Stepchildren and uni costs

Our DC both wanted who away from home and we were happy to support them
In Scotland so no fees
We pay £1100 a month to each
Also pay some things we were paying eg phones

But Bradford University is much less likely to give him the opportunity for a high earning job in the future! This is career-limiting advice.

That’s what a job is for… the majority of students need to have a part time job at least.

Dd3 is our 3rd after a big age gap.
She hopes to go to uni to do primary teaching with qts.
She is doing a gap year to save. She is working part time now (year 12) so she will be able to find part time work, both outside term time and also should She take a while to find a proper job.
In reality, she will prob only qualify for min loan so we will fund the difference.

Good for him then if he is predicted good grades and has a plan for after uni. In your shoes I’d agree with you about it being the right thing to do.

Sounds like you need to speak to your partner about how much you’re prepared to do for SS before anything else (and it’s totally fine not to be personally financially supporting your adult stepson).

Do you have joint finances?

You need to develop a budget with him.
at this stage, if he’s not yet decided where to go, you can use estimates based on what sort of costs his current uni of choice would be. When he gets his a level results and confirms uni, it can be done again accurately

so for ours we listed income from loan he’d qualify for based on our income and a small saving pot grandparents had gifted ( circa £2k a year). We also added into that the cost we’d “save” during term time that we’d have spent on them ( clothes, food, phone etc etc)

we then budgettted for rent ( don’t forget deposits) , food/grocery ( £50 a week 10,years ago, it costs more to feed one, and they don’t have much freezer/storage space to batch cook or bulk buy plus they need cleaning stuff too, and we did allow a little flex for takeaway/booze once per week ), phone, travel ( inc railcard) , reasonable entertainment ( we discussed and agreed to include some tickets, music, games etc) , clothes, hair cut, shoes , study materials, energy in 2nd year onwards, union fees, locker fees etc etc….

we broke it into yearly, termly and monthly income/expenses - which is key to avoid cash flow issues.

we then looked at shortfall. There was even then. Loan only just covered rent even back 10 years ago in some places.

we then agreed how much we’d contribute on top of the above income. It was beyond the max loan any student would get, even with very low income parents.

we didn’t want kids to HAVE to work during term time to pay for basics . Both did STEM courses and these leave little time for work - timetables are full, and evening workload is steep. Working during term time can really affect kids on some courses , so be mindful of that. Dh and I were both STEM grads so knew this. Deal was they worked during summer to pay for beer money, foreign travel, festivals etc and clothes etc above the budgeted amount. We expected them to work holidays and we held them to it. We used pressure like we wouldn’t put them on car insurance unless they had savings from work to pay excess if they had accident as a way of doing this.

we then said that if they wanted more money from us, they needed to show us why using budget and actual spend amounts. It taught them budgetting at young age,something both do now aged 30 plus. We all knew what was allocated for what, and agreed lifestyle choice vs cost up front.

Sounds like you could do a similar exercise now, with estimates, he is showing clear interest and the vacuum of information is producing anxiety. Some lim ate the fear of unknown and replace with a rough estimate of budget, so he can use that to influence his choices.

your dh is a numpty frankly, to imply it is unnecessary for dc to be trying to pin this down at this age

Some Unis are located in areas where there’s not many student jobs or require travel to town/car, the Uni will have a job posting area for their own jobs.

The options are go and work, go to a local uni, or go to his chosen uni but be very careful with money to survive on what he's being given.

Nobody has the right to go to uni, live in, have lots of luxuries, and not have to work. It's not the real world.

We paid my DDs rent. She took out the maintenance loan and lived off of it. We said if she wanted more she had to work. She said she'd make it work as her course didn't allow for time to have a job too.

She didn't work.
She managed to save (not loads but some)
She got a 1st class degree

If I had another child going through it, I think I'd have the same view. I suspect rents have risen now and so we would be paying more, but I wanted to be sure she had a roof over her head!

Doing it this way means that if she had wanted to socialise a lot, which is costly, then she would have to budget for that or work for it.

We topped up DS to the maximum loan amount, paid for travel at the start & end of term & his phone contract.
that’s it.
He was in an expensive city a long way from home and worked in the holidays.
He managed fine for 4 years. Graduated last summer.

Unexpectedlysinglemum · Today 09:56

He needs to choose uni according to where he can afford. Rent in Bradford very different from costs in Edinburgh or Oxford.

The term false economy springs to mind from the example above.

Why wouldn’t a student, any student, get a job during the uni holidays?! They are really long!

Degree apprenticeship or local uni

Ds had £40 per week from us once accommodation was paid for. He got jobs, they were not that nice, one was in a sauce factory, one in a warehouse, both early starts but fitted around lectures as in reality they have very few face to face hours. What you are offering him is enough, if he needs more he works.

I went to university paid entirely by my loan and my part time work + my dad gave me a small contribution per month instead of paying the maintenance to my mum.
Without my job I wouldn't have been able to do any luxuries but that was the reality of my life anyway.
I was already working before university though and they held my job open for holidays because I was a good employee.
I chose the cheapest accommodation available and was very careful with my money.
It's possible and a good lesson in budgeting, but I also knew my parents wouldn't be able to bail me out, so there's wasn't an alternative than to make it work.

My DS worked as a barista all through uni, working the hours that suited him around studying.

It was pretty well paid and he still got a first. So I wouldn’t be dismissive about that idea.

Most students get parental support because the maintenance loan has not increased in line with inflation, or they have part-time hospitality jobs. We pay our daughter's rent (min loan), travel and her phone, and she works a few shifts in a local pub to afford extras.

Between both sets of parents/step-parents, you need to top up his loan to the max and a bit extra.

I think offering to go through the budget with him is a nice idea. My parents wouldn’t even help me fill in my forms. I had zero contribution from them financially.

@Soootired23 good idea to sit as adults and sort it all out with him before hand .

If it’s £150 maintenance and £150 food . See what mums plans are . Maybe there will be some squeezing . Turn the £150-£200 so that’s £50 a week for food

It's different if you have a non resident parent who is a higher earner and could help out more but doesn't want to. You are being told you need to pay your keep in both households basically.

Here’s the actual problem then - YANBU at all not to want to be the default bank for adult SS, over his parents.