Can’t afford uni

[Floodedflats]

I’ve got a friend who has 5 children her eldest wants to go to uni next year but because of there income he will only get minimum allowance. He’s considering a job part time but it’s a course that he can’t really work along side due to the hours and extra work it’s a very intense course. She can’t support him as they are stretched financially as a family. He can’t afford to go as the money will leave him short after accommodation costs. The uni course isn’t covered at his local uni otherwise he would stay home. What do people do in these situations.

Rather than giving a leg up to those who've been coached in private or grammar schools

It is called parental contribution. You might not like the system but it still stands at the moment. Most parents support their children after 18.

I'm a dr. Loads of us had part time jobs in first 3y of course. Harder later on but you can by then do bank shifts as an hca

I’d also advise taking a year out and saving but it would still be difficult to save enough for 3 years accommodation- £20k + in a year on a minimum wage job even if living at home and not paying rent!

Another option would be for him to take a gap year and start work, rent a room locally so has left home, and then he can say his parents no longer support him and he is ‘estranged’? Needs must I suppose if he really wants to do the course for his future career and he really can’t do something similar locally. It’ll teach him to manage his money and be a bit more independent so he’ll be in better stead than a lot of his counterparts! He’ll also have work experience for a part time job at his Uni location during the summer etc.

Are they absolutely sure the DS will only get minimum loan? I thought student finance increased it if the parents have other dependents to support and they have 4 from the OP?

I think the idea of going away for the full university experience is very much a UK thing. The huge costs and debts are quite a high price to pay for this. In Europe from what I hear it is more common to stay at home and people still manage to enjoy the experience and become fully independent adults. It is perfectly possible to gain independence and life experience in other ways while also living at home.

Erm, yes, I know. Except it isn’t just parental, it’s household, which can be a different story. And whether I like the system or not is irrelevant. It still makes no sense to tie access to higher education to a household income when there is no obligation on the parent to make the ‘parental contribution’. We have three children in University at the moment, two DDs in the U.K. and a DSD studying abroad. We contribute a large amount each month to enable them to do so. Two can, and do work, although their earnings wouldn’t be a substitute for our contribution. The other can’t work because of the course. Good for us. And them. But what if I could afford it but refused? That means tough shit, no higher education for you DD? And plenty of people do not support their children after 18. My mother wouldn’t have pissed on me if I was on fire. Why should that have influenced my chances of bettering myself?

I agree with you. I belong to a generation where you sent your sons to university but not your daughters. My mother couldn’t wait for me to leave school.
However, what upsets here is all the people who talk about kids getting jobs instead of thinking about how they can pay. You mentioned Martin Lewis and he campaigned for parents to be told they had a contribution to make. We started saving when our children were in infant school. Students who have to work as well have less time to study. My children worked in the holidays but not during term time. They had a night out once a week.

I think it's really terrible that parental contribution is expected. It entrenches social inequality. I've seen many students drop out because working enough hours to sustain themselves on top of the hours needed for studying is just too much. I've seen even more lose a grade classification because of the reduced time they have for assignments/dissertations, etc. Many better off families encourage their university age children to work while studying but offer the safety net of saying "only up to the point of not affecting your studies" and it makes a huge difference. And that's before you even start factoring in the mental energy managing money requires when there isn't enough of it.

Unless we decide no one should have kids unless they have savings if £150,000 to cover their needs and university costs, there are always going to be lots of people whose parents can't afford to subsidise them at university, and not because they're feckless or unsupportive. When my DC were little I had to stop paying into my pension because my child care costs were so high of I'd continued I'd have lost my house. I had a child trust fund but could literally only put £10 a month into it. I regularly went without food and sat in the dark to save money and prioritise my DC, but the idea of being able to save £30k+ was just laughable. As it is for a great many people today. Fortunately, my circumstances improved- ironically because I went to university.

Parental socioeconomic status is IMO the biggest influence over a child's future outcome. It shouldn't be. Only the child's ability and commitment should be that powerful.

The system is an utter disgrace.

Agree with PP suggestion to defer, then work like crazy to save up.

To those who say it was always this hard - no it wasn’t.
I went to uni in the early 00s. My fully catered halls of residence cost £3k a year. My student loan (the minimum amount) was about £3.5k a year. I still had £500 to play with (remember all food and bills included with halls) before even thinking about needing to work for extra!
Loans these days don’t even cover rent in a poxy bedsit, let alone anything else.

And student halls were once the affordable options, with shared bedrooms at the cheapest end and communal bathrooms the norm. Now they’re like hotel rooms with an en suite as standard - but they cost a bomb, because it’s allll about the £££££. No cheap options available, if you can’t afford it, sorry, uni is not for you. Shocking.

Is everyone taking the mic? Why's it being complicated?

There are part time course.

Work during holidays

Take a gap year

Everyone needs to get a grip. If the child wants to go to university it's a privilege. I working my arse off during my degree. It's not that hard really. Curb the social life, graft and graduate.

I worked early mornings, evenings and weekends all through uni. Only went to the student union on graduation. Second hand clothes. Crap food. No heating. It can be done. But you have to commit to having no life and being overworked the whole time you study.

My advice is look at spare room.co.uk probably cheeper than student accommodations. I could never afford student digs. Rented utter shit holes with single glazing and mould.

My parents refused to support me. They had kicked me out. I had to go to a solicitor and get it witnessed I was self supporting and independent of them. If your friend is prepared to kick him out he can get the higher loan.

Those saying wait until he’s a mature student, he would have to wait seven years as Student Finance classify people 25 and over as mature students. He could apply as an estranged student, but would need supporting evidence of this. All things considered, it’s probably best for him to take a year out then work part-time, maybe even full-time, in the first year if that year doesn’t count towards his degree. If he can only do the course in the south east, I would suggest to his family to encourage him to do another course. In the 2nd and 3rd years, he should find a houseshare where the landlord does tenancy agreements that cover the nine month academic year., not ten or eleven like most official university accommodation covers these days. There are options for him if he can expand his horizons a little, but his parents should have made provision.

I have 2 kids at uni.

both worked all through sixth form, and saved. Both worked all through the summer between sixth form and uni and saved. Dd also spent vast amounts on guitars etc and had a subscription that cost her over £100 per month. She still headed off in September with £2,000 worth of savings.

Ds saved enough to buy a car and insure it, and has just headed into 3rd year. He works a lot in holidays and abotu 2 days per week. he earns a lot and spends a lot.

They do both get the maintenance loan, but if they didn't they could have done it by spending less through sixth form (and in ds case, spending less on holidays on the summer between uni years)

It is possible. Hard, but possible.
I am not saying that I agree with the system. I don't. But I am saying that it can be done.

Probably not for London colleges though, too expensive

Yeah it’s not great. Either have to work for a year or two first, work during uni, look for apprenticeship degrees. I worked throughout uni, the loan wasn’t enough and my parents couldn’t top up. It really helped me get a job after uni, having that work experience

To those who say it was always this hard - no it wasn’t.

Yes it was. Until 1990 there was no minimum grant/loan. Most students got nothing - their parents had to fund the lot.

I worked for a year so I could afford to go to train as a teacher. I'm now a lecturer and a lot of my students need to work to make ends meet. Yes the course may be intense but if your child needs to work, they'll find a way to juggle work and studies.

Yes there was a minimum grant:

The full grant had increased by 1980 from £380 to £1430 a year and the minimum grant after the increase was about £430. About 155,000 students were paid the full grant in 1980/81.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_and_grants_in_the_United_Kingdom#:~:text=Education%20Act%201962,-In%20the%20years&text=There%20was%20no%20legal%20obligation,full%20grant%20in%201980%2F81.

Wikipedia is wrong. Minimum grants were abolished in the 80s:
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP97-119/RP97-119.pdf

Yep - Ans: Don't have 5 children.

But if you can't there are loans and they can work or get an apprenticeship.

Personally, I think it should be much cheaper and fewer people should go to uni.

Instead of just blaming the student loan system, I think we should also be questioning the universities and private companies who charge more than some people's mortgages in rent for student accommodation. Some of the costs I read about are unbelievable.

Before you blame the system, how about the parents for not thinking things through? We knew from 2002 that university education was not free. So there was ample time to have fewer kids or get better paying jobs or work it out.

@lizzy8230 I went to university without so much as a pot or pan to take with me because my poor DP didn't/couldnt/wouldnt support me financially.
I didn't get so much as a penny from them the whole time. Don't hate the poor students for benefiting from means testing. They really do need it.

Abso-blooming-lutely.

Profiteering. That’s what’s going on here, in a word.

In times gone by there may not have been student loans and there may not have been grants, but the education itself was free and the accommodation dirt cheap.

These days students are being forced into debt for the rest of their working lives and still have to work every waking hour to make ends meet, and those are the lucky ones. Criminal, is what it is.

I was a student in the late 70s to early 80s. There was a means tested grant. The only students I remember getting a full grant were those whose parents were divorced.

Some students in my cohort got minimum grant and had to drop out because their parents refused to contribute.

In times gone by there may not have been student loans and there may not have been grants, but the education itself was free and the accommodation dirt cheap.

Nearly 45 years ago my accommodation in halls cost more than the grant I received. Even by the standards of the day, it wasn’t cheap.

Some might find this film interesting…

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/filmvideo/oncampus/ 'On campus', 1970