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.

There is but it’s so trivial as to be pretty much useless. They means test you on one, come up with a supposedly affordable figure then do it again as if the first kid didn’t exist. It’s a few hundred quid.

I'm that parent.

Thank my lucky stars my eldest didn't want to go to uni, my youngest wants to go armed forces route, and middle one is going to a uni close to home

Are they both girls ? If so, would they be able to save money by sharing a room ?

^
Was also going to ask this.

I've got twins. I'm fucked if they go to uni.

Aeronautical is usually a 4 year course,(integrated masters), or even 5 with a year in industry.
There are cheaper cities to study the subject.

Bristol is terrible. We were lulled into false sense of security by Warwick which is much more reasonable.
£8000 plus bills typical in years 2 and 3 now. My son paying this this year and sleeps in what was a utility room! 4000 had to be paid before October so before loan came in for year 3.
He worked full time for a year before he went and works in holidays and we do support.

Yep, both girls. I think this may well happen if we can organise it.

Absolute rubbish. Maybe if you go to our local uni which is in a fairly unprepossessing northern town and rents aren’t particularly high. Ooh wait a min, our town has the fastest climbing rents in the UK because folk are priced out of Manchester. So no, the north is not universally ‘cheap’.

Obviously they need to work part time, as all students should. And work full time in the holidays.

Yes, this is what I’m hearing. Gulp.

Parts of the north are cheaper but my DD is in second year in York and her accommodation is over £8000.

The cut off for full funding is incredibly low. I work part time for a local council and earn too much for full funding. Its based on a household income of £25k

Lots of universities employ their current students on campus in various roles. Keep an eye on the university’s own jobs page and/or Careers Service for openings.

My ds is doing a degree apprenticeship, thank god, because we wouldn’t have been able to give him a penny, he has much younger siblings at home. We have nothing spare.

You have got something to give them at least, they will have to work part time.

Rents have just shot up - it's rubbish. Though living in Bristol it's seemed like for years every building being knocked down or re-developed is being turned into student flats! https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/10/26/student-rents-now-swallow-up-virtually-all-of-the-of-the-average-maintenance-loan-as-market-reaches-crisis-point-in-affordability/

After first year is there scope to cut costs as much as possible by ganging up with lots of friends and finding as not-fancy-as-possible house to share. There's a FB group for matching up housemates and people seem to be looking at budgets of between £500-800 a month.

Been a long time since I was a student and I privately rent in Bristol - it's shit, I assure you! I live well out of town in an unfashionable area and am only saved by the fact that my landlord hasn't raised my rent for years.

My son is at Bristol and his halls are nearly £8000 a year and his house he has got lined up for next year is £8000 each for 10 of them. Makes me wish I had a house to rent out in Bristol. And also my younger son has an offer to go there but I'm hoping he won't want to be in his brother's shadow and will go up North. Like OP I had no idea we would have to contribute so much and didn't realise the rent alone would be so much. It is very tough and mine worked before and had savings.

Exactly but most of those cheap places don’t have the best reputations.
University of Blackburn anyone ? Not to call the place but with 3A* why would you want to go there. Before anyone accuses me of insulting the place I’m in a neighbouring town which has a very similar uni languishing at the bottom of the tables..

Mine’s at Bristol going into 3rd year. They left finding a flat for next year v late and ended up having to take whatever was left. 800pm rent not incl bills for a shabby flat that has seen better days.
If they were to have started looking sept/oct last year they could have nabbed one cheaper and in better condition for around 700pm.
Jobs wise is v competitive too. Really hard to get even a min wage supermarket/bar with no experience so get them out on a part time job now if they haven’t already to build up their CV.

Are there any 'women in STEM' scholarships/grants/support schemes?

to answer various people, they have both done a lot of research and believe it’s the best course - neither of them are wedded to the town or area, it’s the academic side that’s made them want it. I’m in no way qualified to comment but believe them when they say it’s the right place to learn what they want to know. I’ve no plans to try and persuade them to put money first - I’ll just find it, but I could do with more information on what I’m trying to aim at. I stupidly thought the maintenance loan was as enough to live on and that anything we gave was extra. I managed to get to my daughters 18th year before understanding there was a parental contribution, probably because I smugly thought I had it sorted. The first the school mentioned it was last week on a zoom meeting.

You sound like a great mum. ☺️

Rents in Bristol are sickening. There should be some kind of cap. Everyone I know is paying £800 plus for a shitty room in a shitty house.

They can both save up a healthy chunk over the summer if they are working full time also.

Well done to them! I have 2 at uni (twins) but luckily they get the full loans. One did take a gap year and worked at Tesco to earn more, and he is on a student contract with them so he has a job every holiday when he's home. Is that an option at all? He could also have transferred to a Tesco near his uni, but he didn't want to as he wants to concentrate on his studies.

I’ll make sure they both work - they have a bit of savings each.