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.

With those degrees, they can do summer internships, which these days are often well paid. They need to look for them the august/sept before they need them and not before they have started uni. Energy companies pay well.

They can also look for any help around girls in engineering - we are desperate for them!

Have honest conversations with your girls, without guilt or pressure. Choose the cheapest accommodation for first year - they don't need their own bathroom for example and getting the bus to campus is fine. That could save £3k a year but apply as soon as you can as they get booked out.

And don't feel bad, £20k is a good amount to have saved and remember that you don't have to lump sum everything at the start of the year, so you will saving/supporting them as you go.

Purely for figures to expect - we paid £25,000 for youngest DD’s one year GDL (graduate law conversion course) fees, textbooks, London rent and living costs. She did some babysitting and dog walking to pay for treats. It was worth it to us as she’s earning decently in the career she wanted.

For those asking about saving.

if you earn over 30k you should be contributing just under 5k a year. So 3 x is minimum. I say ‘should’ because the kid won’t get a full maintenance loan and if they live away from home will probably need that to live in most cities.

don’t forget many students live at home so don’t need that maintenance loan. It’s becoming an expensive privelege to go away to uni and if you have a decent city uni near you, and cost is a factor, do consider that option

When I went to uni my parents contributed nothing. I got maximum loan which was 4.5k per year. And I got a job. I had to pay all accommodation, food,
clothes and socialising out of that. And I then did driving lessons too. This was a long time ago, and thanks to labour I didn’t have to pay tuition fees. (I’m so sad my children won’t get that!!) but it’s definitely do-able for them to fund themselves!

This has been a super interesting and informative thread, thanks. We aren’t there yet but I shall be instilling in my kids that they need to be getting jobs asap!! 😂
my eldest is 14, so we may start pugging away now 👍🏼 we have big gaps, 14, 5 and unborn so hopefully we won’t have to fund two at once at uni.

Would a degree apprenticeship be a viable option in tge area?

www.baesystems.com/en/digital/careers/our-people/graduates-and-students/apprenticeship

British aerospace have a huge facility near Bristol.

They will get the degree with hands on work while earning

@ZittiEBuoni - yes, the lovely multi-storey experience 😆 He does like the table tennis in Rackhay though.
DS is coming back tmw as he’s going out for someone’s bday tonight! Looking forward to having him
home for a bit and feeding him some decent food.

But you say you got the maximum loan. OP's DC will get the minimum loan, along with lots of people. This is the issue.

The max loan and a reasonable lowish cost for accomm (available if you choose carefully and with that in mind) makes uni possible with no parental help. But most households earn too much for the max loan.

I got the maximum loan then which is the same amount per year as the op has said her Children will get. The maximum loan now is double what the maximum loan is now. So I got what the children being discussed will get. And no parental input or contribution. I had to work, a lot. That was the point I was making, and that’s why I put the figure I received.

Universities have always been industries. They are non profit making though and many are making a loss at the moment so could go under. Accommodation is very often owned by private companies and landlords and nothing to do with universites

@Goatymum , ah, enjoy having your ds back for the Easter break. Dd is back already and straight out to her old barista job to earn the much-needed pennies. I feel there will be a lot of nostalgic laughs about the joys of Riverside in years to come .

What do you mean 'thanks to labour I didn' t have to pay tuition fees'? It was a Labour govt that first introduced tuition fees, perhaps I've misunderstood your post?
https://metro.co.uk/2018/02/19/tuition-fees-introduced-party-started-7325709/

I believe that labour had a policy at the time that I went to university that tuition fees were means tested. We were very poor, and those who were poor didn’t pay for tuition fees. Many from my background and my school got to go to university when ordinarily that wouldn’t have been an option otherwise. There was no loan for tuition fees at that time. So before my lot no poor people went to university at all. I may be wrong about it being labour, but I don’t think I am. I do know that labour introduced tuition fees, however their policy was about making education available all.

The Conservatives introduced maintenance loans. Before that students received grants. Labour introduced tuition fees but students contributed a relatively low proportion. The Conservative ramped up the proportion paid.

I wasn’t here but for dh it was free. Pre Labour getting in

Yes but…. Surely you can see that £4.5k however many years ago is not the same, and will not go as far, as £4.5k now?

£4.5k will barely cover even the cheapest student rent now. And food costs have spiralled. Surely you can see that your situation was not the same?

Yea I do see it will be more expensive cost wise now. I was just inputting to the thread with my experience 🙄 won’t bother next time.
if parents can’t afford to contribute they can’t afford it. Student will have to find another way. With jobs.

The best thing to do would be try and buy a flat.

Oh I have no idea how thus works and mine is now in year 9...:-( Please can you explain how much in total you SHOULD have saved to be where u need to be ? Its a bit Greek to me !!

Ah yes the option for us moderate and lower earners ! If we can’t afford the rent we just buy the whole flat.

But prior to Labour getting in there were universal non means-tested grants for all, those went to the universites to pay for the world class tuition... it was £2,400/pa when I went in 1988 to 1991. 🤔
So it's not accurate to say prior to that poor people didn't go to university at all. I worked cleaning a butcher's shop to pay for accommodation, we sometimes got free meat in our shared house and the scientific students installed solar panels to save on energy

@Noangelbuthavingfun hiya - this is a couple of years old now, so you’ll need a bit more, but as always, Martin Lewis explains it best

@saffy2 when did you go to uni? Poor people went in the 90s under the Tories and it was entirely free - I went from 1994-1997 and it was all paid for by my LEA. Not a penny from my parents was required. I took a £1000 loan in my final year that I spent in Top Shop and on a holiday to Zante on graduating 😃

Ok, so labour made it fairer that those who had money should pay and those who didn’t didn’t have to.
And then that subsequently changed. Christ. 🙄
now, someone in my position probably wouldn’t be able to afford to go to university. Is the point.

2002 I think.
the point is, someone in the position I was, now at this time would not be able to go to university.