How much does uni really cost?

£6000 loan? Or minimum loan? Many dc use the min loan for food. I don’t really think you looked at accommodation options and special circumstances fully. The full loan is £10,500 from memory so of course these dc have to go into cheaper halls. They might get a bursary too of course and many parents pay £0. Or dc live at home. Poorer students have to get the cheaper halls or they would not go to this university. Depends if hall is catered or not as well. Food budget would be smaller if catered.

@NImumconfused They usually ask for £ limits! Obviously some parents could never afford £250 a week. They can ask for a swap of money is an issue. That notoriously expensive place called Bristol (according to MN) has 12 residences starting at under £8000. Self catered at Durham does too so I think you have been unlucky.

Could he not get a part time job to top up?

Ps more for london probably because of transport costs, depending where they are living vis a vis the uni campus.

I think 600pm after rent is ok. 650 pm better. Of course if they have worked in the holidays and have savings, or if they will get a job at uni, you adjust accordingly. Whether that comes from maintenance loan, parents or both doesn’t matter. But I think less than that on food expenses and education is a bit tight.

The reports in the media are from the HEPI report , link here:
https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/A-Minimum-Income-Standard-for-Students-2025.pdf

I find their figures extraordinary as in summary they say 1st year students in halls need £260 per week on top of their halls rent or £418 per week including their halls rent.

I have a DC at an expensive uni and we gave them £100 per week on top of halls cost in their 1st year which was plenty. Students who have £160 in addition to that must be living the life of Riley!

HEPI are a credible research organisation so I’m simply baffled by this report. I can only think that they are also a lobbying organisation and have produced this report to support demands for an increased maintenance loan.

Personally I think it is preferable for DC to do as much paid work as possible during the holidays and concentrate on studying and extra curricular at uni, but I know that’s not possible for everyone.

We pay our DC £1100 a month to cover rent and spending money
They don’t have loans (Scotland so no tuition fees)
We also pay stuff we were paying like phones,contact lenses
They get 500 a term from my In laws

DS going this year. We’re paying the rent, he’ll have the minimum loan to live off, plus back up of not large child trust fund (unless he fancies getting a job.)

The speed that you go from getting A-level results to setting up huge direct debits for accommodation is pretty sobering! DS’ accommodation is 195pw - so first DD is £3k.

We have foster son going this September coming and we have budgeted to give FS £125 a week to include membership to sports clubs as he's very into his sports. He's also said he wants to try new sports too so might need kit. We've also just bought him quite a lot of new clothes to take him through he rest of the summer and into the Winter including 10 new pairs of pants, 12 new pairs of socks and a lot of toiletries. I'm hoping he's going to manage but he does eat a lot of protein; steak, salmon, tuna steak and chicken breasts. He cooks and also eats a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables and I'd like that to continue. If he needs a bit more we will give him more but hoping he can learn to budget a bit too as a life skill. He will have a free bus pass due to his disability. He's done amazingly well better than we could have ever dreamed when he came to us so willing to be generous to him as he's worked incredibly hard from a low beginning and made us really proud of him.

Dc1 has just left Bristol and it cost us about 1K a month to keep her down there. Rent in Bristol is astronomical pretty much everywhere.
she got the minimum maintenance loan and lived off of that, we paid her rent.
next dc is just off to Brighton and this year her rent is also about 1K a month and again she will live off her minimum maintenance loan.
Obviously we had to do a ‘big ikea shop’ for both too although dc1 brought back quite a lot of the original stuff so dc2 is reusing a lot of that.

@NImumconfusedSurely there was cheaper accommodation? Unless London of course. Did you look at all options because you seem to have not got the cheapest in any city. Many will be £7-8000. What he’s chosen isn’t the cheapest anywhere. What discussions did you have about money? It’s very late now and not all students can get jobs either. Could he not have worked this summer? It all seems a bit laid back to me. Have you even looked at student rents in this city for y2 onwards? A bit of forward planning is necessary I think.

Also sport costs and he will socialise! It’s what the vast majority do. They might start not drinking and then they discover going out with friends. Life is lonely if they don’t.

My DD is studying in an expensive place, so rent is £700 a month which we pay. She only gets the minimum maintenance loan (£4750). She lives off of that and has never been in debt, but never has anything left at the end of term either. Works in holidays. Her course is 9-7 five days a week so not much chance to work in term time. I feel if she only had max student loan she would struggle as that would leave about £1700 a year to live on after rent.

I have a DS at uni. Last year he was in fully catered accommodation and we gave him £50 per week on top of his rent. This year we'll have to increase that (as he'll have to buy food) - we haven't yet discussed how much. Obviously he can top that up by earning money himself.

This seems realistic. But we only paid son for 10 months. He was expected to get a job in the summer holidays. He did holiday club sports coaching and worked in a wine bar (so went back xmas and Easter). He would have been struggling without those earnings.

Our DD gets the minimum maintenance loan, so we agreed at the outset that we would pay her accommodation fees and she could keep the maintenance loan to live on. The accommodation costs where she is are expensive £8000 a year. She found it ok living off her loan in the first year (worked out about £100 per week). She did get a job in year 2 and 3 to get extra to save up for a holiday with her friends. She is going into year 4 (integrated masters) in September and will be back to living off her maintenance loan only, as this year will be full on and she won’t have time for a job. We have agreed the same arrangement for DS who is off in September although his accommodation costs are a lot less £6000 a year.

What they all said ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

DD is just about to finish her Masters.

It's cost us a FUCKLOAD! THE most expensive she's ever been. Plus you'll want to buy them things to treat them/make life more pleasurable.
Oh, and she's worked throughout.

P.s. in halls is the cheapest year.

It's cleaned us out.
Fuck knows how we'll pay for (for example) a wedding

My DD is about to start her second year. Whatever the rent is, say you’ve covered that as it’s a fixed amount and of course depends where he’s at - are you talking uni halls which are for around 38 weeks if private accommodation which might be 52 weeks? So say between the loan, what you can give and hopefully your YP has been working to contribute too, accommodation is covered.
So living. I think it’s reasonable for £200/month for food, socialising and personal items. Perhaps an initial bump of £200 extra to cover things like freshers week, societies, gym, sport fees, whatever. But that should be plenty, though slightly more in London mainly for transport costs around the city.
My DD was catered last year and I worked out she sorry about £35/week which included all her expenses bar phone. That included two return trips home (Durham to London), a weekend visiting friends in Liverpool, a few charity shop buys, any socialising and fees and a couple prescriptions.
So is start with that. See how it goes. If too low (and not because he’s off drinking several nights) add a bit more. But £260/week is a ridiculous figure - do you spend that a week per person at home??

.

I mean it obviously depends on where you are, prices of accommodation and your income. Student finance minimum no matter income is 4000+ (can't remember exact amount), the max for students at home is 8k and a bit, student not at home and outside of London 10,500 and not at home in London is 13k. Personally my parents income was very low so I got a high student loan, and paid all of my accommodation out of that and then did some part-time work which was accessible for me as a disabled students so eas slightly hard to balance. I also did have my accommodation reduced from 8k to 6k because I needed an en-suite due to my disability and the uni/DSA covered it. If you're in a more expensive city then everything will cost more (I do think student finance should adjust to more cities than just London but that's not going to happen any time soon). I think shop in cheaper stores and budget well for the week, and term as in pay accommodation first then split into any costs you'll definitely have (sports, food and then disposable for fun but with a strict limit works well).

It depends if the YP has any savings or works too. DS was fortunate in that he didn’t need to get a loan as his dad paid his fee’s and accomodation. I gave him £125 a month, but he also had several thousand in savings from childhood and he worked full time in summer 1 earning 5k, and internship summer 2 earning 3k. He is having this final summer off and starts his graduate job (secured via internship) in mid Sep.

I’d say he needed £60 a week min for food and going out. In year 1 he messaged me to say his outgoings were more than his incomings, and I said ‘welcome to adulthood son’! He doesn’t much like spending his own cash, so was quite tight and rarely paid for a lunch out.