The cost of uni

They get part time jobs - in 6th form, and whilst at University.
They work after A-levels full time, for coming up to 3 months.
They think carefully about which universities to shortlist. Some places are hugely more expensive than others.
They (will have) learn(ed) about budgeting. About cooking. About shopping. Looking for the yellow stickered items becomes a sport.
Some decide to live at home and save on rent (it is a very different experience and not what a lot of students want to do)
Some decide to take a year out and work, and earn a FT wage for a year first.

There are all sorts of things to do, or some combination of them.

On an income of £60,000 you will be expected to top up the £4500 maintenance loan to £9,500. So £5,000 a year. The issue we have is that the rent alone is £10,000 a year for a room in a shared house. Then living costs on top means that there is a shortfall of about £12,000 a year.
We pay £9,000 a year or £800 a month by doing extra shifts at work and cutting back where possible. DS works outside term time to make up the remaining £3,000. He has lecture hours plus study hours mean it is not possible to work term time.

The fees will be paid for by the fee part of student loan which is not means tested.

They work part time through sixth form to save up. Save some Christmas and birthday money towards it and use any other savings.
Make sure they get the bursaries they’re entitled to, and apply for appropriate scholarships - all of them. Even if it’s boring.
Consider unis they can commute to.

Theyre the big ways to make it affordable without a gap year but you MUST have conversations early with your child about what’s possible financially. After Christmas of y12 if not before. So they can do their research and make their choices with all of the facts.

Minimum loan and we pay rent. It's crippling - over 800/month 8 people sharing and will be more next year. I put money away over the years but it's turned out to be quite a bit more than I was expecting. Otherwise she would have to get a job. In hindsight, I wish we had set a budget earlier on and pushed dd to get a job to make up the difference.

It depends what you can afford. Mn thread helped me get the cheapest Nottingham accommodation ever, ds1 loved it. He saved beforehand, had a job on a Saturday at screwfix locally which they kindly transfered to Notts. Dh and I calculated how much we could afford monthly and we pay that to him on 1st of the month. Thats it. End of.

As an example DD's rent is £600 pcm for a studio, would be £400 cm in a house share ... this is obviously not in London! She gets the minimum loan, £150 a month from me and £3k from the money saved up from child benefit/birthday money.

I lived in my overdraft every year. Thankfully was at uni when fees were 3k and not 9, but the maintenance loan was still as crap as it is now.

Parents earned too much for me to get anything above the minimum loan BUT were in an IVF arrangement to pay back debts so couldn't afford anything for me, bar the odd 50 quid every now and then.

Lived in my overdraft and paid it off every summer by working. Year 3 was tight because I didn't get much work in the summer.

That said it stood me in good stead as I walked straight into a job after graduation (actually before my last exam) and it's formed the basis of my career now. Took me 4 months of working post last exam to pay off my overdraft though.

Student loans because 1) that's what they are called and 2) because it is the student who borrows the money.

The loan funds all the tuition fees and approx. half the living expenses for most students who are on minimum loan due to household income.

Therefore, if on the minimum loan, most students need an extra approx. £5k py.

This £5k py top up may be funded by parents, if you can, but if not it could be from other family members, savings (family or students), working (pre Uni, during the long holidays or during term time if your course permits).

It isn't ideal but is perfectly possible in most locations.

Mine both wanted to go away , and we wanted to support that
Pay them £1100 a month to cover rent and expenses

Dh is a high earner and we don't have many outgoings but dd costs us a fortune at uni ..

Uplift on the difference between the maintenance loan is around £6k and £250 a month for food and we have to pay her bills too.

She wants to live in a studio flat next year which is £900 a month !🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

To be honest it's becoming a nightmare. We have four kids so I know this makes things harder perhaps for most ( and of course was our own fault ! ). We have a joint income of 63k. Our eldest went to Uni a few years ago and that all went fine, we were able to support him and he has always worked part time jobs at Uni. Part of hi three years involved the pandemic so lots of money wasted on rent for a house he didn't live in much but otherwise ok. thankfully y ds2 did not go to Uni
Due to unforeseen circumstances ( ds1 being unhappy at his first Uni, getting depressed and starting afresh again, and dd having to do four years due to needing to do a foundation course, we are now in the first year of three years of two kids being at Uni at the same time. I guess we are fortunate that dd is hopefully starting an NHS course this September so will get the NHS bursary. But for now we are trying to help the two of them. Neither have been able to get part time work despite a lot of applications. Neither of their maintenance loans even cover their rent this term and that is without even factoring living costs. We are only in January and they have to start planning for next years shared house and guess what - deposit is £800 each per student. Why on earth these greedy letting agents/ landlords need this deposit from each student now eight months before they are even moving into the property I don't know. It's just greedy landlords feeding on the situation. Hoping ds's deposit isn't so high, he is up North so hopefully less. We are lucky we have no mortgage, i don't know how other parents cope having hefty mortgages as well, you basically need to remortgage your home. My db and sil have two at uni and sil has had to cash in her NHS pension early to get the lump sum to afford it. It will become totally unaffordable for many parents. My dd says there are students on her course who are living in overdrafts after one term as their parents don't have the means to help. It's a sorry situation.

Choose a cheaper place to live - Sheffield, Liverpool, Lancaster for eg, not Bath, Bristol, London, York.

Student to work each summer and save, or take a gap year and save. If student starts working straight after a levels even 20 hours a week could earn 2k, or even more if full time. Plus part time job at uni.

Our dc got minimum loan, we topped up to full loan (with very gratefully received help from grandparents). Both DC worked pretty much full time in holidays and saved.

Taking a year out to work while staying at home, in order to stash funds away.

Going to a local university so they can live at home and just commute.

Term time jobs

They definitely have. And I'm not interested in them either. But they didn't introduce student loans.

I know you don’t have a Time Machine, but we started putting away a bit of money each month the day dc was born.

At Christmas and birthdays, grandparents like to give a small gift and then make a contribution to the savings fund. that was the grandparents idea, we did not pressure them .

So? The Tories have annihilated every strand of society, I am not interested in anything to do with them.

Actually it was Labour.

I did 4 years of university under Thatcher and didn't pay a penny.

(I'm a Labour voter)

Why are people writing ‘student loans’? The loan they get is based on their parents income. OP is asking how she, as the parent, will afford it.
The tories have made higher education this way. Would the degree be worth the amount of money and debt, OP? Has he considered other options like learning a trade?
Unfortunately learning for learning sake, or university as a rite of passage things of the past now.
@hanschristmassolo the loans your kids will get are based on your income, whether they stay local or not.

I do think it will become much more common for kids to take a year out (to work not go off a jolly) before university or to live at home at least in years 2 and 3 and go to a local university. The cost is just crazy now. Even just taking minimum maintenance loan DS1 will have debts of £45k plus interest when he leaves.

Loans and the cheapest accomodation.

I have twins I definitely won't be contributing to uni costs at all. I'm fortunate to live close to a large city with at least half a dozen or more good universities in commuting distance. My children will either have to work and save or go to a local uni

It's also definitely not the case that north= cheaper.

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/people/leeds-revealed-as-the-most-expensive-university-city-outside-of-london-3336122

This is from a few years ago when my daughter was looking, and obviously things can change, (plus this study only looked at 21 cities) but there are definitely some surprises in there.

Rent does vary massively. DC1 is at lancaster where it’s fairly low. Some we looked at were astonishingly high.

Loans, trust fund, monthly allowance from parents (which includes phone and contacts), some part time work and being frugal (non-drinking, vegetarian) and my child manages.

We pay for accommodation and both DS live off a minimum maintenance loan plus savings from pt jobs.
Accommodation alone for both is costing us just less than £1400 a month atm. For 12 months of the year.