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.

I've got 2 at uni at the moment - both get £550 a month from me to top up their minimum maintenance loan. In September I'll have 3 away at uni. They all work and save hard during the summer, and are experts at selling each others old clothing on Vinted!

I have twins at Uni at the moment
One Bristol and one Exeter

The rents after first year are around £6500 / £7500. Luckily both of mine have found something nearer the mid range lower end price.

Be warned the really cheap halls at Bristol are a dive. Think they were around £6200 ish. They don’t show you around them for a very good reason.

We top up the rent after their full loan is allowed for, they only get the minimum loan and then give them the equivalent extra to equal the maximum loan.

So
Rent say £7000 as that’s an average for the area.
Loan £4767( as you said OP )
Pay an extra £2223 to meet the rent bill

(Be aware they will need deposits to secure accommodation months in advance once they are out of halls as well )

Then after the rent top up we give ours £1500 each per term.

Total per student £4500 + £2223 = £6723
Toal for 2 = £13446

Based on my other eldest son the full maintenance loan just wasn’t enough to live on, pay the bills, eat, books etc.

So just topping up to equal the full loan won’t be enough.
Jobs also are difficult to get in Bristol. There’s just so many students, although mine have secured something for next year so we won’t be giving them as much next year.

I had 3 at uni all at the same time on a rolling basis as I have a large family. Its really tough. I can see there are a lot of MN going to be in for a huge shock if their dc decide to go the uni route and would urge anyone with a year 7 child at school at the moment to read up about this and be really on the ball. planning is everything.

1. there are lots of odd grants and funds out there across the country. we have one locally which gives £500 to anyone going to uni per year for books. No one had claimed it for years we found it though. Another for women studying out of the county a few hundred pounds and another for those doing history again a few hundred pounds. takes a bit of research with your local council - town, parish and county but you will be amazed at how those victorian legacies often go unclaimed.
2. cheapest possible accommodation and speak early on to the uni to explain why.
3. Get your girls now used to the kinds of food and budgetting they will need to do when living away. expensive orange juice is a thing of the past. show them the beauty of coupons in the papers, leaflets and offers. teach them to cook nutritious meals for next to nothing.
4. Lots of companies sponsor so get their cvs looking good and get them out there, as many as you can.
5. during the summer before they go make sure they get a job, any job so that they build up their bank of transferable skills. yes being on a helpline, shelf stacking whatever is boring but it brings in money.
6. take full advantage of every paid opportunity the uni offer. open days, school outreach, helping other students whatever.

Martin Lewis has been campaigning about this for years as he rightly felt the government were hiding the act parental contribution was expected.

See this
and
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-england-plan-5/

OP, it's tough. Don't blame yourself for not realising sooner as it really hasn't been well communicated to parents or young people.

I feel your pain@CottonOn

DS1 is off to Brighton to study music at a uni without its own halls.

He is going straight into a flat share which is £8,000 pa.

We don't get any loans here, although should get a grant for tuition fees.

It will cost us a minimum of £15,000 per year as we also have to pay for flights home on top of his living expenses.

We were looking at extending our mortgage, but recently received an inheritance which will thankfully pay for DS1 and then DS2 in 4 years.

DS2 wants to do aeronautical engineering too btw!

I had 2 at the same uni for 2 years, it cost me about 13k per year for both of them, they graduated in 2021 and 2020.

A PP said:

1. Get your girls now used to the kinds of food and budgetting they will need to do when living away. expensive orange juice is a thing of the past. show them the beauty of coupons in the papers, leaflets and offers. teach them to cook nutritious meals for next to nothing.

This is important - my kids can all cook and are trained ninja reduced yellow sticker warriors. Also master practitioners of Too Good To Go and Olio

At least you are thinking about it now. University is an expensive undertaking and
Bristol is an expensive Uni for accommodation and living costs as are many in the south (in first and subsequent years as often 51 week contracts so you pay over the summer period. Some alternatives could be to look at Universities in the north for example UCLAN are much cheaper for accommodation and living costs but you and or they will still need to top up at least another 5K each per year wherever they end up (but considerably more if opting for Bristol).

Topping up can be done by them working whilst at school, and over the long summer holidays, during term time whilst at Uni, using any savings, you assisting where you can, they could both take a year out to work and save etc etc etc.

Money can be saved by foregoing expensive ensuite accommodation, food shopping wisely, meal planning, cooking from scratch, batch cooking, understanding budgeting etc etc etc.

Ds plans and cooks, plus those apps too and nice restaurant food when working

Re Your number 2 re cheapest accommodation
Bristol ask why you make the choice re accommodation but cannot guarantee your first choice which may be the cheapest even if you say you can’t afford anything else.
The few cheapest halls will go first and foremost to looked after etc kids.
My dads at Bristol said he couldn’t afford the higher rents and put the cheapest down as first choice but ended up with his fourth choice. Each choice getting progressively more expensive.
Plus talking to the Uni re accommodation is pointless after first year, you just have to be first in the queue outside the letting agents. ie….take a sleeping bag.

For those saying it isn't any cheaper elsewhere, it really is! DD is in a shared house in Manchester at the moment, paying £480 per month, and she said that definitely wasn't the cheapest place they could have found (her housemates wanted a specific area).

Obviously that doesn't help the OP, given the specific course, but worth knowing for others with DC looking at unis. & Manchester also very competitive for student accommodation & has a reputation for high prices, so I suspect there are cheaper places again.
I'm also very grateful to live in Wales, where students get the full maintenance loan regardless of parents income! (Plus some of it is replaced by grant for those from lower income families)

Not dads🤣🤣🤣. DS

Look at saving accomodation fees by using halls that boot you out in the holidays, this not charging you. DD went to London where the accomodation options were terrifyingly expensive but I was pleasantly surprised by making a huge saving using halls that used (as youth hostels I think it was) in holidays so the bill was lower.

Can they both do gap years and work? Will be really good for them to learn to safe. Not your fault at all, you’ve done very well for them. This is just the times.

Save

*thus not charging you

Any of these any use OP?

The Ultimate Guide To Engineering Scholarships & Financial Aid — Born To Engineer

Apologies if someone has already suggested this but could you do salary sacrifice into a pension scheme or SIPP to get your household income down? That way they could access a bigger loan (which given their lucrative choice of career shouldn’t be too burdensome in future) and it means your savings will go further PLUS your building up your pension pot. Moneysaving expert university living costs calculator is good.

Secondly, please don’t tell me the savings you have are in cash. Yes the stock market can go up AND down but I would be looking at a Vanguard S&P 500 Isa which carries a paltry fee of less than 0.1% but has soared the last few years in terms of returns (not that this will continue).

Agree that researching an apprenticeship funded model could be beneficial for them and amazing publicity for the company… what clever girls you’ve raised!

Claiming estrangement is a pain. I was taken into care and then my parents died, and I still had to submit a stupid amount of evidence.

Warwick has shot up in price recently too; although there's still cheaper areas around Coventry. The "nice" bits where most of the students live, in Warwick and Leam, have gone up around 30% in two years, according to the local paper.

This bit sounds stressful for you, OP, and it's been a learning to make sure I start saving for DS - but you've got two amazing girls and you'll make this work. I'd second making sure they apply for as many scholarships and companies as they can find!

If your girls would be interested in lodging rather than a student house share that might be one of the most cost effective options as all bills tend to be included and at least you know the house is well looked after as the landlord lives there too.

if they did this for 2 out of the 3 years it may help considerably keep the costs down.

I live in a student renting town, the prices for student rents are far in excess of a normal rent £1200 for a 3 bed normal rental and £1700 for a student rental of 3 bed house.

I just googled and for Cardiff (where I went) the fees are 9k a year, hall fees are 8k a year. That is without living expenses. So if you didn't want to take a loan or get a grant then the fees without living expenses are 16k a year!!

Warwick has shot up in price recently too; although there's still cheaper areas around Coventry. The "nice" bits where most of the students live, in Warwick and Leam, have gone up around 30% in two years, according to the local paper.

Ive not come across properties in Warwick that are student lets - it all seems to be leamington and the prices are astronomical. You'll looking at £1200 for a 3 bed in a semi dodgy area as a family home and in the same are it'll be £1800 as a student let for 3 people.

Degree apprenticeships is something I would definitely say would be worth investigating. I'm afraid I don't know the engineering sector, but my sister is high up in insurance HR in the City and they are getting a lot of people in through apprenticeships which give a wage as well as help going through the degree.

More and more companies are going down the rout of even professional careers going down this route. If even one of your girls could get something similar it would probably take the heat off a little. Otherwise if the course has a year in industry, remember that they will get paid then which might help them to build a little nest egg for the final year.

Don’t be too hard on yourself OP - I have younger children (thankfully) and thought loans could cover things. It seems not and will be taking a little more notice from now on!

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/141222206#/?channel=STU_LET

student house in leamington