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

DS goes next year, DD will (hopefully) go in 4 years. We’ve budgeted £30k a year. For us it’s basically another 3 years of school fees each which we’d prefer to pay, than have huge amounts of debt hanging over their heads. We’ve been paying school fees since Reception so it’s become the norm for us. I’m looking forward to retiring once DD is done though!

£22k has been more than enough for first year in Durham catered college. Second year (including rent from July) will likely need £25k due to 52 weeks of accommodation costs. Third year the same plus inflation.

9-12k accomodation
7.5k living expenses

Me too - but I went in mid-late 1990s. It’s very different for student loans now.

Our DS gets the minimum maintenance loan of £5k we are funding his accommodation at £10,200 (this is catered so minimal money from his budget should be spent on food).

We have also spent a small fortune on stuff for him to take with him!

My DD accomodation is nearly 9k. 80 quid a week for food etc on top

They're always looking for care assistants on bank shifts/part-time, it's just not a job all students want to do. I know London is higher but in the North West you can get a room in a houseshare for £400-600 a month en-suite, or you can stay at home and attend a local uni, it's really not impossible and any parents reading this thread and worrying really don't need to magically find thousands of pounds, that's people talking from a position of wealth and privilege.

Us too! Our eldest has just graduated, and it was pretty much £20k all in, per year; dc2 starts in a couple of weeks, and it will be approx £23k for this first year - as the cost of uni accommodation has gone up massively. I am hoping accommodation costs will reduce a little in year 2 onwards, when he moves off campus into a private rented house-share (I am assuming this is what he will do). When looking at accommodation for dc2, I checked what dc1’s hall now costs this year, and it has gone up £3k since 2023….

The only reason we can afford to support our kids at uni is due to inheritance i got after my parents died. But i realise i (and they) am very fortunate to be in that position. I dont know how we would have funded it otherwise. Our earnings would mean they would have got barely over minimum maintenance loan, but we wouldnt have had savings to top that up or pay for accomodation.

DD got a small bursary off her tuition fee the first year so has marginally less debt on that front.

Im not sure its helpful to compare previous cohorts of uni students because things are different - as a pp says finding a job in a lot of places is pretty much impossible.

The UK population isn’t going to keep growing. I don’t know many of my friends (mid 30s, professional) in their mid 30s who plan to have kids. It’s really alarming, but the one silver lining is that house prices ought to drop eventually.

Look up what Martin Lewis says as the simplest advice on paying tuition up front. Don't do it! The increased income tax payable to repay the loan will kick in in some time and that 10K a year you are better investing elsewhere. Or even giving it to DC for a car loan or house deposit eventually or any loan where interest will be much higher or just giving it to him in fact. Do the calculations online of how much of his income would go to having to repay the loan. It starts from about 30K anything over 9% - think about his earning power over the next decade or so to start and you will see that paying tuition makes no sense

This is ridiculous. I went to uni in the late 2000s/2010s and didn't get a penny from my parents, except the odd £20 here and there which I was grateful for. I had a part-time job and took a room share within my means. It's not about 'not getting the best start in life' it's called learning to be an adult, no student needs a fully funded Waitrose allowance or any of this.

My daughter is on the awful plan 2.
She will definitely pay hers off, due to her high salary.
its a complete rip off.

I paid mine off & so did DH, depends upon when you went.

25k a year Manchester and Bristol

My adult children tell me the norm if for students to take out the loans for the tuition fees and the maintenance and then their parents pay the rent, then said students get a job to cover food and bills.

They also say there are always quite a few students who have absolutely everything paid for, and who also talk about being provided with a house deposit or massive inheritance.

However, most parents I would say are contributing 8-10k per annum per child to cover the aforementioned rent (which is what I’m trying to cough up x2, at the expense of fully paying off mortgage or putting some aside for retirement).

Just bear in mind that the housing crisis continues to get worse. We are short of around 4 million houses in this country and the population is also increasing much quicker (in some cases by an order of magnitute) than house builders are building. I would expect student rents to continue to increase.

Anyone holding out hope for a revision to the maintenance loan amounts can forget it. Government balance sheet is worsening by the minute. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past a government to eye the low hanging fruit that is student loan repayments and massively wack up the interest rates in order for the books to look better, which would then mean more spending on things like NHS and social care.

Agree - there are definitely some unis to avoid if you really have to be careful on accom costs. Bristol is one - you can put your preferences in but you get what you’re given or you look separately for private halls. Fairly standard room is around £10k for 38 weeks. But it’s an expensive city and that was always a risk. He only gets min maintenance loan but even the full one would have left him a few hundred pounds per year for food, transport, laundry, toiletries, equipment.

We aren’t fully funding - but we’re still paying about £9.5k on top of min maintenance loan and tuition fees loan to help him afford accommodation and living costs.

It does, of course. I don't know how common it is, but DS's first year halls were allocated by lottery so you had absolutely no control over budget, you couldn't set an upper limit or anything and the most expensive ones were more than double the cost of the cheapest. You just had to take what you were allocated.

And as someone else said up thread, it's not as easy to get a part time job as it once was.

10-11k for rent ( check what bills are included) usually quarterly in advance but check, and a budget £100 per week, term time for food, toiletries public transport and general expenses like haircuts dentists etc .

Our DD managed to pick a uni where accommodation was just under £5k a year thankfully. Her student loan just about covered it and we gave her £300/mth and £400/mth final year when the loan was reduced due to a bursary. She worked during term and most years had short holidays as she studied medicine. I would have loved to pay more if we could afford it as the interest makes student loans really unattractive now. Choosing a uni/area with cheap accommodation can save a lot as some students are paying £12k/year just for a room.

I think we'll need to have a conversation with our children in the next few years about this. It'll be fund university or provide a house deposit as we won't be able to do both.

We have estimated they will need £30k per year which includes holidays but we STRONGLY encourage them to get jobs! It is not easy but at the moment, the two we have at university, do have part time jobs.

Thousand apologies - I was looking at this through the lens of my children.

if you have the funds to pay for your child full university education realistically you are looking at £30k a year.

Set an amount you can afford and let them top it up with a summer job…

firstly my husband was not remotely spiteful so let’s get out of the way. Secondly, a £100k flat deposit properly invested and getting an average return of 7-9% , often more is a far better use of money than paying out university costs in full. I wouldn’t dream of handing that level of money over to an 18 year old. It makes much more sense not to consider the balance of the loan and to look at whether the repayments which are a tax are affordable. Using a big lump sum to pay for university is not sensible.

oh and given you think my husband was spiteful, he was an extremely kind and talented professional who understood that if you have enough money to pay university in full investing the money long term towards a property is always a better bet.