How can this be right? It isn’t . Martin Lewis on uni costs.

[Dowser]

Watched Martin Lewis tonight as grandson is off to uni in two years.

So...it’s £9000 a year tuition
Then the highest living allowance is presently £8700 per annum

So...if your parents earn over £25k , your maintenance loan is reduced.
Some parents didn’t realise that they were expected to top up to the full amount
One poor lad was attempting to live on £4K . His parents hadn’t realised they were meant to top up

Then there was a young girl who had to leave uni because her mum got a new partner. The students loan went down from full to low and this guy who wasn’t her father, had only been with the mum was expected to pay for someone else’s child. I think there was a shortfall of £5k

Martin Lewis rang up the student loan company and was told it was correct.

He’s looking into it.
I was shocked at that.

The loan is based on household income, our children have only been entitled to £3400 maintenance. When rent is over £5000 and you have 2 at uni at the same time, plus younger children to support, it is crippling for parents financially. Our eldest could not work during his course due to the commitment of the course and not having the usual student holidays. We have had to help pay the difference between the loan and rent, plus give them extra to live on. As well as this, we have had to pay deposits in advance to secure rental properties.

I work in HE (Higher Education). I have NEVER understood why the parents of an 18+ year old should pay for their place at Uni. I didn't understand it when it was me we were talking about (a while ago I admit!!) and I don't understand it now. The costs should be directed at the individual and they need to organise a payment plan. Why on earth should the parents have to pay??

A three-year university degree should be the preserve of the academic elite: the kids who get A and B at A-Level, not those who are getting C and D at A-Level, they should be actively discouraged from wasting three more years studying (for a given amount of studying).

A levels are generally not an indicator of how well people will do at university. My DH got amazing A levels but got a 2.2 in his undergrad as he went to private school so was coached through A levels.

I got Cs at A-Level got a 2.1 in undergrad and distinction in post grad. This isn't a brag it just points out that A levels aren't always an indication of how well someone will do at uni.

Living off a maintenance loan on its own is impossible if lower amount, rent alone will use all of it. I did a science degree so 30 hrs plus (not including essay time) whilst working 24 hrs+ as a waitress. It left very little time to have a life.

Unfortunately many have the preconceptions that students are lazy, don't work and just drink all day!

@fussygalore118 my 60 credit HE course is £2,950 it's a Law one. It depends what you're studying.

I'm going to uni in September (20 years old) and I have no idea how much maintenance I'll get. You certainly can't work doing a Law degree, there's too much time involved in it.

All my tutors have advised (and previous students) not to work whilst doing certain degrees, it's not possible with some to work and get the relevant grades needed to make the degree worth it and increase your earning potential in the future.

Law & Medicine are probably 2 of the hardest degrees out there.

"our income shouldn't come into it!! And, if it has to, surely our outgoings should be considered too!!!"

Many outgoings are a choice though. And you can just imagine people suddenly increasing their outgoings in this situation.

I had almost no financial support from my parents at uni and my flatmate/housemate/best mate didn't either (both of us had parents who couldn't afford to give us much). We both got the full loan and full grant, plus a bursary from the uni itself (which wasn't well publicised so I'm sure lots of people missed out on that –only requirement for applying was that you received the full government loan and grant).

Apart from that, we both worked part time during term and full time every summer. Most people we knew at uni did not do the former. We also lived a bit more frugally than most of our uni friends too. We both did well though academically speaking, so I do think it's quite possible!

“The vast majority of students are over 18 and therefore independent adults.”

I doubt that the vast majority of 18 year olds are as independent as you think. Most of them have just left school and, even if they have had a part time job I doubt that they will have saved up enough to supplementk their living expenses for 3 years.

This comes up a lot where a significant number of posters on this forum think that as soon as a child turns 18 they magically become a mature and completely independent adult who don’t require the support of their parents.

Students with course that have low contact hours should be able to supplement their income by getting a job. Students with high contact hours and Oxbridge students (who are forbidden from getting term time jobs) would find it much more difficult.

In many cases the maintenance grant doesn’t even cover accommodation costs.

“A student should be able to live on 4K. 76 pound a week! Drinks are about a quid at universities and you can easily feed yourself with that too”

I suspect that DD’s boyfriend is spending £76 a week on alcohol alone

What I couldn't get over was the fact that nobody ever told us, as parents, what we should be contributing. We had an idea of the difference between DS1's student loan and the maximum that could be offered, and tried to bridge the gap accordingly, but I can see how easy it would be for a less involved or clued-up parent to be completely in the dark.

I was shocked when my sister's partners income was used to calculate my niece's student finance because he lived in the same house yet he wasn't expected to contribute towards his bio daughter's costs because she lived with her mum. A step parent surely can't be legally obliged to contribute financially for an adult stepchild.

Sounds like you need to find out how student finance works. Chances are that he won't pay much of that £53k back. It's not debt, it's an increased tax liability, if his income is high enough, which it isn't for most people.

This. One of the main things ML bangs on about is the problem with the student 'loan' being perceived as a loan- it really doesn't function like one.

It's much more like a graduate tax that hits the moderately high earners a bit (but nowhere near what they'd lose by not going to uni), hits high earners a lot, but doesn't touch anyone whose parents were rich enough to pay upfront.

It's a stupid, expensive to run system; but the most important point is:
If you are poor it will pay for you to go to uni and you only pay it all back if you earn megabucks as a result.

I went to uni in the 90s and my parents didn't top up my grant buy it wasn't so expensive. A weekend job and few hours midweek went a long distance.

• very unfair to expect partners to top up non bio children at all.

Re students with divorced/separated parents - my DS went to Uni in 2011 (last intake of 3k a year fees) and his grant/loan was based solely on my income of circa 25k. He got a full grant, full loan and a bursary from the Uni for being from a ‘low income family’. Which was nonsense as my ex earned in excess of 100k . . . But nobody could force my ex to support him, he chose not to and didn’t give him a penny during his 4 year course. Still, at least my son went on to get a first and got a very well paid job so I guess he’ll pay a lot of tax in the years to come!

It’s a ridiculous system. Students should be allowed to access the full amount no matter what the family income.

You can’t force parents to top up the loan, and some genuinely can’t afford to do it. People’s living expenses vary enormously: high rent, childcare for younger children, supporting elderly parents, debt etc. etc.

I was the first from my family to go to University and my parents had no idea, I would never have told them what they ‘should’ have been giving. They gave what they could afford and I worked. Depending on the course you do it may not be easy to work alongside studying.

It is shit. No idea what students are supposed to do if parents cant gelp

The other aspect of all this is that parents can block their child's university plans by just refusing to fill in the forms. DH's absolute scumbag parents did this and so he had to turn down his uni place. He'd have been entitled to the highest level of financial support so there would have been no expectation that they'd have to pay a penny of their own money. They just didn't want him to have the opportunity and the system supported that.

I had to use the last £14000 of my husband’s life insurance to pay for my youngest’s uni fees and living expenses as he did a HND (?) at college. He could have went into second year on one of the courses but it wasn’t doing the modules (excuse me if I’ve got the terminology wrong) he needed, in order to go into the branch of the career he wanted to work in. Because he chose a different course and had to start in first year, he wasn’t entitled to help with fees or living costs. He did get help with rent. Yet they would have given him the student loans for his 2nd, 3rd and 4th year at uni. Sounds great but it was only a three year course. Thankfully he worked hard, qualified and has a great job, so it wa worth it.

20 years ago it was the same as now. Means testing etc. But the course was 3k a year.

You could do a degree in two years if you were taught as you are at school say 9am to 5pm. DS has lecturers who come in after they have done a days work themselves, so not ideal to have a lecture in the evening, because then how do you get a job when your lectures are at all times of the day and evening.

• you have got to be fucking joking, right?

I would love him to have the full uni experience. His dad didn’t go to uni as he had him to look after, being a single dad.

We live in a very working class town, it would b great for him to have a broader experience of going away to uni , spreading his wings .

I think the worst thing would be living st home and travelling every day

Are there still schemes in place via the universities to receive grants for - first child in family to go to university?

My son got this six years ago, coupled with a scholarship for his course and a bursary which coupled with a family income of less than £25K meant that we didn't need to pay anything at all. For his Masters he was headhunted and given a scholarship to an American uni, paying fares, laptop, clothes, food, accommodation and tuition, plus payment for sports competition. He's come back with the equivalent of £5K in the bank.

Have a look into bursaries, university schemes given through the universities too. They can help tremendously.

My DS1 gets under £4k (or about that) he lives at home, we pay his travel (£200 an month) and obviously cover his food and roof over his head etc. For him it's plenty and he's only had 20 weeks contact time (though it is 5 (full-ish) days a week. Plenty of time off over the summer to get a job and supplement his income. Our Dss are only a year apart so Ds2 will start this year and there is no account taken in the check on income, for the fact we are already supporting one student. DS2 will be moving away, he is also only entitled to the minimum. this doesn't ever cover accommodation. we are below average income as a household.

This has always made me so angry - especially from the politicians who proclaim that finance doesn't prevent any student from going to uni. Of course it does.

We've had 2 children at uni and it has been so tough supporting them. That's without finding lump sums for house deposits and letting agents fees on top of everything else.

The student finance people are very, very clear that this is how it works. As you apply you know you have to input your income and your partner's income.

So the mother of the girl could easily have kept her relationship as a boyfriend/girlfriend not living together. In much the same way that a lot of parents don't move partner's in when the children are young so they don't lose tax credits etc.

My DH pays very happily for DD, but then he's known her since she was 6 and he's the only dad she's ever had.

Separated parents, only the resident parent is assessed, as that is the household. I know a lot of students who are getting the maximum loan because mum is on a low income, but dad pays them an allowance at the same rate he used to pay in maintenance. Those students have a much fancier lifestyle than my DD and her friends who are living reasonably comfortably on the equivalent of maximum loans (with varying levels of parental input)

When pp have quoted costs for accommodation is that the private sector or the halls of residences.

For some reason I seem to think that the halls will be cheaper and nicer but maybe not.

Dh and I did a dowsing course in Leicester university in September.. that was a nice set up in a nice area. I hope to god it doesn’t cost £5k for what...about 30 weeks