DD's uni costs

In some places the children of those on benefits are the best off as they get a massive full maintenance loan

This seems to be a middle-class myth that's springing up and it's absolute nonsense. It's well known that student loans have not kept up with costs and that even the full loan isn't enough. Students from poor backgrounds face serious problems that better-off kids will never have to contend with - e.g. if their parents are on benefits, having their student child back home in the holidays places a massive strain on a household income that reduced when they left school.

This article gives an example of a student on the full maintenance loan, who has a job, and has just £25 a week left after paying essentials. He sends some of that home to his mother, who has lost her job as a dinner lady. That's what I call 'struggling', not some kid who has the bank of mum and dad to resort to when things get a bit tight.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/student-finance-maintenance-loans-inflation/'

It depends what you need to buy with the £125 a week in London. Most people working do spend more than that and many students in London definitely do. The ones living at home a ££££ in as no rent to pay at all. They just save a chunk of the loan.

The big issue here is the grandparents over indulging and spending £350 a week on her accommodation - that’s wholly unnecessary. More money than sense. A more sensible route would be cheaper accommodation and more spending money. Unfortunately the op and the grandparents never discussed it. So the grandparents have facilitated over indulgence. It’s a bit late for the op to ask dd to be financially prudent. The grandparents agreeing to profligacy have scupppered that.

I can never fathom why posters cannot work out the cost of Dc going to uni. It’s not always necessary and when you have a teen, surely you get yourself clued up on costs? It’s not “back in my day” - it’s now. Plus you don’t agree to London if you cannot afford it! It’s not difficult to check costs of halls and flats.

@FarmGirl78
It's crazy isn't it that ppl cannot fathom how someone could possibly survive on £125pw after their bills, that's more than enough and if the DD wants more then she can earn it.

@WarriorWalrus "if she got comfortable with less she would lose the incentive to work as hard."

This is one of the most hilarious, oblivious, ignorant posts I've read in a long time. 2 years ago I realised I could cut my hours at work and still have "enough" to get by, so I did. I got comfortable with less. It might surprise you to know I still turn up on time on the remaining days I work. I work just as hard as I did before. I still present a professional image, I don't wear a dirty tracksuit to work, yawn and slope off home early. I finish all my work and make sure all notes are complete, reports are filed etc etc. I have not lost any incentive to work hard. Sometimes I volunteer on my day offs, still working hard. I still want nice things in life, still want foreign holidays and a good car, plump cushions on a designer couch and a posh telly to watch in the evening. Being comfortable with less does not mean I've suddenly turned into a navel gazing gutter dwelling slob with no incentive to work hard or aim high in life. Do you think the thousands of families out there FORCED to be "comfortable with less" don't continue to work damn hard? Do you think they don't try every day to make lives better for themselves and their families?

I think your statement is insulting to your DD too, that you think she'd somehow turn into a slacker because she no longer had access the the finer things in life.

What's more likely to cause her to lose incentive to work hard...... Needing to graft to get what she wants? Or having it all handed to her on a plate?

I'm 45 years old and after all bills are paid I manage on £120 a week, which is realistically a lot more than most people I know. This isn't because I'm hard up, that's realistically all I need and allows for small luxuries. As a student that will be the absolute life of riley!

You just want your DD to be ok, but not 'spoiled', basically.
Probably the best thing to do is give her enough for what she needs with e.g. maybe not so much for clothes etc. as she might be used to right now, then extras like holidays have to be paid from paid work in the holidays. I never worked in term time as my degree was really full-on, but worked part-time most holidays in pubs or temp-office work, it kept me fit (we lived 3 miles out of the nearest town) and looked good on the cv, not because it was career-relevant, but because it showed I could be relied on to show up and work.

@Mamabear2424
Some of these comments are proof of why we have entitled, lazy young adults, paying for cars and £150 spends for adults at uni, so the wee lambs don't need to work. Very few course are that full on that they can't work and study, either parents are naive or their kids are playing them.

you hired a nutritionist? this gets worse !

My three have always worked in the holidays, sometimes pretty awful jobs (fruit picking, festival portaloos). After my son got his first graduate job with a big name firm he got the feedback that all the different holiday jobs he’d done really made his cv stand out.

It is too hard to generalise. Mine didn't go to London as we live there (3 went to Bristol). None of mine have loans as I paid the fees and rents. That is fairly rare and not even something most rich parents necessarily think should be done. Just do what feels right for the parents.

As for jobs most of mine had some kind of job - worked at riding stables before university eg and one did a month at a hotel including various tasks, another worked abroad in holiday camp type set ups in holidays. It is certainly good to have some kind of work experience. None of mine needed nor took term time jobs as I was able to pay them a weekly allowance and my twins finished their last course a year ago (they had £150 a week each for 52 weeks a year plus rent and their shared car and university fees paid for). I would say that is more than some but that no one bothers much - at university some are badly off and some not. In some places the children of those on benefits are the best off as they get a massive full maintenance loan whreas middle class parents unable to top up the minimum find their chidlren uses all of the minimum on the rent and live off overdraft and work to cover the rest.

From a recruiter’s perspective, that offer graduate schemes. A job is essential. Even if not for the money.

That's what my son's Uni careers dept told him. They said that some of the recruitment firms who "screen" for the big employer's graduate schemes will instantly reject applicants who leave their "employment" section of the application form, blank. It's all done automatically by computer, so there's no negotiation, and no "human" even gets as far as looking at other parts of the application such as qualifications, hobbies, etc.

It's borne out by his experience with getting a graduate job. One of his flat mates was doing a similar degree course, getting similar results, pretty similar GCSE and A levels, etc., but our son could fill in the "employment" section whereas his flat mate couldn't. They both made around 20 applications for similar jobs, and his flat mate only progressed through to further levels in maybe 2 or 3 of them - most were "thanks but no thanks" responses almost immediately upon submission. Our son got through to further levels in probably 10-15 of them, got 5-10 "interviews" and ended up with 3 job offers! That was even though his "employment" was casual/part time and completely unrelated to the jobs he was applying for.

When there's so much supply and so few jobs, you have to "tick the boxes" to get through all stages of the process.

From a recruiter’s perspective, that offer graduate schemes. A job is essential. Even if not for the money.

Quite often we see graduates come through who have never really had to ‘struggle’ (I use this term loosely) where they haven’t had the life experience such as budgeting, figuring life out for themselves or work in an environment with other adults and the demands of a job (again, I say demands but I mean basics, such as being on time, building relationships, overcoming conflicts professionally) these poor souls are the ones who struggle most in a whole host of areas. You can never underestimate teaching your kids how to become resilient enough. Particularly in journalism.

We covered rent and utilities, and contributed to food shops, and left clothes/spending money etc to them. I think all people should have jobs from 18 minimum. That can cover her spends and teach her about budgeting. We continued to cover phone, car insurance etc that we covered pre-uni, maybe you can do the same about sports lessons. Let her cover holidays and kit, clothes etc herself. Honestly it will do her the world of good, I understand having money to cover everything your child ever wants and it’s nice to do so, but that does not make them into good people who manage money well! She’ll thank you for it in the future. All uni kids can manage jobs.

We paid for both daughters accommodation(and utilities), having the maintenance loan paid directly to them to live on (around 4k) and neither needed to work during term time. In the very many long holidays they picked up a few ad hoc shifts at the local wedding venue/pub to supplement their funds. At the start of each term we would take them for a big supermarket shop and furnished their room at the start of the year, but they were on their own financially until they returned home for the hols.

I strongly believe that part of our investment in this part of their education was to allow them to develop the life skills they might miss out on if they stayed at home - learning to budget, cooking meals from scratch to fit in that budget, learning the value of clothes, makeup, a haircut and problem solving. Of course they still get occasional ‘treats’ and when they are home we tend to pay for meals out, holidays, nice clothes for events etc but these are viewed as treats and not expected.

Even with this arrangement they were viewed as ‘spoilt’ by their housemates and that comes with its own issues too.

Don’t underestimate what they are capable of and give her the chance to discover the power of independence. I know many teenagers from far wealthier households that ours who had did the same as us and they all survived and had a great time growing and developing into fabulous humans.

I don't know how anyone on an average income can afford to subsidise their kids. My son graduated in 2022 and basically lived off his overdraft. The maintenance loan he got just about covered his accommodation in the first year, but he got a bit more in y2 and 3 as our income went down.

We couldn't afford to pay his rent although a lot of his contemporaries' parents did. We occasionally gave him £200 here and there, bought clothes and paid for his phone, and his nan paid his rent for a couple of terms.

I may have been naive but I had no idea the amount parents were expected to contribute, but never told about. Nowhere does it say 'you will be expected to pay £X'. I went to uni in the 1980s when we got grants and if your parents needed to contribute, they were told upfront how much they were expected to pay.

Uni these days is a huge rip off, I think.

Yes I did the uni work around the retail work, so on a day I had a class I did work and on the days I didn't, I worked.

If she struggles for hours around the tennis then subsidise a little, but having a job will help her more in the future.

And if she is playing club tennis and earning from that, then that would be an income from a "job".

That is what I said!

@lieselotte i think we both know there is a huge difference here. A one off unexpected expediture is completely different to funding their entire living costs.

@WomblingTree86 She will be friends with Dc like her. Tennis snd money to socialise. Plenty like this in London! She will find friends.

https://thetab.com/uk/2021/02/11/revealed-the-unis-who-let-in-the-fewest-state-school-students-194852

Kings is a quarter private school intake. I know Op’s dc is state educated but just to illustrate that she certainly won’t be standing out having substantial parental funding.

we pay the shortfall on the accomodation and then give her £50 a week for food/laundry/living. If she wants more she'll have to find a part time job

Parents paying accommodation and teen living on min loan is a very common arrangement though. Only difference in this case is girl has chosen dearest room and grandparents are paying.
Op is presumably currently paying for tennis hobby and all that it entails so if she chooses to carry on that’s between her and daughter. Hobby may be capable of being monetised either via prize money, coaching, summer camps or sponsorship. The tennis players mentioned a few pages back are both ‘blue tick’ instagram with sponsored posts.
Realistically if the girl wasn’t getting any parental/grandparents contribution then London wouldn’t be on cards. Even in cheaper accommodation she’d need several thousand a year to pay accommodation as min loan won’t touch it plus London living costs, train fares home to north. It’s way beyond income level that working in a bar or shop would pull in.

Dont forget to include the golden horse drawn charriot to get her to n from lessons and the maid n the butler to wait on her hand n foot u might want to hire someone to do her college work also just incasr it a tad stressful for her

How would you react if they asked you for money?

And if you would help them, why do you think they should not help you?

My very grown mother had a big bill for her car last week so I paid most of it for her. Does that make her a non-functioning adult and am I being "that" daughter?

Nonsense. People are not lazy if they work 5 days a week and want to relax/pursue hobbies at the weekends.