Kicking her out for a tattoo

[Potterhead113]

My friend is 19 and at uni, she recently got a tattoo to cover up self harm scars on her leg. It is very well done and tasteful and paid for half by her student loan and half by her own savings from work. Her parents have no refused to help her financially (her loan doesn't fully cover rent as they earn too much) her rent is now due and she cannot pay and the uni bursary won't give her any loans because her parents have money and she's looking at being kicked out with no where to live. They said she looks awful and they hate it and will only pay for her if she gets laser which she will have to pay for herself.

ATBU in this situation by not paying her or is it fine seeing as she is 19 and they have no real responsibility over her?

The expectation from students for their parents just to pay up is astonishing. I know of someone who is giving his parents a lot of grief because he wants them to pay for his masters degree.

Bear in mind that for some families, the "expected contribution" is as much as you yourself would be paying back from your own student loan per month.

Now if the government thought X amount was a reasonable ask why do people think 2x is a reasonable amount?

I still have a student loan and my DD is at uni too.

I also think there is a back story too. Your friends parents may well have been bailing her out for other things too. She should not have had the tattoo done if she couldn't afford it. Time to take responsibility here and sort this one out herself. Why don't you lend her the money?

notangelina you think I, a student too, has a spare £2,400 lying around!? You must be mad

Her parents are horrible people to not help out because she has a tattoo surely your child's happiness is all that matter especially since she's obviously had such a hard time as evident by the self harming scars! I understand why she wanted to get her scars covered up but she should have waited until she was in a better financial situation to do so, it's a terrible situation all round really.

Why does she need £2400 now.
Is that the money for one terms rent?

Can I just point out that there is no parental contribution calculation these days

That's not true at all. DS2 has a letter with it all laid out on and on it says something like 'expected parental contribution'. He's a third year now, we've always filled it in online, sent in evidence, and that's what comes back.

she needs to speak to the university accommodation office to see if it is possible to transfer into cheaper university accommodation

She should, but I wouldn't be optimistic. Many universities have been moving towards 'premium' accomodation with en-suites and so on because they want to get business conferences renting the rooms in the summer. My own university knocked down about 50 rooms of old, undermaintained, no-ensuite accomodation and replaced it with a flashy modern building that I'm confident they charge higher rents for. If there are cheap rooms they're probably all taken, unless another student drops out.

Why does she need £2400 now. Is that the money for one terms rent?

That's what OP said. Thinking about it again, that seems really high rent for a 10-week term, though not so bad if the student is expected to pay during the holidays as well.

IT does seem too high.
That times three would be over 7k a year.
I don't think Any contribution would be that much outside London. And if she's gone to London, more fool her.

We aren't in London and the rent is catered so it includes food we have no choice about this as she got in through clearing and got the worst accomodation as the others were full. We also pay for the holidays

£2400? Well in that case having a tattoo done is even more irresponsible. Friends next move would be to speak to the uni. And then get a job.

As far as practical things go, would the university object if your friend tried to find cheaper off-campus accomodation? Would they take a hard line "Live on campus or be kicked out", or would they be more reasonable?

I sympathise with her reasons for getting a tattoo, but if you can't afford it, you just can't get one.

You can't always have everything.
Tell her to get a job for a year or two and then apply again to the course.
I wouldn't support my DD to the tune of £2400 a term, as I have other children to consider, and if that was the only place she could get well she would have to work first.

safari because she signed the contract when she joined uni it says even if she leaves uni she has to pay for that room for the rest of the year

Potterhead113 that seems really shit. I don't think my university tried anything like that, pretty sure the rent was on a termly basis. Sounds very money-grubbing of the uni.

Regardless of if it's reasonable or not for the parents to pay the hall fees, they said they would! They let her base her budget on the understanding they were happy to pay hall fees - which as catered would leave whatever else she had for herself. They didn't tell her in advance that this offer to pay the hall fees/rent had conditions attached to it, merely waiting until it's basically too late to make other plans, and then withdrawing their offer.

That's really, really shitty. Letting your child commit to a uni course, move away, start the course and at that point change your mind about paying for rent is horrible behaviour.

OP - if your friend hasn't yet, get her to the student union and talk to the uni again, they wno't be able to replace her at this late stage, so it's in their interests to keep her on the course if they can.

She has learned a very sad lesson that the people she should be able to rely on to keep their word, can't be relied upon, and that regardless of what they say, her parents' financial generocity comes with an expecation of having control over her life for that generocity.

If it wasn't uni, then it would be something else, you hear about them all the time on MN - there was one a bit ago about someone who's parents were insistant they would pay for a wedding, but then wanted total control of all aspects from the flowers, to what the bride and groom wore, to the guest list, the food choices etc. (the mother cried and thought the bride was being terribly unreasonable when she threatened to cancel and rearrange a wedding she paid for herself that was entirely to the Bride and Groom's choices).

There's been several threads where parents (and PIL) have given money towards a house deposit, just to think they have a say in how it's decorated, how clean it's kept and that they should be able to come and go as they please, as if it's their own house etc.

Controlling parents often use money as a way to retain control of adult children. Your friend's parents don't give gifts, they buy control.

Dropping out and finding a different course next year after saving might be best for her. And learning to never accept money or help from her parents without expecting it to have massive strings attached (even if they lie that it's just a gift)

Well, if she got a place through clearing, that rules out Oxbridge, so she can technically work her way through college. Students constantly move accommodation in the early days as they drop out and move around. She should ask to be put on a waiting list for somewhere cheaper and scan the local noticeboards for bedsits. She also needs to cut back on all unnecessary expenditure on expensive phones, clothes, music etc. Any contribution towards her rent will show the college her good intentions until she sorts this mess out. Set a strict budget for each day and week and stick to it rigidly.

This is going to sound very harsh, but if you are both in your first year, you really don't know her very well yet. Please make sure that you have plenty of other friends to support you and don't get sucked into giving her more emotionally or financially than you can genuinely afford.

I wouldn't support my DD to the tune of £2400 a term, as I have other children to consider

Be careful, you're likely to be called immoral or be told you should be prosecuted

This is going to sound very harsh, but if you are both in your first year, you really don't know her very well yet. Please make sure that you have plenty of other friends to support you and don't get sucked into giving her more emotionally or financially than you can genuinely afford

This is very good advice OP. You can only have known her for a few weeks. DD started uni last year and made a couple of friends very quickly, and they turned out to be not everything she thought they were. The ones she made more gradually she got to know more thoroughly and they're still friends.

Oh and it's true that students have to commit to a whole year's accommodation from some providers. DD has friends who have passed their contract on to someone else in order to move out - this is something that can be done legally, perhaps your friend might look into it OP? I do think that dropping out now, working for a year and starting again next year might be a good option. Clearly her parents are dicks, but OTOH she isn't financially prepared for university either.

It might be a good idea to break away from her parents and make her own adult life on her own terms - but she will have to support herself. Which as an adult she probably should be doing anyway.

Her parents are cunts and you don't have to look far to see that there's a lot of it about.

Yep.

I hope some people here have simply failed to understand the thread or they don't have children.

She thought that money was hers to spend on herself, because that is what she was told. Parents didn't like what she spent it on so withdrew their financial support.

Your friend has behaved very immaturely spending rent money on something else.

You could RTT. It has been explained many times now. She did not spend her rent money on a tattoo. It's a very important part of the discussion and if you read the thread, or even all of the OP's posts you would have realised that.

I agree with her parents. Regardless of whether or not her parents had agreed to pay her rent, a student loan is not provided to pay for a tattoo. Perhaps she should have discussed it with her parents before getting the tattoo, before relying on their generosity. They are not obliged to pay her rent.

Nice. She spent her money on a tattoo to cover up her self-harm scars and that is a good enough reason to cut her off? If the parents had conditions attached to their help, like no tattoos then they should have made that very clear. They would still be complete cunts though.

"I wouldn't support my DD to the tune of £2400 a term, as I have other children to consider, and if that was the only place she could get well she would have to work first."

In theory the parents' other children are taken into account when assessing how much the student loan can be, although the size of the adjustment is rather derisory. Nonetheless I'd have thought that in most (but not all!) cases if you could afford to raise your child through GCSEs and A-Levels you can afford to put them through university.

That said if I had university-age children now, then unless they were Oxbridge applicants I'd be encouraging them to live at home and pick a local university.

Student loans weren't invented to pay for tattoos. She is BU and needs to deal with the consequences of her actions.

I have to second what another poster said. If you're both first year students you haven't known each other long. Don't get too involved as you have your own course to think about. Of course support her but make sure you see other friends as well.

You only know a tiny part of this family dynamic. Be careful not to get too involved. You may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg. I lived with a girl at uni who had an eating disorder and was fanatical about exercise. Her thinking started rubbing off on the rest of the house and people got very insecure about their weight. Looking back it was an unhealthy dynamic but I was too close to see it. Look after yourself first in all this.