To ask folk to share how much money do you give dc per week if you suppor them at uni ?????

[ginorwine]

Da goes to uni in sept
He will get no grant and £4110 maintanance loan
The accommodation costs alone will be 6,000
He has a £1,500 bursary linked to grades
This leaves him with zero cash for food , books , travel costs etc
This out first Dc at uni and we are really unsure how much he will need pw in support
Any advice much appriciated
( he can cook !)

We do the same as leopard, make sure the bills are all paid and then top up so they have about £60 a week. Next year we will have 3 at uni, it is going to hurt.

Thanks all its helping me get my thoughts in order .

I went to uni in the late 90s/early 2000s. My parents paid my rent and is often come home at a weekend where they'd do a food shop to send me back with.

I got a job in a nightclub which I did 3-4 nights a week. It felt like I was partying with my friends while earning money. Plus all the door staff in the city got to know me, I'd get in free loads of places with quite often free drinks too

Didn't have an impact on my studies, I came out with a great degree and honours. My parents helped me not struggle but I learnt that I had to work hard to achieve.

We pay accommodation for ours and they live off the maintainance loan and part time jobs.
Both have friends who have big allowances and also friends who have none.
Mind seem to spend most on societies and socialising.

My eldest got buggar all from me to live on. I paid his tuition fees and rent for his accomodation and went up there with a food hamper (mainly consisting of tuna, potatoes and baked beans) every couple of months. He got a job in a bar to provide for himself. He grew up quickly :)

My loan paid my fees and my parents gave me £50 a week. Rent was £32 per week and I worked many different and awful part time jobs to make ends meet.

Loan and grant cover fees and rent-just so we top him up with £80 a week. He also has two jobs this summer to save for the year ahead. He usually does a few bar shifts term time near his uni.

Ds's loan covers his rent.
We then give him £35 per week for food and spends.
He works in the holidays but hasn't been able to get a job at university.

My parents paid my rent (£250 pm) and I my then boyfriend paid my fees. I also worked to cover bills and food. Every few weekends or so I went back to uni with £50 which my dad used to shove in my hand as I was walking out the door. Bless him.

Morally you pay the difference between the maximum loan and actual loan as a minimum. The reason doc dont get full loans is because they calculate based on income how much you can afford to give your dc. If you can't afford this then you need to lower your other expenses.

I can't remember how much DSS gets in student loan, but after I moved in with DP we calculated what it would have been if he was still just living with DP and then what it is with me there too and give him the difference each month as its not his fault his dad moved in with someone. He has a job while he's there as well and then this last year we've given him £150 a month. Think he gets about £6,000 a year but not sure.

Working is good for students so don't worry if they have to work.

Well... It's worth finding out how many hours the university expects them to study. I looked at this recently (DD1 probably going to uni next year) and figured out that the university expects students to be doing 40 hours per week on their studies. Any paid work is expected to fit around that (and be in the evenings or at weekends so it doesn't clash with lectures and labs or tutorials etc.).

I reckon it would be quite easy for students' part time work to eat into their study time, unless they're particularly well paid.

Having said that, I think almost all students have part time jobs. But I imagine it's much easier for some than others. If you can write an essay in 4 hours, great. If not... paid work could affect performance.

To answer the question, we're hoping to be able to give her about £100 per week. I just hope she finishes uni before DD2 starts.

re work, for me the key thing was getting a job that was relevant to my degree so although I was working a lot I was also learning through work the things I was needing for my courses. This is easier to get in some areas than others and can take a while to get, I got lucky and got my job as soon as I started.

if I had had a normal job like a bar job or something I would have really struggled for both time and money.

Our son is going to uni this autumn. He will havt to take out the tuition fee loan. He has applied for a student loan and can get £3500 per year. We will pay his rent (£98pw for 42 weeks) and he'll use the student loan for drinking food, books, travel etc. We currently pay his mobile contract (£13 pcm) and we'll carry on doing that. We'll also probably help out with other stuff like clothes (he's still growing, god help us).

I think our ds should try to get a job, but he'll be doing a science degree with a lot of teaching hours. I worked through uni but then I did a humanities degree with very little teaching or studying! Dh did a science degree and had pretty much full time lectures, including on Saturdays. Plus he was at Cambridge which bans students from working.

Instead of cash my friend organised for a supermarket food delivery every two weeks so they can always eat - might be worth a thought?

I left uni in 2012, was in London. I took out a fees loan. My parents paid for my accommodation, my bills like gas and electric etc and my travel costs. They gave me £70 a week for everything else. I was very comfortable on that amount though I was fairly sensible. I worked during the holidays to top up - my course didn't really leave space for a job term time.

I pay DS1's rent which was around £95 per week. At the start of the year I paid for a few big items E.g. Gym membership, annual bus pass. He has my credit card on his Amazon account for any study related books or supplies. He has £100 a week for everything else - food, socialising, bills. I tend to do a shop at start of term and every time I see him. He's a vegan so I buy the expensive stuff - jars of seitan, vegan Mayo etc - and he buys veg and pasta.

He's just finished second year. He's in the states this summer at camp America. I covered the cost of this this year and last. Think the expenses I.e. Flight, fees, insurance were around £1K.

He has use of a car at home which is shared with DS2 but no car at university.

He is reasonably comfortable but says people with all the loans, grants and bursaries have as much or more. He hasn't worked other than in the summer. He is very hardworking on his course and has had marks that equate to a very high first both years so if he keeps that up it seems a reasonable arrangement.

DD in Scotland at nearby uni although living out in private flat gets free tuition and has the non means tested loan which is about £4600 a year paid to her monthly between Sept and May with the first instalment being a double. So she divides the total by 12 and pays herself that as living expenses. We pay her rent of £400 a month. She reckons she could easily get by on that amount alone, but with bills of around £100 a month ( mobile, electric card and Internet) that would be about £70 a week left so she chooses to work around 12-14 hours a week term time in a clothes shop and double that in the holidays so she's doing pretty well and likes to save for holidays, long term car savings, Xmas, likes to cook nice food and has a couple of crafty hobbies which coat her money for supplies. Her aim is to be totally independent by the end of her degree including a small car.

DD just finished her first year. She has a loan of £9k for tuition and £3.6k maintanience loan.

Her Halls cost £7,800 including meal plan. Her maintanience loan went against that and we made up the difference. (£4.2k)

In addition we gave her £200 every 4 weeks. We also pay her phone, car insurance and car maintence costs.

I also stocked her up regularly with toiletries, San pro, toilet rolls, washing detergents and food stuffs.

She didn't work in the term time but is working this holiday so will hopefully go back with some money behind her.

I feel sick reading this.
Dd is expecting to go next year.
On paper we earn a lot so she won't (it seems) qualify for any loans?
In real life we have a huge mortgage and debt and have little spare.
What on earth do we do?

It is possible to work and do your degree, I currently work Saturday and Sunday only while doing 5 days on a Forensic Chemistry degree. I also work in the Union Shop on Tuesdays and Thursdays for four hours a day [I work in the two hour space between one lecture and the hours after a lecture into the night.] Its hard but I wouldn't be able to live without it and that's the reality.

All work is given months in advance so there's no excuse for not doing uni work really. It can be done but it depends how motivated each student is