to think that £500 a month is enough for a child at uni

I am sure things have changed somewhat since 2015 when I was studying in Brighton but I never lived in halls and never paid 17k for accommodation. There is a Facebook group for Brighton student accommodation where you can find people to share houses with. Our first house share was 5 people and we paid about £100 each per week for a room. It was 10 or 11 months contract, form memory.
In the second year I moved to Worthing to my own flat which was about £600 and I cycled to Brighton every day (train was £5 though). It’s a lovely, safe cycling path along the seafront and it hardly ever rained.
I worked at Brighton university reprographic department where I could do all my printing for free. I probably clocked 4h a week there and they are very flexible with hours. I think, all my combined income amounted to about 16k (loan, pt job plus full time job in summer holidays) and I finished university with 8k in savings so clearly my expenses weren’t huge.
Loads of places in Brighton you can get free/cheap food. I also volunteered sometimes (30 min commitment per week) picking up food donations from supermarkets and small businesses and the organisation would give us a food pack to take home. And I used Olio app to collect free food people shared.
Bar housing costs, Brighton is probably the best place in the country to live on a shoestring.

Yeah, I'm actually quite shocked at the number of parents paying the amounts they do. I got holiday jobs (I was living at home during the uni hols so wasn't paying out much then and was able to save) which covered costs, plus a small loan. This wasn't unusual among friends, none of whom had their parents paying for things. I get that students now have to pay tuition fees though. But I don't think we'll have anything like that amount of spare money to give ours £6000 per year!

Three shifts a week in a pub? You were lucky! When I was at university, we used to have to get up at three o'clock in the morning, build the pub with our bare hands, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come back to university, and the dean would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky.

But you try and tell the young people today that and they won't believe you.

And this is why my child won't be going to uni.

More than I ever got! I expect this is the done thing now? I’ll have to start saving for my 4yo and baby 😳😳

I got my loan to pay accommodation and fees and for food/fun/mobile phone, I had to work 3 shifts a week in a pub! In the holidays, I had another PT job back home in the holidays.

My parents got me the odd bag of shopping but that’s it really. They didn’t pay a penny.

It’s about right if you can afford it and are happy to pay it.

It’s about £16 a day which will make his life comfortable. Some will get more and some will get less.

My rent was £45 a week which I had to pay for out of that £4000.

Wow, you were living like a king compared to today's students then.

Just to add, it is actually hard going on parents but I didn't want my daughter to leave with any debt other than tuition fees. My parents did not help me sufficiently at University, and their income was such that I didn't qualify for maintenance grants. So, it was all a struggle. I didn't want that for my daughter.

My dd doesn't have any maintenance loans. We give her £600 a month and she also does some teaching and works in the holidays. She thinks her costs, including accommodation, come to about £10,000 a year.

Apparently!😂I am going to show this thread to DS and ask him if he can treat his entourage with the £16 per day he gets in London, where one sandwich can cost £10. ( Of course, he makes his sandwiches at home using the toastie maker I got him).

This is more than enough!

And of course the problem is the student loans haven’t kept pace. The maximum if parents are low wage is under £10k and the maximum for others is £4.5k.

£4.5k student loan, £150+ a week rent = not the same!!

Blimey £45 a week! Most places are £150+ a week these days.

Cozzy livs eh.

Wow. That seems like loads.
It has been a while since I graduated but I got £4000 a year student loan.
My rent was £45 a week which I had to pay for out of that £4000.

£16 a day to live on is “spoiled rich kid”? Ok

That's more than enough for all his mates to be fake hangers on to the spoiled rich kid. I work at a uni and although it is far from universal and character plays a huge part in it very often spoiled kids are not well thought of. It's amazing to me how many parents can become wealthy and yet have so little understanding of money.

We send £100 a week, DD gets £6000 maintenance loan but her accommodation is over £8000. She worked all summer and paid her first accommodation from that which was £1900 hopefully she will have enough to get her to May!

2nd year uni student parent. Far from home and doing his best.

l give my son £50 per week and I send him a food / toiletries / cleaning bits shopping delivery every other week. Around £40 each time.

He still calls up needing money because such and such is going to blah blah. He also rings his relatives haha.

He has a few hundred left after paying his rent with his maintenance loan. Weekend only work is quite tough to get. Especially in a uni town. He is doing well with his studies is grateful for the help and polite. When he comes home he helps out around the house and does agency work shifts so I don’t mind helping as he needs during semester time.

Going into second year my DD had to start paying rent on her student house in July despite term not starting until end of September. Something to bear in mind when calculating annual costs.

I hope you don't mean you're giving him that? He should be working outside of university

I want him to be able to have a good quality varied diet and not live in junk because that is all he can afford

You are quite naive if you think healthy wholesome foods will be the priority on any budget.

I understand. My children are all much older and it’s my eldest grandchild going to Uni this year. What we did with our children is what her parents are doing with her.

it's too easy to give them hundreds of pounds a month, every month, and they will grow not to appreviate ot

that’s quite the generalisation there and I’ve never found it to be true.

And the rise in zero hours contracts is huge over the past 10 years, meaning a lot of student jobs don’t guarantee an income/hours.