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Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

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Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Higher education

Living costs- How much to give?

98 replies

SlugsyMalone · 10/09/2019 06:42

Morning, ds about to head off to university, he has a tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan of around £4000, just wondering how much people give their children a month for living costs. He’s planning on getting a job as soon as he can but obviously that may take a little while whilst he finds his feet. Thanks very much.

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MrsPellegrinoPetrichor · 10/09/2019 06:54

We are paying ds's rent and he will have the maintenance loan to live on .

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MarchingFrogs · 10/09/2019 07:03

We are paying ds's rent and he will have the maintenance loan to live on .

Ditto. So £340ish per month on average.

Although DD does have a small income from an ISA and some other savings on which she can draw (but will be encouraged not to, in the case of the latter).

She is a qualified lifeguard, so will be hoping to find work at the university sports centre.

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SlugsyMalone · 10/09/2019 07:10

Thanks for your replies, we’re using the maintenance loan to pay his rent, hadn’t thought of doing it the other way around.

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stucknoue · 10/09/2019 07:40

Advice is that parents make up the difference between the loan they receive and the maximum loan for low income students (£8500). We are paying £120 a month

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ssd · 10/09/2019 08:21

We have a joint income of 33k,can anyone tell me what loan the dc would get in England?

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titchy · 10/09/2019 08:49

We have a joint income of 33k,can anyone tell me what loan the dc would get in England?

Did you try google?

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance-calculator

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Xenia · 10/09/2019 09:11

stuck is right - it is like the old days- I got a minimum grant £50 a year and full grant was £900 so my parents made it up to full grant. It is the same today - many just get £4k in England and parents make it up to nearer £8k and I think in London the maximum loan is more like £11,500.

However lots of parents have different financial situations and children so no one size fits all and some students are better off than others. Mine have no student loan and I pay their rent and £150 a week per child all year and provide a shared car and fund their food etc in the holidays and petrol and a fair bit for clothes too. They are very lucky (and I work full time). That is not typical of most students and plenty of them have very little money and all seem to get on okay.

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MrKlaw · 10/09/2019 13:15

We originally considered they live off maintenance and we pay accommodation. But that worked out a little higher than we thought DS needed. So instead we're topping up the minimum loan to cover accommodation, and we're thinking around £300pm. Only September-May, he can pay for summer himself.

We don't expect him to work during term time, but will in the summer.

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ifonly4 · 10/09/2019 15:13

DD's total income will be £9500, made up of £6800 maintenance and £225pm from us. She's catered so we've allowed buying lunch. Also, the fact it'll be £200 to come home each time (as she'ls 600+ miles away), and 15 weeks storage. She wants to try and save as rental will be expensive next week, so is in a shared room. First day there, she saw a potential uni job and applied. It'll only be occasional work but will fit around studies (£9perhour though), until she's found her feet for something else.

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MrKlaw · 10/09/2019 16:14

its those little tweaks that will affect things - are you planning to help with books or maybe a gym membership to encourage activity etc.

we've offered to pay separately for travel so DS feels welcome to come home :) and I can't be arsed to cancel his phone contract (Sim only, £7pm for 5GB so thats fine). Bus, books he has to cover.

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MrsPellegrinoPetrichor · 10/09/2019 16:18

MrKlaw were paying for ds's phone too,it's £9 a month so happy to continue paying that until he gets a job. He'll have no travel expenses as he can easily walk from halls to campus and everything else is easily walkable and his train travel is free so he can sort out the odd bus fare if he needs it.

I think maybe we'll pay for gym membership until he gets a job.

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IsSummerOverYet19 · 10/09/2019 16:18

We are paying ds's rent and he will have the maintenance loan to live on

The problem with doing it that way, is that once the loan hits their account at start of term, they have a full terms-worth of money in their account. If they are stupid (and some are when first going away) they may have blown it all in the first month!

By doing it your way Op, with you drip feeding him a monthly amount for living costs, he cant blow it all at once!

My DS is heading into final year after 2 yrs at uni and a YII year out. He gets min'm loan which we top up for accommodation, then give him a monthly amount for living costs from mid-Sept to end of May. We never considered doing it the other way when he first went, despite him being very sensible.

I do look at what he gets in total compared to full loan, but given that his accommodation costs have varied each year (cheap'ish Northern city, expensive halls, 2nd yr house much cheaper, 4th year house more expensive than 2nd Yr) - I don't really take much notice.

We gave him £300 first year, increased to £350 second (despite him saying he didn't need an increase!) and keeping it same this year (despite him expecting another raise!). He did work through 6th form and at end of first year, and has savings from YII job, but we can afford what we give him easily so prefer him to keep his savings.

Colleagues DD is going - my advice is to start low and then increase if necessary - easier than the other way around! You may find he can't get a job, or like my DS job at end of first year, he couldn't have carried it on into second year due to full STEM timetable.

Fortunately we are relatively close to uni, so travel costs home aren't extortionate and his uni funds all his books.

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MrsPellegrinoPetrichor · 10/09/2019 16:28

The problem with doing it that way, is that once the loan hits their account at start of term, they have a full terms-worth of money in their account. If they are stupid (and some are when first going away) they may have blown it all in the first month!

Ds knows that if he does that then he'll be coming home and looking for a job and not going to uni

He's good with money, he just told me he has a banking app which allows you to budget so he sets himself limits.

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MrKlaw · 10/09/2019 16:52

from a purely maths point of view - considering minimum loan

If you pay them eg £325pm (about £75pw) for the term times from Sep-May thats £2925 for the year. If you give them the minimum loan to live on, thats £4100 for the year. Arguably more than they need - which you're paying for.

Random example with accommodation - £5500 per year.

Option 1 : you pay their rent, they live on loan. Cost to you - £5,500 per year.

Option 2 : you top up loan to cover mainentance (£1400). Plus provide £325 pm for 9 months (£2925). Total cost to you - £4325.

Option 2 saves you £1200 per year and arguably your DC has plenty to live on during the year. This scales too for different costs of accommodation and the gap will remain about the same.

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CointreauVersial · 10/09/2019 17:11

We are paying for accommodation, and DD1 will live off her maintenance loan (minimum amount). She is paying the whole amount over to us, and we've set up a standing order of £80 per week throughout the year for her to live on.

But we've made it clear that it's HER loan - and every penny of that £80 p/w she spends will have to be paid back at some point. She's determined to save as much of it as she can (should be easy over the holidays) and supplement it with a part time job so she doesn't have to use it all. No idea how this will pan out, but that's the theory...

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SlugsyMalone · 10/09/2019 18:18

Lots of food for thought here, thank you all very much! He doesn’t like asking us for money so I’ve been worried he’ll be short and not say anything, especially as he’s in self catering accommodation. I will sit down with him and work out a budget this week. Thanks again.

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Xenia · 10/09/2019 18:20

Although CV not s single penny of that loan may need to be paid back eg if she never earns over £25k or stops work early to ahve babies and never does much work again or whatever.... Most students will not pay back all their loans whch is why you could argue I am a fool for funding my 5 without any student loans.

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SuzieQ10 · 10/09/2019 18:44

Been out of uni 8 years now.. but my parents gave me £250 per month for the whole of uni, 3 years. That was towards helping with bills, food and occasional travel between home and uni in the North.
While it sounds a lot, I never had any money spare and was very careful. I picked up shifts as catering staff at a local wedding venue whenever I could as well, which helped a bit.

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ssd · 10/09/2019 18:54

I think your kids would be earning enough to pay back student loans xenia. If they are anything like you!

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boys3 · 10/09/2019 19:46

We're taking the same logic as you MrKlaw, albeit at a somewhat finger in the air £80 / wk term time. It was less for DS1 although his accommodation costs were much less as compared with DS2 off in a couple of weeks. DS2 has had a gap year and earned a fair amount, plus left his job on very good terms so already invited back during the Xmas break.

As long as people are not leaving their offspring in penury (when they could afford not to do so) I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer.

Of course if one wished to be somewhat harsh and reflect most of the real world of employment monthly in arrears would be the way to go. Not a route I'm taking I hasten to add.

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MrKlaw · 10/09/2019 19:50

Well it’s all reviewable - if we get a nice spreadsheet from DS showing why he needs more (or perhaps less..). Just a first stab for term 1

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ProfessorLayton1 · 10/09/2019 20:01

We are going to start giving her 75 pounds per week but pay her rent, travel and phone. She is in catered accommodation.
She has loan for her tuition fees..
She is our eldest child so we are new to all this but have told her to ask us for more money if needed. She is responsible and am hoping that she will be careful with the money.

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MrKlaw · 10/09/2019 22:08

@ProfessorLayton1 what about maintenance loan?

As so many don’t pay off the full loan, it seems sensible to take whatever is available rather than use your own money

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ProfessorLayton1 · 10/09/2019 23:00

This is what we have done..(Dd and DH were sorting this out) hopefully I have got this right..
Full tuition fees as loan - 9250 pounds
3000 pound as maintenance loan - which will be approximately 75 pounds per week. This will be topped up if necessary

The rest is paid by us.. rent in London works out to be 8250 ( approx) per year, travel, phone, clothes etc paid by us.

Of course all of this will be reviewed as we are new to this..

She will be paying back her loans as we think that's the right thing to do. She is doing medicine so she will come out with approximately 65000 pounds of loan by the time she finishes her course and the pay is not great while she is in training .. so we are going to save and help her out as much as we can.

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BackforGood · 10/09/2019 23:20

We worked on the same thinking as @IsSummerOverYet19 when ds first went off to University. I knew he was a spender and I knew I couldn't see him not having food for the 2nd half of term, so he used his loan to pay the rent and we gave him money each week.
dd is now between years 2 and 3. We give her £35 pw from mid Sept to end of May. She says it is easily 'live able' on - never spends that much on food and groceries.
All mine have worked during the holidays. dd now works in term time, but does run her own car from those earnings, so wouldn't need to if she didn't have those costs.