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.

The thing is though, Bristol has the MoD, Airbus and various aerospace engineering consultancies. It really is second to none for the sector they want to be in. I know a few people in the industry. The jobs are very well paid. It will be worth the short term pain.

@Grandmasswag

Not all of Bristol is that crazy, I know people paying £900 for a whole flat. You can also look at other areas just outside. The issue is as so often too many people want to rent

While I see the reasoning - and that Oxbridge colleges essentially forbid students from working during termtime due to the heavy workload - this essentially excludes all but those from more affluent backgrounds from taking up a place. I couldn't work during the summer holidays because there was basically nothing where I lived, my pre-course savings had gone and my parents couldn't contribute anything at all in the last two years of my degree - I was stuffing envelopes for minimum wage in the university admin offices to make money for groceries and was on the verge of dropping out.

I know someone even before the current level of student debts who took a gap year to save to study in London, got to his second year at UCL and had to drop out because he still couldn't afford accommodation. I wonder how often it happens in Bristol, because those rents aren't far off London student rents.

On the other hand, I had friends whose parents had invested their student loans, or bought houses so that they could live there and rent out rooms to their friends. Which is smart if you can do it, I guess, but then student houses presumably need HMO licenses and whatnot now.

I’m genuinely baffled by these comments, I’m 26 so graduated fairly recently. I didn’t get the maximum student loan (in fact it didn’t cover my student accommodation) my mum gave me £20 a month and paid my phone contract. I got a job in the first few weeks of uni, and then worked as much as I could in the holidays to save up to cover expenses.

Amongst my friends there was NO expectation that any parents would be covering living expenses, it was expected that you get a job and cover the shortfall. Maybe this is a reflection of my working class background and upbringing but I can assure you, your child will manage at uni without £1000’s gifted to them by parents.

Universities do not make a profit as:
a. Almost all Universities in the UK are charities and cannot make a profit.
b. Even if they could, the sector is in a huge financial mess at the moment. Rising costs and frozen tuition fees mean that teaching home undergraduates is essentially a huge loss making activity. If you want to see the consequences read this thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/academics_corner/5020125-redundancies-at-your-university?page=6&reply=133932201

That will be fun if they get boyfriends!
Seriously?

We've supported our DD through uni as her loan didn't even cover rent. We pay about 500pm. It's been hard and I've had to increase my hours to afford it but she's thriving at uni and working part time. We're secretly hoping the younger one will either choose another path or study at home.

Engineering is quite a time -intense course, so available termtime hours for paid work are a bit limited (depending on eg if they are ok staying up v late for a bar job etc). My dc did get reasonable technical internships in his 3 summer breaks that were, iirc above minimum wage which definitely helped (this is usual in engineering and a lot are advertised). He also got into tutoring for maths and physics A-levels, which he enjoyed and still carries on now 2 yrs after graduating.

Is using the £20k to put a deposit down on a 4/5 bed house an option?

They could take in 2/3 other students and that rent would cover their fees and the mortgage payments?

They could then get part time jobs to cover their living costs?

I had 2 kids in Uni at the same time. One was doing a 5 year degree, and the other a 4 year degree, so for 4 years, I was supporting both of them. I did not have the lump sum up front, it was more a case of sending them money every month from my salary. In fairness, their Dad (we are not together) was also sending them the same, so they both got monthly support from us, as well as their student loan (minimum amount).

What I will say, is that my son did Engineering with renewable energy, and there was NO WAY he could have done a part time job alongside this. He was often pulling all nighters just to get the course work done, and exam time was horrendous. Over 200 people started on his course, and he was the only one to graduate. He is super academic and he struggled quite a bit. I would imagine your DD's course will be equally hard, so don't bank on them having time to work.

I really feel for you, it's a shock when you realise how much you need to contribute as a parent I know.

Ours got the minimum maintenance as well. So the way we worked it is that they gave us all of that (can't remember how much, I think £4k a year) and we paid for rent and living expenses. At the moment we are paying £700 a month rent + £500 a month in living expenses so that works out at £14.4k a year. Our ds gives us £4k (hands over the maintenance loan but it comes in dribs and drabs) so it's costing us £10k a year or £833 a month.

It's amazing that they got into Bristol as it's such a prestigious uni but it is an expensive city, no two ways about that.

That's a really good idea! But houses in Bristol are ££££

@FrangipaniBlue

Have you seen the prices in Bristol in the areas near the university? Also parents would need sufficient income to get the mortgage

@FrangipaniBlue we did consider buying a house down there but we didn’t think about it early enough!!

Yes but rents have shot up hugely in the past few years.
Food has shot up hugely in the past few years
Gas and electricity has shot up hugely in the past few years

Loans have not kept in line with any of the above.

Its very very different now than it was even just a few years ago.

Yes students get jobs as well but how many hours you can do depends on workload and a PP here has already stated from experience that it’s difficult to do much on OPs dcs course. My son studying medicine struggles to do one night a week at a restaurant.

I feel your pain - we have twins in their first year up North. Accomodation is not cheap at all. One twin applied for the three cheapest options and was allocated a space in their most expensive option for first year students - £8500. I almost threw up when he told us. People keep saying up North is cheaper for students but we have yet to see any proof of that. We didn't have savings either until 18 months ago. I've taken on another job and we scrimp and save; kids work in their holidays and only go out on student nights Wednesday and Saturday when pints are £1 :-). Where we live is popular for foreign language students and with two rooms empty we have had a few students staying during the year for 2 weeks at a time.
Good luck and well done to your kids!

My 2 youngest are 18 and 16 and looking at unis. Im a single parent with no financial assistance from their father. My single income means they would only get basic loans, but that doesnt mean i have even close to enough to support them. I have told them both the only help i can offer whilst at uni is if they stay at home so theres no accommodation costs etc. We are lucky that we have 3 unis easily accessible from home, but only 1 is considered to be "good". If they want to go further afield, they would have to be self sufficient. I also have 0 in savings to offer them. The 18 year old is staying local and applied to and got offers for 2 of the nearby unis, his first choice being he good uni. The other is undecided. My eldest is also still at home though he never went to uni instead got a full time job after college and cant afford to move out yet either. Its crazy how low the cut off is. £25k is absolutely nothing these days, esp as a single income family.

You need a 25% deposit for a buy to let, and a house in Bristol that size (4-5 bedrooms with enough space for desks as required for student properties) is presumably going to be close to a million.

If they were renting that many rooms out it would also need an HMO license and all the landlord requirements and checks which add a lot more money (and research and tradespeople needed), and there's no guarantee they would get an HMO licence.

Can't comment on Bristol, but my second DD has just started her studies a year after her sister graduated
What I would say is don't underestimate the savings you will make at home during term time.
My DDs are the same with a taste for the finer things in life, after all why buy supermarket own brand juices when you can fleece your parents into buying the premium products 😂
We find term time our household expenses plummet, but are more than made up for when they come home for the looong holidays and you end up sending them back with the elderflower cordial and their favourite farm shop frozen ready meals!!
We missed the memo regarding early planning and I know advice anyone o know with little people to save save save!
Too late for us.
However DD1 is currently living at home post graduation and working so the rent we charge her does go some way to fund her sister at uni.
Good luck 😂

🙄

https://careers.rolls-royce.com/united-kingdom/students-and-graduates

This lot are big in the area. Might sponsor?

I also missed the memo about this somehow - and I work in a university! My daughter started uni in September, and I hadn't realised loans were means-tested, so I imagined myself generously giving her spending money not subsidising the basics. Her accommodation is just over £8k. I've given her £5.5k this year to make it up, so it's not left her much over. She's used some savings she had from working. The rental on her house for year 2 kicks in from July onwards, well before she gets her next loan, so I'm going to have to find all of that too. I'm on a reasonable salary but have no savings and am a single parent. It's absolutely crippling even though she is working in holidays.

@CottonOn here's a link to info and suggestions on grants, scholarships and bursaries that your daughters might qualify for.

https://www.ucas.com/money-and-student-life/money/scholarships-grants-and-bursaries

When the OH went back to uni we sent out 'begging' letters in quantity, and some did indeed come up trumps with cash in return. This was a while ago but I seem to remember there were books with listings of the grants etc available and who did the awarding. I'm not sure if there is still similar available, I think maybe we found them in the uni library but maybe also your local library if big enough?

There are quite complicated criteria for this.

It's hard to game.

My DD managed it but we did call the police following domestic violence from my husband.

Student finance checked the police record and I also sent them evidence of all the hotels AirBnbs etc we'd stayed at.