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.

@Iamgettingolderandgrumpier

Nope

@Brokeandold Oh goodness me - that’s hard to read. You’re lovely parents 🙂

@Iamgettingolderandgrumpier

It has all changed I’m afraid - Martin Lewis is always a good place to look if you need clarity (and it’s got worse since he made this video too)

I’ve got two kids at uni (not Bristol) and they use their maintenance loan for food, clothes, going out etc and we pay for their rent. Currently about £1200 a month for them both.

@Youhadmeathello1 I think I’m looking at somewhere near that, possibly a bit more. It’s going to sting. Hope you’re not going without too badly?

You're screwed! Look at today's new reports of student.graduates with massive debts which they';ll never pay off.
My youngest daughter went to Bristol (Law degree) just as my husband lost his job with an American software company post 9/11. We had helped as much as we could and she worked jobs during term time but still ended up with £13,000 in student loans, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown said it was "OK because banks would not take student debts into account" (&(&$&$^%!). When she graduated it would have taken 30 years to pay off her debt at 4% interest pa. We had £13k in ISAs so we gave it to her to pay off her loan and she repaid us over the next 2 years from the excellent job she got by sacrificing just about everything for that period.
A doctor on the news today said that he will have to pay over £250k over the next 30 years to part repay his student debt but then the remainder will be written off. (wow!)
You're screwed as you put it. Blame Blair and Brown "Education, Education, Education" mantra

Hi. Sorry admittedly I haven’t read all the replies, however have you looked at the apprenticeship route. Not sure where you are but out local college has links with Leonardo, BAE and Thales and offer degree apprenticeships? Would that help?
good luck, what clever offspring you have!

I feel for you. My eldest is at Exeter, on 4k loan, which covers half her rent. We pay other half, and give her £340 p/m for everything else. Her course doesn't want students working part time ( also often the case with engineering, I believe). We have had to add on to the mortgage to cover getting her and her sister through uni, and they both work over all holidays. I am sorry I can offer no solutions, just get through it any way possible and deal with the aftermath in 3 years. Coming from someone who's head is firmly stuck in the sand for th next 4 years.

Given it has got much much worse for students and their parents since the Torys have been in power, I'm not sure that the blame all lies with Blair and Brown.🤔

@EssexCat what areas

@wombat15 they opened the door.

Great thread. Mine is year 10 and I'm also extremely worried about it costs... My initial fear right now is our cars. We both have very old 20 year cars on last legs. This summer is I'll be paying 1000 on one car to keep it going whilst I'm trying to save money for a new second hand car.

1. There is a very expensive trip abroad if dd wants in year 10.

Maybe she will just have to forgo that and I'll save for uni.

I've got 358 saved for the year 12 trip!
4500 for a new car.
It's slow going.

I don't think who "opened the door" is relevant but for information, the Tories were the ones that opened it when they introduced student loans in the 90s.

Of course it's relevant!!

Once something is introduced, that's it. You can't control the loans or costs of uni fees..
That's it.

Gone forever.

We have DC at bristol right now. Rent is average £700 to £750 a month (no bills). We pay the rent then DC live on their maintenance loans. DC able to get around fairly easily - travel does not seem to be an issue.

For those of you who don't believe Bristol rents here's a list
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/student-accommodation/Bristol.html

Most of these aren't within walking distance of the unis so you have the"wonderful" Bristol buses to contend with too.

Don't be ridiculous. They have control over how much loan or grants are given for living costs and what proportion of the tuition fees are paid for by students via loans!

University is an industry these days and accommodation has become a real moneymaking racket - it's ridiculous. DD is 6 months into her first year, she passed her driving test last May so she'd got the option to stay local and commute or move away into halls. The cost of accommodation really swayed her as did moving into a place and not knowing a soul but that's the same for everyone.

She got in at a top local Uni, got herself a part time job and hates Uni. She started with a positive attitude, made some friends, one left after 2 weeks and another treat her like dirt so she's glad she didn't move into halls and pay a fortune for the pleasure. Uni are useless - lecturers don't give students any help, they don't answer emails, nobody knows what they're doing and this is a general feeling amongst other students too. Apparently you just 'get used to it'. So it's not all it's cracked up to be. 6th form teachers are angels compared to Uni lecturers.

£800 a month is over £9k a year.

Can you explain how much you're needing do pay for each girl? Is it fees & rent and food etc? I'm really interested as not at this stage yet. Thanks op.

In terms of how much to aim for if you're only entitled to the minimum loan- if the max student maintenance loan had kept pace with inflation it would be about 12k now. Minus the minimum loan, that's about 7.5k a year from parents so 22k total. It's a lot.

To cut down on their living costs , they could also share a room , plus working part time

I would ask them to get jobs, our youngest wants to go to uni. She has her child trust fund and will have to get a job if she wants to go. We will help where we can, children or young adults need to learn that they need to contribute to what they want to do.

@siameselife @threatmatrix is oxbridge more expensive

I currently have 3 kids at uni and this is what I’ve learnt from my own and other parents experience. Firstly Bristol is known to be the most expensive for accommodation. Do they both have to go to Bristol? When we chose universities we looked at accommodation costs in all the areas. Each child knew they had a budget for accommodation and if it went over that budget they would have to find the short fall. Cardiff is known to be the cheapest for accommodation - Bristol is known to be the most expensive. My boys because of sports commitments have to pay for accommodation all year round at at Cardiff for 12 months is £5.5k. Another point is you don’t have to book through the universities I would contact all the independent student accommodation companies and negotiate directly. My eldest chose Cardiff and on average he has a surplus of £200 a month compared to his brother who went to Newcastle. My son who went to Newcastle knew he would have to pay for his own accommodation in the summer and budget more in term time, which he does, this means he has to work every hour he can in every holiday, as working in term time isn’t really feasible due to work load and extensive sporting commitments. So I would suggest your starting point is the £4767 that they are entitled to, so you need to find accommodation as close to that cost as possible. I would if possible also maybe suggest they look at other uni options. Not all locations work out at £8k a year, on average Bristol is £50 a week more than other places. Another thing to look at is different options like no en-suite etc as this also makes it cheaper. We had a spread sheet to work it all out. So for example you start with the £4767, if you found accommodation at £155 a week (which is very feasible in most places apart from Bristol - but if you search hard enough you Kay find it in Bristol as well) over 39 weeks you would have to contribute £1278 a year to top up the amount. This x 3 years x 2 = £7668 over the 3 years. Then I would split the remainder over 3 years divided by 2 so £12332 / 6 = £2055 divided by 39 weeks = £52.70 a week for food. Then because they aren’t at home you will be paying less on food / Bills etc so could give another £25 a week towards living. £77.70 for food etc is doable. It’s not lavish but it is doable. So to sum up you need to search high and low for accommodation that is not more than £155 a week for 39 weeks. On yiur current budget you just can’t stretch to the £205 on average that most of Bristol is asking for. Finding student accommodation is very similar to buying a house you have to cut your cloth accordingly. My eldest chose Cardiff because he liked the uni and accommodation was cheaper he could have gone to London but he would have struggled financially. My other son was determined to go to Newcastle where accommodation is more expensive he has to budget really hard and work, but he has no regrets. You have to let your girls know the budget and then let them know if they want more they need to help find it or budget accordingly, so for example they want to go to Bristol at an extra £50 a week, you will lend them that extra £50 a week but in the summer every penny they earn equating to £1950 needs to come back to you to go back into the pot for the following year. My third sons accommodation was in the middle of the other two and he works but the pressure isn’t as great as his twins. Hope that helps. Sorry it’s all a bit jumbled but heading out to work to help fund my 3 boys 😂