Looking like both kids are going to Bristol at the same time - how screwed am I?

[CottonOn]

Posting here for traffic.
Two kids, 13 months apart, both want to do aeronautical engineering, one girl starting this autumn, the second the next.

They’ll get the minimum maintenance loan. I’ve got roughly 20k set aside which I naively thought would give them a fairly pleasant 3 years. I’ve only just clocked that actually this isn’t nearly enough.

This is what the calculator is telling me

You could get a £4,767 Maintenance Loan to contribute towards your living costs.
How your Maintenance Loan is calculated:
£10,227 (the maximum Maintenance Loan available)

• £5,460 (the amount you might not be eligible for, based on your answers)

= £4,767 (the amount you could be eligible for, based on your answers)

I’m going to have to stump up £10,920 in the years where they are both there simultaneously just to get to the basic £10,227 and it ooks like accommodation is going to eat up 8k, so even that won’t be enough.

Can anyone tell me how much it’s realistically going to cost to top them up enough to live in Bristol? I’ve been so blithely naive all these years thinking I’d squirrelled enough away. Could kick myself.

Really in Bristol? I'd love to know how you work that one out.

Random search on rightmove re potential to buy a property in Bristol and then rent out to students with your dc or other MNs dc taking one room for free.

See attached
Looked up 3beds on the basis the ground fl living room can be used as a bedroom too ( that’s what we did when we were at Uni).
Hence 3 beds for 4 students
I believe it’s occupancy of 5 plus for HMO applic so exempt.

25% of £180,000 is £45,000
then money for fees, furniture and 2% second property tax if it’s going in the name of a parent who already owns a property. Also money for gas safety cert, electric check.

Income from 3 paying students say £20,000/ yr.
Free place for your own kid

Tax to pay each year and CGT when you sell

The interest rate on student loans is very high, could you look at borrowing the money via a different route?

Ps. Obviously you’d need to pay the mortgage each year on 75% of purchase price so in this case £135,000
The mortgage is not tax deductible

i must live in a differrent world do all parents expect their kids to come out of Uni with no debt??

Not read the whole thread (sorry) but is it not worth them trying to get apprenticeships? Then get their degrees funded that way? Especially for something as hands-on as engineering - surely Boeing/BAE systems etc offer these?

There's a flat for sale 2 bedroom in Bristol where I worked out the payments for that. Not sure if you'd do it as a BTL and let it to your DC. New build.

Your statement about Oxbridge here is incorrect in one aspect. Yes they aren't able to work during term time. However accommodation is massively subsidised making them two of the cheaper places to study and indeed there are generous bursaries available to the less well off students. So your generalisation that only those from more affluent backgrounds can take up places is simply untrue and you are mistaken.

Oh goodness - so much this - I imagined beatifically dolling out festival tickets and patronisingly digging them out of overdrafts with what I’d saved and then giving them a bit for a LISA at graduation - not all four of us living on value noodles! I’m such an idiot.

For me I just looked up a random 2 bed flat. It could be more depending on what you want to buy, if you want to buy a larger HMO depending on finances you could do that.

And yes, rent out living room as third bedroom. All you need to do is ensure daughters (or other adults) are happy being landlords/ladies with all the responsibility that entails. Buy a decent property which doesn't need work doing to it.

Then after daughters graduate, you can either sell the flat or rent out yourself - and as there's high demand in Bristol for flat-shares (and my friend's early 20's DD is still living with her there as rents are so high) you'd make a good return on your investment.

My DS is in Bristol. You can go for cheaper halls - he’s in the city centre and it’s approx 6500 for the year (sept/July) but that’s non-en suite and no sink and a small room. It’s pretty rank tbh 😆 and it’s one of the cheapest halls. They go in excess of 8K+
Next year for a private house it goes up 2K - I am 🤦‍♀️
Def more expensive than where my dd is up north.
We only get basic loan, but he’s already worked so we ‘just’ pay the rent.

weaseleyes just realised it looked like I was calling you an idiot - obviously not 😳 I just thought I had it all wrapped up and I most certainly did not.

I have friends with kids in Bristol. One did actually buy her dd a flat as it worked out cheaper and at least it's an investment.

Our Dd's rent elsewhere is 8K/year - she is on min loan so basically we pay the rent. It's painful. The work situation is challenging for various reasons but we are hoping to sort something out for her that she can do from home over the holidays.

A boyfriend with their own room would make things easier - they'd spend most of their time there letting the other have a room to themselves.
And if not, no matter. Education is more important than shagging.

It's sad that the likelihood is that my son won't be able to follow the path that he wants and that school are encouraging (Maths at Cambridge) because there is simply no way we can find £10k - £12k a year to help him. Part time work can be hard to come by in University towns (as there are SO many students and they pay ridiculously low wages). He's looking into degree apprenticeships doing something that isn't maths, possibly engineering. But again, they are so competitive that only a fraction of people would be able to get this sort of help.

Oh dear - looking like 8k is about right from everyone that’s got Bristol experience. Their loans won’t even cover rent before a single value baked bean can be paid for then. I’ve been labouring under quite a lot of delusion. Drat.

I wouldn't write it off just yet. Oxbridge give undergraduates lots of help if you choose a rich college. And shorter teams means more ability to work PT in between!

Mathematics is an in-demand subject , as a Cambridge undergrad he'll be able to tutor, give advice on the application process etc. International students especially will pay a lot for this. He can earn £15 an hour easily.

No - and no one is saying that. They are saying that a £4000 maintenance loan, and not able to get more, is not enough to even pay for accommodation.

You're already doing more than many parents.

Many parents don't give their children any help at all during college, either can't afford to help their children , or just by choice. Many parents think it is the child's responsibility ot put themselves through college, with part time jobs.

My parents didn't give me any financial help at all with college.

I paid for college myself with my part time job

8 grand!! Holy fuck. What does she get for that, a decent house or is it halls?

@CottonOn - it’s bonkers and such a money-making racket.
When you apply for accommodation you choose 10 ‘potential’ halls - I was literally open mouthed at the cost of some of them. But DS has met some lovely people in his crappy halls 😆 he’s def not with the posh lot.
Loan goes nowhere near covering rent.
Can’t wait til both graduate - we’ll be rolling in it 😆

probably A ridiculous idea, but could you/they buy a property in Bristol with a room/rooms to rent?

https://www.bathbuildingsociety.co.uk/mortgages/browse-mortgages-by-product-type/buy-for-uni/

That's interesting. We're only at the start of looking (currently sitting GCSE's), but we'd been trying to gently dissuade him from this path and to look at engineering degree apprenticeships instead. But maths is his true love (and he is very very gifted in maths). We've also been prepping him for part time work 😂

Universities are a profit making scam.

They get you to pay huge money for three years, and you lose the ability to earn a full time salary for three years

@Whereareallthemillionaires with respect those properties are really not in a part of Bristol that would be suitable for students. Public transport in the city is awful so it would take them a long time to get up to the university from there - they’re about as far out as it’s possible to get. The degree course the OP’s girls are doing is pretty intense so they’ll have long contact hours and a lot of time in the library so really not workable when somewhere isn’t easily accessible. At least one of those areas you couldn’t pay me to live in.

A BTL mortgage needs a minimum applicant income as well as minimum 25% deposit and then there is the mortgage rate which isn’t exactly going to be low at the moment. OP buying a second property on a household income of £67k just isn’t going to happen.

Practically if the girls can get jobs and save as much as they can then that will help, they stand a good chance of sponsorship from the big companies in the area also, so time spent on applying to everything under the sun is time well spent.