a week, in a bar, licking envelopes, in shops, very doable!