Uni- how much?

[LotsOfBalloons]

So my eldest is in yr 9 and I have 2 kids.

Fibancially we have stretched ourselves to manage music lessons, swimming etc.

Both are at a grammar school and are expecting to do uni.

I'm starting to get The Fear. Our income isn't high for a number of reasons and we haven't got capacity to save beyond 100 a month we save for car issues/etc. We don't do expensive holidays, have old cars etc.

A threads I was on suggested needing 30k for uni. That's so way beyond us.

I was wondering if people could let me know what they do need (ie don't come and tell me you've bought your child a house etc as not relevant!)

I went before fees were introduced. I know they have loans now (I'm already anxious about them leaving in debt but I know its how it works now) but do the loans cover enough?

My child is keen to work too but there aren't Saturday jobs like there used to be and noo e around here employs under 16s anyway. Having said that, they're autistic and may not have capacity for work and uni at the same time.

My DD is just finishing 1st year, she gets the minimum loan and we pay any excess accommodation and £300/month living expenses. This year we gave her £5.5k. Next year's accommodation is more expensive so we will need to find £8.5k.
Hoping 3rd year will be cheaper!

Some posters think they can. Others say it won't cover basics.

Well yes-both those things can be true. If your child picks a university in an expensive area, it probably won’t cover the basics.

Catered halls at my local uni (I think it’s breakfast and dinner only) are £9-10k an academic year. The flats and rooms in the private halls of residence type places that are popping up in the big uni cities are also in the region of a grand a month. Rooms in shared houses will be less but then they’d have bills to pay on top.

That's helpful Save - so yr 1 it was basically the same as topping up to "full loan".

And yr 2 a lot more!

Shiny - we will be drumming it into them that cost of accommodation will be a factor.

I dont want them to feel as limited at uni as some people have said but it's a fact of life. Looking back I wish I'd been able to use those long summers for travel etc but it just wasn't possible.

Your doing your best Op by coming on here doing your research as you already know by reading threads there are areas of the UK were accommodation is very expensive and kids will need 14k all in from somewhere employment parents whatever in order to live there and that’s now not in years time but there plenty of places left were the £9k can get you accommodation and pay for living just make sure your kids are clear not to even choose the expensive places as one of their 5 choices as it would be pointless that’s what I had to do with mine wanting to apply to London Universities not a cat in hells chance!! Or even better live at home

Yes London is definitely out!

I think home is out too (there is a uni but bus/train/bus would be about 90mins)

Costs, Durham uni was £6300 ish for first year accommodation. Durham has a set rate across the board for all the accommodation and adds amounts for en-suite (which is the above figure) and reduces for shared bathrooms and shared rooms. The above figure is self catered. Some unis including Durham have catered halls which cost more.

Ds got the minimum loan which was £4.5k for first year. But your child will be on a higher maintenance loan amount. Second and third year house sharing should cost a lot less. Rough figures, £35 per week for supermarket shop, £3.60 for the washing machine, tumble drying was free in first year halls. For second year he pays £1.80 for that.

Things to consider, any course materials like books, stuff that lots of students have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Spotify, phone contracts, travel home and any socialising. Accommodation costs are listed online, Warwick for example has very cheap and quite frankly shitty accommodation all the way up to over £200 per week! These are things you can look at in advance. If you posted on the Higher Education board you can ask what unis are expensive for accommodation for 2nd and 3rd years, Bristol and Exeter spring to mind although I may be mistaken as my child isn't there.

When people say they pay their child X amount, my son is only paid by us whilst at uni which is for 30 weeks.

My experience is you cannot survive on a full maintenance loan.

You need to do the sums, most of the figures are on this thread.

DDs accommodation in halls in a non London Uni are £8400. The full maintenance loan is £9250 so that’s £850 left over, or £20 for the 42 weeks term time. There some cheaper uni accommodation choices which could provide your DC with a around £70 pw which still seems pretty tight if you’re including books, travel to and from campus/home etc.

most uni’s have their options online so you can explore figures

£5k per year per child 👧 s what you are expected to find according to the loans system if your household income is over £65k (ish might have gone up). We saved £50 per month (per child from birth (child benefit) which gave us about £10k each for them which we then added to spread over the 3 years.

That sort of commute might be doable depending on the course. Many degrees only involve 12-15 contact hours each week, sometimes less. (Things like medicine and some science degrees have much more.) Sometimes that is spread throughout the week, sometimes concentrated in just a couple of days.

Do note that some universities are significantly cheaper than others for living costs eg dd is at Cardiff and paid a £30 a week less than her sister for halls, and only £70 a week for private in second year, that's now.

A friends son worked most of his gap year and that plus earlier savings and he had £11k saved up for when he started.
Your kids will presumably be allowed to get the maximum loan. Plus savings from working over the summers from age16. And if it still doesn't work - he may have to stay home and go to local uni (if there is one).

Yes the full loan (£9k) covers everything in cheaper cities. Dd has only spent £8k this year!

Oh and another thought one of mine got a £3k bursary from her university because she was on full loan that year (I had split from her dad and my income is minuscule year 3 she had to go back to minimum loan as I had moved i with my dp)

It does seem the cost of the city will be a major influence! I will be starting threads closer to the time. They don't want to be too far away from home (autistic- ease of getting back to "safety" will factor) so it will be south England but there's still some wiggle room within that. Not london!

And it could be closer to 2hours by the time you add travel to the bus stop, waiting for a bus, catching train - but that might not be impossible say for yr 2 if theyre not in every day.

Accommodation costs really do vary. My ds went to Warwick and accommodation starts now at £117 per week and goes up to about £220 per week. I think £117 per week for 35 weeks per year is quite reasonable for university accommodation. As previous posters have mentioned being able to cook also helps. Ds’s expenses were relatively low as he wasn’t really interested in drinking and parties, but enjoyed sport and the university offered student discounts so not too expensive. My ds also worked in both summer holidays and used that money to fund expenses at university: we paid for his accommodation and travel in years 2 and 3and he paid for food and entertainment.

The Higher Education board on here is fabulous, @LotsOfBalloons , I’m sure you will get plenty of info and advice on specific universities if you need it. Good luck to your DSes!

Shanghi - yes that's definitely good value adds warwick to the list!

Thanks Saucery. I will just be sewing the seeds that cost has to factor over the next couple of years!

Mine gets the full maintanance loan , I don't actually know how much that is! He pays I think £105 a week accommodation and has his own bathroom , well he did he's just finished his first year and is paying a bit more privately next year, says he spends about £35 a week on food and says he'd be fine living on the loan . He is a really good cook though and goes to the local market for his food

He did take a year off to work though from choice and was able to take his job with him when he started uni so earns an extra £1000 a month, which he spends on records and other things ge doesn't need! (He also saves some as he needs money for his third year abroad

It totally depends where they go. The only advice I gave was think carefully about costs of accommodation and don't share a bathroom if you don't need to the first year

More figures for @LotsOfBalloons, since they are more reassuring than "doing fine!"

With top-up, my DD got about £10k for First Year (roughly the same as maximum loan). She's in a lovely, small, city.

Accommodation was £4.8k (bills included, self-catering, shared house owned by the uni), leaving £5.2k, which over the whole year is £100/week for everything else. She could walk to uni, doesn't drink or party hard. Some costs for books etc but more than enough to live on.

For reference, in Second Year, her accommodation will be £8.4k, bills included (mainly since it's a 51-week contract). We're topping up to around £12k (a little bit over maximum loan, but a round number). So £3.6 to live off, but adding in around £2k earned from her summer job, it's still around £100/week over the year. She's still within walking distance of uni. Obviously her expenses are less when she's at home.

Hope that reassures you! PM me if you'd like more details (which would be a bit identifying given very few DC here go to her uni AFAIK).

Actually he paid £109 this year and its going down to £105 for second year

90 minutes could well be do-able depending on how much time they need to be on campus. They'll also probably not be on campus much at all in the third term each year, maybe just for the occasional revision session and exams. For the first two terms, it depends on the course they're doing - obviously the likes of lab-based courses come with an increased requirement to be in the labs, but humanities etc may be just occasional lectures/tutorials and even lectures may well be online so not needing a physical presence.

Maybe live on or near campus in the first year to get the full "experience" of Uni, and then return to live at home and commute for years 2 and 3?

My son lives about half an hour away from uni (years 2 and 3) in student flats, but hasn't been on campus more than 2 days per week, he's doing a Maths degree, and he's currently doing final exams and is only going to campus on exam days since returning at Easter as there's been nothing else to go there for (revision sessions all online!).

I think I misread your original post OP. My uni daughter's boyfriend is on a full maintenance loan and is managing fine in a midlands city. Manages some cheaper nights out (student nights help!) and has found some societies to join that aren't too pricy.

Accommodation varies a huge amount between universities and shared houses are definitely cheaper. If they can cook it helps massively. My daughter budgets £20pw for food but does a bigger shop and gets it delivered monthly and then top it up. She batch cooks and uses the freezer that none of her flatmates bother with.

With full (or almost full) maintenance loan from what you’re saying OP your dc will be fine. Like lots of pp have said, there are some really expensive unis where accommodation costs are prohibitive, but those aside, the full (or almost full) maintenance loan will be the same as other kids are getting, even if theirs is made up of a lower loan and higher parental contribution. The end result - and amount- is the same. Of course some dc will always have more, but broadly that’s the deal. The system actually works ‘best’ (I agree it’s not ideal for anyone and Defs should be clearer + communicated miles earlier because so many ppl don’t know) for families on lower incomes.

Hi OP.

My parents didn’t give me anything towards uni. For xmas and birthday my mum gave me supermarket vouchers etc.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford uni so I took a gap year, worked in a shop and saved up money that year while living at home. My mum didn’t charge me any rent or bills. I then worked all the uni holidays. That was to cover my living costs on top of my maintenance loan.

For tuition fees just let DC get into debt.