If you went to uni in the 90s how much grant did you get ?

[Kittencuddler]

Just curious how it compares

1985-89.

I'm not sure of the total termly amount but my grant was £15 per week. My parents were supposed to make this up to £25 but didn't.

My petrol was £10 per week term time. I lived on £5 per week.

We could sign on the dole in the holidays though. I worked through mine abroad.

I went in 2003, was classed as a mature student (I was 24 so never felt mature) so the LEA paid my fees for me. I took out a student loan(max every year), which I'll never pay off. My parents didn't help me (they paid off my credit cards before I went though) so I ended up getting Christmas temp jobs and being made permanent.

It's shit being a student now, the debt is horrendous.

£0 (child of two school teachers) 1990-93.

95-98. Got a grant in 1st year though can't remember the amount. Then my dad didn't file his tax returns on time so I got nothing for the remaining 2 years whilst he buried his head in the sand.

Still frustrates me that it is assumed that students can rely on their parents for support attending university.

1998 - 2001

First year to pay fees, £1000 due on arrival - no fee, no NUS card. I much prefer the system of higher fees but added to loan as it was a huge struggle for me and my family to find the fees.

I did get a grant in first year, but it’s was £120 a term so didn’t go far.

My total loan debt was £9,900 at the end of my course. Took me about 8 years to repay.

£1875. Full grant. Dad was initially disabled, and subsequently deceased. Mum was initially housewife, and subsequently a widow. (1987-90)

It's also a different world re online resources. I had to look out book grants etc, as a text heavy course meant a lot of books. Now the approved version would be online and the library resources would be, you had to sprint in my day to get the books and papers, and work through the arcane cataloguing system. And the grants I had to investigate myself, whereas now any help would be signposted on a website.

1986-1992 free school meals, low income single mum. Full grant but can’t remember how much it was. Certainly wasn’t much and lived very frugally supplemented by £20 a month off my uncle. Yes able to sign on in holidays.

Scotland

undergrad 1990 - 94 - I think it was about £1500 a year and I got my travelling expenses paid as well. Most of my friends never got grants as their parents earned too much

postgrad 94 - 95 I think was nearer £4k

We couldn't sign on in 95, but I had a recurring job in the local deli during the holidays which was great, they were an Iranian couple who loved crosswords, as did I, took great vicarious pride in me and let me try all the foods. Eating Jamaican blue Mountain coffee beans direct from the jar made me the fastest price gun operator in the West. I went to the husband's funeral recently and it was lovely to see the family and pay my respects. I always make sure to pop in when I visit my parents as the shop is still there, run by the sons, and they always let their mum know I was asking after her. Both the worst paid and loveliest job I ever had.

I got a full grant. 1995-98. I can’t remember how much it was - around £700 a term I think. It fully paid my halls rent (which included food). Separately my parents gave me money (as despite me qualifying for a full grant they were careful with money and you didn’t have to be on the breadline to qualify) I feel like they gave me about the same again. I only got the loan one year (which i saved and put towards a car when I graduated). No tuition fees either. I graduated from uni with my £1500 student overdraft which I paid off by the end of the summer (and I had paid off the loan I took a year later). My dd has just done her ucas application - it’s very different very expensive and has just been turned into business. I actually think the quality was better when I went.

As I remember it, you could only sign on during the summer vacation.

Exactly the same. £1000 had to last me from October to Christmas, £600 of that was hall fees. I knew loads of my friends who blew £400 in a month no problem but I had to make mine last. I did bar work and babysitting in the holidays. My final year I applied for a £1000 student loan and spent it on a pitman typing course. Best money I've ever spent!

Unless you'd taken a year out working & had enough NI contributions built up

That wad the 80s, and to confirm a PP, absolutely no en-suite rooms in halls! All bathrooms & toilets were communal, I'm not sure that en-suites anywhere had been invented then 😂

1992 - 95 full grant due to recent parental death. I think it was about £800 per term (my all inclusive rent was £400) and in ‘93 and ‘94 I also took out the new student loan for the full £1000 per year they were offering.

I had a Saturday job throughout uni and all in could afford to rent a room in the vacations without having to work ft.

The loans were written off after 25 years.

1997-2000. I got a full grant which I seem to recall was around £1900 a year but I could be wrong about that. I also had loans as well but can’t remember now how much those were. I know my brother who started uni 2 years after me didn’t get a grant and had higher loans than me.

I agree - there was a rumour of ensuite rooms in a mythical block populated by wealthy overseas graduate students, but I never met anyone who'd seen one first hand 😂 Early 90s.

I chose single sex halls and lucked out with a corridor of only six women, but a lot of friends were on long mixed corridors of 20+ rooms and one men's bathroom at one end, one women's at the other.

92-96. No grant due to parents income. Parents gave me £2265 per year, as this was the full grant/loan amount. This left me less than £100 per term after paying (fully catered) halls in the first year. I can't remember how much shared house rent was. I definitely always covered rent, but I worked weekends whilst at Uni, earned about £50/week, and lived pretty comfortably on that.

Mid 90s. I got £400 a term which covered my rent, bills, and any food from eating in halls. It was like a café but you paid in vouchers you bought in a book. You paid only when you ate there though. I tended to eat there once a day for dinner.

My parents didn't do an amount per week for everything. I got, I think, it was £10 a week from them to cover groceries and anything else. That seemed like huge riches to me, as we'd never had pocket money so I'd never really had much money of my own.

Then I'd have to persuade them that anything else I wanted was a good thing, then they'd pay. So they'd always pay for books or anything academic I needed. They might pay for some club fees or clothing, but I'd have to argue my case. I was quite good at that, so I didn't mind too much. I think that was harder for my siblings who were a lot less diplomatic than me.

1990-1994 None, due to parent income. They supported me financially but I topped up with a student loan.

During my 2nd year (mid 90s) the college decided they were turning the main set of rooms into en-suite, and going to raise the room charge from £4 a night to £20.
As they were very clearly doing this because they could charge far more for the guests that paid to use the building for conferences during the holidays, no one was surprised when, after the SU sent an objection, they backed down and raised the charge to £4.50 a night.

They were pretty much the first student en-suite rooms I'd come across except for the odd one which was either a show room or for students who were disabled.

Early 90's £600 s term. I nearly starved to death in the Spring term. Lived on the Christmas cake mum had packed me off with. Hated it so lasted months.
I remember having 16p deciding between a bare potato to do a jacket spud or two sardines from the fish counter.
I had a part time job but parents were too poor to support

1989-92.
Full grant of £825 + fees
For my first year, I could also get housing benefit and unemployment benefit on academic holidays.
Between my second and third years I did a month’s fieldwork in the Hebredies, and was able to claim a grant towards travel costs.

1992-93
MSc Full fees and maintenance of £400/month paid by Natural and Environmental Science Research Council
£150/term scholarship from a lab in Kent.

1994-1997
PhD
£450/month plus fees paid by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, rising to about £475 when I was 25.

I’m not an academic, but I have used my degrees every day of my working life (30+ years) and consider myself very fortunate to have been born when I was, and to be a girl in STEM, to have got the level of funding I did. The majority of my career has been in the public sector - the public investment in me has been worth it!

edit: for all three degrees, my funding was enough to live on. Not extravagantly, but i didn’t starve (maybe a love of dhal helped…) During my PhD I also worked ad hoc part time for the university, which allowed me to run an old car, and buy a few clothes.

1981-84. First year minimum grant was £410/year & it went down to £205 in the second year. My parents God a deed of covenant (I presume to claim back the tax) & gave me £150/term.
I worked in the holiday but I don't know a single person who worked at uni. DH was on a full.grdnt at something like £1500/year