Cost of uni for parents

[TeenLifeMum]

I’ve read multiple threads on here about the cost of uni and parents supplementing about £800 per month. Is this your experience?

my question is really aimed at those who earn too much to qualify for anything above the minimum loan but aren’t crazy rich.

For context, I wonder if I need to plan for remortgaging or getting a loan to support all 3dc through. One will have one cross over year but the other two are twins so will be the same time. I don’t have a spare £2,400 per month available. Hoping for some real life experiences. (I do expect dc to have a pt job but wouldn’t expect lots of hours).

I have twins at uni we are middle earners. Our twins chose to travel to uni luckily there was a uni an hour away that did the course they wanted. This saves a lot of money as no accommodation costs. They get their course fees loan and they get 6800 a year each maintenance loan which they live off. They also work evenings at dominoes which doubles their money each month. NHS course also which gives them 5000 a year which they don't pay back this helps a lot. Not all of your children will want to go to uni maybe There are plenty of other options. If they don't need to go for the job they want then it's pointless in my opinion as they will have a big student loan to pay off with no career to show for it.

It's not even really means tested. It's based on your income but doesn't take into account the number of child re you have, how much you have to pay on rent or mortgage, etc. Two families with an income of £50k could have very different circumstances.

I think the whole system is wrong. 18 year olds are adults. The full loan should be available to anyone. If parents are able to contribute in order for them to borrow less then great. If not, then the student will still have access to the funding they need to go to uni.

Another top tip - if you don't wanna pay for their gym, tell them to go somewhere with a river and join the rowing club. They'll get jacked AF and quite often it's free (or v low cost) as the club will have sponsors.

I think the whole system is wrong. 18 year olds are adults. The full loan should be available to anyone. If parents are able to contribute in order for them to borrow less then great. If not, then the student will still have access to the funding they need to go to uni.

I agree but then I think it should be on a "you have to pay it back whatever you end up earning" basis. Otherwise the taxpayer is footing the bill and it would get too expensive. The government ( taxpayer) would then be able to subsidise courses in lower paid but high demand areas like teaching and nursing, where there could be a clause where if you work in the NHS/ government school system for 10 years, you dont need to pay the loan back.

DD gets the minimum loan here too, I top up £600 a month and the loan pays for part of the accomodation. A massive gripe I have is that I think there should be a tax break for the parental contribution as I am actually having to earn an extra £1000 a month to give her the £600. Also she has glasses and I looked into getting some help with that and dental care - turns out they count the money I am giving her and the loan as "income" and she has to pay full whack with no help with even things like prescriptions.

The repayment threshold is £27k which isn't much more than minimum wage so I image most people will end up repaying at least some of their loan.

The university choice impacts costs hugely - we have one in Bristol - rent is over £10,000 for the year plus £400 a month for food, clubs, going out etc, or other is in London - rent is £15,000 per year! Friends with children in Wales and in Northern unis like Sheffield say it's a lot cheaper.

Our son is at uni, we earn 110k between us so he gets the min maintainence loan. This just about covers his accommodation. We then send him £40 a week which covers food. He has a job over the summer as a lifeguard so that's his discretionary spends for the year at uni.

We give our son £50 a week for food all year round, and pay for his phone and bus pass. His loan covered him accommodation in year 1, year 2 it's a house share so doesn't fully cover it £400 a month rent). He works a lot in the holidays and some during term time to cover some rent and other spends. He's loving it and I think it encourages budgeting. He also had a £7k child trust fund - think he's spent a couple of grand from it.

I agree, I don’t think parents should be liable for their 18+ years olds - they should choose whether they help vs if their kids acquire more debt. Many years ago when I was at uni (and a student from a low income family) I had a friend from a very wealthy family who took the loan and put it in a high interest bank account, as the loan interest rate was so low. I found this ridiculous as it was a bit of a loophole. But obviously we’re way past that now as the interest rates are now huge, so no risk of people taking the p*ss in that way.

As someone who only missed out on a full maintenance grant as well as no tuition fees by a couple of years, I used to feel so hard done by. But the system seems 100x worse now!

So because of your joint income, your son is only eligible for the minimum loan, but you aren't willing to top up to the maximum loan amount?

Amazed at the differences here! We’ve on in year 12 and on in year 10 so am thinking about this currently. DC2 is in private school (which we hadn’t anticipated but reasons) and so currently saving, eating into savings, serious spending cut backs and considering whether we need to remortgage! I’m imagining university will be a little cheaper, both kids looking at a gap year do that gives us a little breathing space. We live an hour from central London and I’ve told dc1 if she wants London she needs to commute from home, I don’t know if this is unfair?

We haven’t started looking at unis yet (just finalised A-levels) where are more affordable options?

Name changed for this do I can be honest as you do get tutting

First year halls it was £700 pm for rent and £100 a week living costs. So about £1200 pm total.

Now in a flat and it's about the same as now bills involved too.

My parents helped out as much as they could. They’d been saving for a long time to cover costs.
However I worked 3 jobs during the summers. Between finishing my a-levels and starting uni I saved over 10k, then I saved similar amounts during the 4+ months when there’s no uni.
If you can’t afford it you can’t afford it, there’s plenty of opportunity for work that doesn’t interfere with studies

£1,200 per month here, two at university.

My DD's got slightly above minimum around 5k I think. They rented the lower cost accommodation. I gave them£150 per month each. And they both worked earning around £600 per month.

Even open days and setting them up is so expensive.
Premier inns, travel and meals on the go- all adding up.

I've got one at Cambridge. He gets the minimum amount of loan and uses that to cover all food and spends. We worked out before we went that the parental top up to make up the difference to the maximum loan was more or less the same as what his room cost in first year so that's what we've done each term.

He did ask could he got for an ensuite room in his second year, and we are fortunate enough to have been able to say yes (inheritance from a relative, we could not have afforded it otherwise).

The friends he knows in London really struggle to find anywhere half decent. My nephew had a room like a cupboard in first year and paid a fortune for it. He found cooking for himself difficult as the kitchen was shared between 12 people or something silly and they each had like half a shelf space in the fridge, no freezer or anywhere else to keep food. Most of them just lived off takeawys because of this adn so it got very expensive. Being a student in London these days seems VERY difficult without a lot of parental help.The London uplift just doesn't cut it.

Correct.

If he wants more money he can earn it.

50 a week for food?!?! For one person? Is he buying fillet steak and smoked salmon?

We top up ds’s minimum loan to the amount he’d get on maximum.

I think it's more pot noodles and lots of beer

But it's YOUR higher income that is stopping him get the same amount of money that many others get. You are expected to spend some of that higher income on him. It seems very harsh to say no. It's not a question of him WANTING more money. The maximum loan amount is there because it's what the government think he NEEDS. In some areas it doesn't even cover the bare minimum, lowest standard accommodation.

If he wanted a fancier room or loads of nights out or expensive food or clothes then yes, I agree, he needs to pay for it.

But I don't understand how parents can get to the point of their child applying to university and not consider that they will need to pay costs towards it.

My DD did an NHS degree so thankfully no uni fees. Her bursary worked out next to nothing. She took out a student account with Nationwide because they offered 1K overdraft year 1, 2k year 2 and 3k year 3. She worked her summers to pay this off each year. Her bursary statement said that we had to pay the shortfall of £350 per month (this was 8 years ago!) so this is exactly what I sent her. She did have student loans but very little in comparison to others.

I have one at uni, now going into her final year. Course fully covered by tuition loan, she is entitled to just over the minimum maintenance loan which she uses to pay for her accommodation and then we top up the rest out of our savings which is just under 1k. We have been giving her £30 a week for food which she seems to manage fine on. (Will be house sharing with her boyfriend this year so they will pool their money together for groceries) We pay for her phone. She works in the summer and saved just over £1500 this will pay for any extras, social events etc. She did apply and receive some sort of bursery last year which was £1800 but she was told she’d receive up to 1k so we wonder if it’s because she didn’t apply for it the first year. She will apply for it again this year so fingers crossed. Her boyfriend received a different kind of bursery which was given by a wealthy businessman from home who assists uni students, not sure how exactly this works and whether this sort of thing happens in other areas but worth seeing what burseries are available.