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.

Great post @NewLifeOrNot btw - I do strongly suspect that a lot of students have high expectations (not yours OP or necessarily anyone on this thread!) - recall a mate of DS's who was in a catered hall so twice DS's rent (at least) - saying to me "well it's handy bc I don't have to cook" - I was a bit 😮but I think a lot of DS's course mates are from relatively well-off backgrounds.

It's a poor do if uni is once again becoming the preserve of the rich. But if old SC shared bathroom blocks are being knocked down to build luxury en-suite rooms then that is the way it is going.

Recall on an open day at Warwick being told that by far the most popular hall was Bluebell which was by far the most expensive (£180pw and this is in 2018). Me and DD were a bit surprised as we thought the cheapest would be popular! Guess not eh.

Just looked on Martin Lewis links above - parents (and students) from England are in the worst position. It's amazing with this level of cost/debt that so many still choose to go to Uni.

@clary where did you live that you cycled from? How long would it take you roughly? Was it mainly cycling paths or on roads with traffic? How wet/cold/up hill do you remember Bristol? Was your bike ever stolen?

I loved the cycling element of my time at Uni (much more than my degree, I am thinking back now 🤔😂!)

Thanks

Student accommodation (nice halls) costs £200 -£250 a week. I think that the cheapest rent in a house share would be around £600 a month. That said, I would be looking to buy them a pair of bunk beds and share a room for the time that they're both in Bristol together. I live in Bristol btw.

When they get an offer they are given access to the Uni accom website and told to chose their halls.
They are given a deadline to chose their halls.
Think they have to put about 12 in order of preference.

Oh yes sorry didn’t read the full question
The deadline will be after the offer and before the results are out.
In fact as I recall it was towards the start of taking the A level exams.

First year I was in Stoke Bishop, downhill all the way in the morning lol. Tough hill at the end of the day tho. Took about 15 mins. Some people walked (I had a friend who couldn;t ride a bike) and it took about 30-45 mins. We would usually bike if going out in the evening as well (to cinema eg) unless late-night drinking.

Second year I was in Clifton but still biked everywhere as despite what some say on MN, my experience of Bristol uni was that it was vey spread out. So my commute to my dept was about 5-10 mins by bike from Clifton (lived near the union).

Fourth year (MFL degree) lived in Hotwells, so on the river, biiiiig hill every morning, sometimes used to get off and walk up Jacob Wells Road i can't lie. Probs about 15 mins again maybe less.

All on roads, no cycle paths (this is back when dinosaurs roamed the earth). It rained all the time in Bristol. No my bike was never stolen in Bristol but I had a bf at Liverpool uni and I took my bike there one time and it was stolen by some scallies who climbed the wall of his house and nicked it. I hate Liverpool and that's why. Well, one reason.

DS.just about to finish in Liverpool, its.a.cheaper city and he loves it. OP you may get a bit more than you think as.pension contributions are taken off income. Its a.dreadful system.in England,.the Welsh and Scots systems are better. DS has friends who are both. We given him £300 an month to.live on and his student loan pays the accomodation, just. He's worked every summer in a local.wedding venue and saved alot so hasn't worked in term time. We.have a.year to save for Dd and I have to say have already ruled out certain unis on a.cost basis Bristol and Bath being 2. Given they are adults why parents income is considered is questionable

@clary thanks very much! At least we now know what is possible with determination.

I am just realising how niave Uni choices have been - Bristol and Bath - expensive, hilly AND rainy! What a combination 🥵😂😳.

Thinking it might be a lovely solution to avoiding expensive accommodation, I'd googled that Bristol has great cycle links, but perhaps those safe cycle routes are nowhere very useful (as is so often the case). I cycled in a largely flat city way back when traffic less mad, not sure about on wet/buzy road now. But this has given food for thought. Many thanks.

The buses are good in Bristol and cheap. Electric scooters seem to be everywhere round the university.

im worried about dd putting Bristol second - it says no guarantee of accom. Does anyone know how that tends to work out?

My ds who is at Bristol didn’t get one of his Alevel results until Sept 1st. Yes I know, that’s a whole other story.

He put Bristol first and chose his accommodation as normal.

They said they would hold onto his place until Aug 31st so technically when his result came through the next afternoon he did not still have a place at Bristol.
He phoned them when his result was through and they said they had to stand by their offer of a place but he’d have to contact accommodation to see what they had done with his room.

He didn’t get the room he thought he was going to get but actually got the same type of halls ie en-suite self catering.

I have no idea if this just came up and they put him as a priority as it wasn’t his fault the exam board were late with the result ( international and clearly not caring about UK deadlines) or whether they kept him a room anyway but I do know my son has said some students are not in halls in their first year.

@ZittiEBuoni - is yours at Riverside?! The location is great but the halls are grim 😆 hovel next year in Clifton - crazy!
How did you manage to wangle no rent til Sept?

When my sister went to uni she got a student loan and my parents paid nothing.

Is it all different now? I’m obviously very silly because I have teens (and no money) and assumed it was the same 🥹

@Piscesmumma1978 yes very different unfortunately.
the loan is means tested. The minimum is about £4.5k, and most rents are at least £5k a year. So the minimum loan does not cover rent and there is apple pie further borrowing for living costs.
no grants available now.

The maximum means tested loan is just under £10k, but household income has to be very low to get that.

Thank you. I need to do some research. I would much rather they go to university so will look into this now x

Actually, I’m wrong, there are grants available if household income is below £25k. The amount is deducted from
the loan entitlement though so it’s not possible to get more than the £10k.

This might help.
The difference between living at home and living away from home is pretty minimal when you consider the cost of rent

@Piscesmumma1978 hi - I thought the same.

Everyone gets a loan for fees : nothing to worry about
The maximum living loan is 10 and a bit k.
Rent can easily be 8k if you pick the ‘wrong’ town
If your family income is more than 25k then they start cutting the loan
By 60k family income the loan is halved.

So it’s pretty easy to only be able to borrow 4.5k where rent is 5 minimum.

if you have multiple kids at uni at the same time then they don’t take that into account, so they both get 4.5k and you are expected to fill both gaps, so 11k a year.

And a lot of people say the 10k maximum loan wasn’t enough anyway.

I literally cried when I realised everything had changed but I’d not noticed.

sorry to do that to you

Wow. I’m so glad I came across your thread. Unfortunately Dp earns a lot and I don’t. He’s not their parent but that won’t make any difference as they live in his house.

My weekend will be spent researching this so thank you x

Sheer good luck, I don't think the group even looked at that bit of the ad - I had to point it out myself . Just collected her from Riverside and she won't miss the weird-smelling lift lobby and wondrous view of a derelict multi-storey... Yes, excellent location though. The hovel is even more convenient, so there's an upside to it, I guess.

DD 2 is at Bristol and it is very expensive.
Definitely wish she had applied to study in one of the cheaper towns.

She has a term time job and works during the Summer

When our DD1 went (not Bristol, but not cheap either), she was only entitled to minimum loan. We paid halls/rents, and she had to manage everything else. We helped draw up budget and she was fine.
She was not able to take a regular part time job due to nature of course, but did do quite a lot of paid campus work (open day guiding and the like) and worked some of the holidays, initially back home and in later years in Uni town. That helped clear any o/d she had built up in term time.
She had some savings from part time work before she went, and hardly dipped into them.

My daughter got the middle amount of loan so not the most or the least.... but I still had to work 6 days a week to pay for her at Uni. I took on extra contracted work to afford it.

Could you get a second job?

She was a Uni of York so quite expensive rents there and similar issues with not enough student housing