If you are fully supporting DC through uni - how much is is it really costing?

We pay £12.5 K fees, £14k catered halls and then £400 a month living.

London though. Be cheaper elsewhere.

Thanks. Is that £120 a week term time only or all year round?

Just going to first year. I already have the fees saved (£30k). We're also paying accompany which is another £7200 for the year.

I'm subsidising living costs with £100/month (a bit of shopping) and she'll need to work. If she can get something that pays another £300/month she'll be fine I think. She also worked and saved during her gap year which gives her a cushion.

Our shared goal is for her leave without going near the student loans system.

Not totally deluded. I’d say half of that to live on is tight but def doable. Bills in private accom can add up. But we allow for about £120 a week rather than £200 for all living costs.

So approx £10k fees, say £10k accommodation, so £10k spending?

Over £800 a month spending money, even spreading it across 12 months? 😲 Or did they save a lot from that?

Just trying to do the sums for my eldest who is starting university soon and I must admit I'd assumed they'd manage on half that amount outside fees and rent. Am I deluded?

I work at a uni in a largish city and there are so few jobs for students. Most of those sorts of jobs students used to just walk into are being done by adults year round. So
bracing myself for taking out loans myself if needed as I don’t think it will be any easier in 5 years when my daughter is at uni.

I worked full time through all of my uni years so I know how hard that is too.

Around £30k per year per child all in.

The system is designed so that parents on higher incomes top up what the child receives in loans. There are semi-regular threads on here about situations where a parent is refusing to do this and insisting that the child gets a job instead, and yes I think that's a form of financial abuse (barring a good reason why supporting the child is unaffordable).

It is a very different world from the one I went to university in- jobs are harder to get, the cost of living is far higher, prospects are worse. To deliberately withhold money from your child in that context because you think it's somehow character building to be unsupported and vulnerable is appalling. To be clear, I am talking here about parents who can afford to help and choose not to.

Agree that compared to boarding fees then university seems quite reasonable.

I will encourage my younger two to work but my wondering if it will be more difficult for my dd to find a job than my son. He worked until 1am on Saturday nights and was happy to walk back to his house alone - no way would I be happy with my dd doing that.

£25k?

No, more like £45k - £60kpa for boarders. Uni is affordable by comparison.

£25k pa for eldest who has just graduated and are assuming similar for younger two.

Eldest also worked to pay for holidays and he likes saving so used wages for investments. Very unlike me in that regard as I would have spent all my money on lipstick and clothes ;)

Yeah- I was at Uni mid 90's and not allowed to work term time. But first day of the holidays I'd get the bus into town and there would always be jobs around, even if it was just day to day factory work through the slave labour camp temp agency who would bus us out somewhere to pack soap or whatever. Also my dad had his own business so could often do holiday cover for him, and stuff always came up- things were just more flexible too- I once worked in a pub FT for a week for a mate of my dad's who was short staffed and just got paid cash- now they wouldn't bother as they'd have to do too much paperwork.

I think YP are fussier and less work ready (poorer in person social skills in general) than we were BUT the bigger problem is a lack of jobs.

We aren’t funding ourselves (we have two at uni at the same time, one on a four year course and one on a five year course so it would have been unaffordable for us). Both ours get around £12.5k per year student finance (we live in Wales so they get more than the English system) and that seems to be a good amount for them in terms of rent and living expenses. Tuition fees are separate to that.

20 years ago I was unable to get a job in my university town. I worked in the holidays though. I can't imagine how hard it would be these days.

I realise we're in a fortunate position being able to finance our DC uni, or at least a large chunk of it. (Both will have loans for tuition fees)
Getting a job is difficult - although not necessarily impossible- but also doesnt always happen immediately on arriving in a university town....so even with that there would be likely some parental involvement needed.

Getting an inheritance meant we were able to pay off our mortgage 5 years early.....so we have paid similar or slightly less than our mortgage payments, on DDs rent and maintenance. This year she's getting a small maintenance loan (you can choose to borrow less than the minimum allowed) which she's calculated, alongside her wages will be enough to live on and we'll continue paying rent.
Then we'll be able to save for when DS goes, as DH will be retirement age before DS graduates.
If we were still paying a mortgage I'm not sure how we would have worked it out.

Abusive!? Good one! 😂

We paid fees and gave them 12k year for living. Both did degrees and masters, so four years of money. 1 year when they were both there - that was a tough year.

£24,000 which includes £100pw living expenses and the annual uni ski trip.

I would suggest that fully funding isn’t as good an idea as it sounds. We paid/pay for DC travel, fees, accommodation costs and bills. They were responsible for food and drink, socializing and extra travel costs. They did this through a combination of savings, summer jobs, a student loan and a small loan from us. It has definitely helped them better understand the value of money.
We could afford to pay for it all and be very generous.

I do enjoy reading people's very firmly held views about what everybody else should do based on complete ignorance of both those people's situations and what student life is currently like 😂

It's not advised to get a job when studying a course like medicine. Students are not allowed to get a job at Oxbridge (I think in desperate circs your tutor can give permission but they really don't like to). These courses are like having a (more than) full time job. Absolute nonsense to imagine that someone could then do a second job of eg care work, or that doing this would be in any way beneficial to them.

When I was at uni- many decades ago- tuition fees didn't exist. Many students still got a grant. Part time jobs doing clerical work etc were pretty easy to get. Students these days have it far harder in almost every way- huge amounts of debt, far more students needing to work than there is work available, very poor employment prospects at the end. Living at home to study used to be unusual- now it's what 30% of students do. I can completely understand why parents who can afford to make things a bit easier for their kids would do so. The idea that you would deliberately withhold funds so that a child studying 40+ hours a week then has to do care work on top is laughable (and when I say laughable, I mean borderline abusive).

A multi millionaire, who has already been paying £25k pa per DC for private school fees, might as well pay the full tuition and living costs, because they’ll be paying a shed load in inheritance tax, when they die anyway?

(A friend of ours)

At my daughter’s university they are told not to get a job during term time 🤷‍♀️

If you can't afford to run a car (likely if you are a student working to afford essentials) then distance and ability to get to a job is very much a factor. And what's the point of going to university if you are going to miss contact hours (more than just "the odd lecture")? DD's university town is saturated with students; far more want jobs than in previous years and there simply isn't enough work for all of them. There literally does come a point where there isn't any more jobs paying enough hours (the odd hour of babysitting or tutoring here or there hardly is sufficient).

A fortune. We paid all accomodation , £1500 a month for two for one year at one point. Over three years each, DS1 rent averaged £600 pm and DS2 £900.
We also lent them the equivalent of the minimum maintenance loan each over three years, (GP paid tuition) which will be paid back when in work so another £30k between them on top. So about £84k in total to get them both through over seven years.
Our choice with the maintenance loan though, and could have chosen cheaper cities to rent, but the better courses in their subjects were at the unis they attended.
Both left debt free (except to us!) and worked themselves too for extras.

I disagree. My daughter has worked since the age of 16. She actually worked full time for 3 years before going to uni but shen she moved there despite applying for hundreds of jobs she got very few intwerviews and no offers of work. She drives so was not restricted by distance.

There are simply too many appying for too few jobs or they want her to be available when she is in uni. Some of her friends who do work regularly have to miss compulsory lectures and tutorials or they would lose their job.