How much per year does university cost please?

[SuedeEffectPochette]

My kids are young but there are lots of them! If any of them are ever able to go to uni, how much per year will it cost me - not the tuition fees but everything else? When I was at uni we didn't pay tuition, we got a maintenance loan we didn't have to repay and I left with few debts - those were the days! What's it like now?

[BooChunky]

I'm starting university in September and the fees are 9k per year.

Obviously there are expenses on top of that though, accommodation, books, food and living in general.

[SuedeEffectPochette]

Hi Boochunky - Good Luck in September! I was hoping that someone already there/kids there would be able to tell me how the accommodation, books etc works out and how much it all adds up to!

[artyone]

I was there 3 years ago. Halls cost me about £4000 per year, private renting was less but not significantly. I was in an expensive town (Winchester), so it's probably be cheaper up north. I had a job for most of my time at uni which helped. I'd say you need £6-8,000 per year for livin costs. I did an art course so not many books needed but spent a lot on materials and print credit.

[basketofshells]

No experience yet, but lots of threads on here, which I've been checking out as our eldest is looking at uni in s couple of years.

CURRENT situation (bear in mind if yours are small things will have changed) is that students can get a loan for the full amount of tuition fees, plus another "maintenance" loan to cover SOME of their other expenses (accommodation, food, books, travel and all the rest).

This maintenance loan in most cases doesn't even cover the cost of their accommodation. Therefore it has to be topped up, by parents or the student themselves via a job or their savings.

The NUS estimates the maintenance costs (so not including tuition) of a student outside London to be £12K at present. I think this estimate is generally considered to be a bit high and will vary loads depending on location and other factors. But if you roughly called it £10k a year, then the student can borrow around £3-5k a year depending on income, you're looking at a shortfall of ) £5-7k a year. For a 3 year degree that's therefore about £20k needed per child per degree.

That's a massively rough estimate though and only for today's prices!

[GirlsTimesThree]

We have two at uni this year. One in London and one outside.

DD1 rent is £450 pcm in Kingston, which she pays from her maintenance loan (she gets more because she's in London) and she has to commute into central London every day. Her Oyster card top ups cost us £150 a month. We also give her £350 a month for her other living expenses. So we pay £500 a month in total for her. She works in the holidays for any extra she needs.

DD2 has her accommodation paid by us which is around £4k this year. Next year it'll be almost £500 pcm when she's living in a flat. She uses her maintenance for her living expenses, travel etc.

[BackforGood]

There are lots of threads on here if you've got the time to do a bit of looking.
Costs vary enormously - depending both on where in the the Country they go, and also your family's 'expectations' of what a child can live on.

As well as loan for the fees, they can get a loan for maintenance, but, overwhelmingly this is for less than they pay in rent, so you then have to let them have money for everything else (food, travel, socialising). If you are on a lower income then there are various grants and burseries available. Some universities offer bursaries for students with top grades or who are competing at National level in a sport or something.

They don't take into account the fact you may have more than one dc at university at one time - it's all about income, not outgoings I'm afraid.

Of course, if your dc are small, everything could change, several times over.
When my dc were small, there were no fees to go to university.

[SuedeEffectPochette]

Thanks for all the replies - I had better start saving then :(

[ivorynewbuilds]

Suede - it might be worth using the student finance calculator to see how the sums work out for you www.gov.uk/student-finance-calculator

There is always some support, regardless of income, but there's more support for those from low income households. There are also bursaries that come directly from unis (which aren't shown in the above calculator) on top of government student finance, which are for students from low income households.

Of course, these things may change this side of your DC going to uni, but there will always be some maintenance support.

[basketofshells]

Yes, it's income-dependent. Also, whilst BackforGood makes an excellent point that they don't allow for other siblings already at uni (we'll be stung by that as well), they do at least allow for younger siblings still at home. So at least for your older ones there will be an amount deducted from your calculated income that means you may get more help. Not much, but it all counts!