Affording Uni

[bustybetty]

My daughter (year 13) is considering uni. We are a normal family with no parental help (handouts) hubby is on 50K and my work is about 20K, we live in a modest house and have three teens as well. My question is I have just looked at the maintenance loan she would be entitled to and it doesn't even cover the cost of the accommodation - how do people afford this? We don't have spare money and I coupon where I can, we don't have phone contracts or gym memberships. I don't understand how most people afford to send their children to uni. Currently I'm thinking she will have to take a year out to work to be able to afford it.

ideas anyone?

I know how you are feeling. Its very easy to say save but over the years we had mortgage, pensions, childcare, life cover, protection, kids illness so reduced hours and extra expense, holidays and other financial priorities. I didn't even know if they would get to uni and the loan/funding options have changed over the years by different governments.

I had to go back to work full time and my extra pay covers the monthly rent. We have to cover 5 years (foundation and integrated masters). I had no idea until we started looking at the shortfall. The maintenance loan is £4k and rent alone is £7k per year. We therefore pay the £650 pm rent, 12 months a year. They can't work due to a medical condition. 1 more child after this, possibly wanting uni, and then I can go back part time.

We will have paid £35k, and they will leave with a loan of £70k. The main thing for us is that they cannot do the chosen career without this degree so I have no regrets about supporting them.

What are you talking about OP...

All students get a certain level of maintenance loan regardless of household income. Right now, regardless of how well off you are, students/ children can get £8800 per year maintenance loan for accomodations, on top of tuition fee loan/s (if uni is in london, outside London is a tiny bit less)

£8800 is more than enough for any campus costs.

As for living costs, my parents gave me £50 per week (10 years ago). I'm sure you can afford to give your child £2500 or slightly more out of your salaries. (And if I came home at weekends, they would pay for the train tickets).

If I wanted more money I worked during summer, and also worked weekends during my A-Levels before. But £50 per week was livable if you avoided wasting money...

Or....let your kid travel from home every day to a more local uni.

@SodaPerson that just isn't true. £8800 is the max loan. Many students get a lot less.

All students get a certain level of maintenance loan regardless of household income. Right now, regardless of how well off you are, students/ children can get £8800 per year maintenance loan for accomodations, on top of tuition fee loan/s (if uni is in london, outside London is a tiny bit less)

Where did you get this from? It's simply wrong.

regardless of how well off you are, students/ children can get £8800 per year maintenance loan for accomodations
The maximum maintenance loan is £8800 ish. It’s dependent on household income and someone making £70k will get a lot less.

Either a gap year for work and she saves every penny for uni or she stays at home and goes locally with a part time job. That’s the only way if you can’t afford it.

Durham is an excellent university. Going somewhere different to save on three years accommodation costs is short sighted in the extreme. This is her one and only chance

Why is it her only chance? (genuinely curious) I’m 29 30 in three weeks actually and I’m back at university this year for retraining. It’s never too late and there’s always more opportunities and chances.

Also can I just butt in here for any low income families worrying about the cost of uni and Durham in particular... as my youngest son is there..
if you earn less than 40k you are eligible for higher rates of maintenance loan.. this year ds2 is getting £9200
He also gets a low income bursary from Durham of £2000 a year, so he pays £5800 fully catered and I don’t have to top up anything.

My son gets 3.8k per year and I earn less than half the op's salary

@Legit

Going somewhere cheap will lose the DD money in the long run. So - why the willingness to spend on sport while being unwilling to spend a smaller amount on university?

also @VinylDetective and others who have made the same suggestion. WTF? I can't understand your logic. What possible rationale do you have to assume that cost of accommodation = better teaching or university facilities? How utterly random.

Cost of accommodation can be based on lots of things - location of uni, size of uni, niceness of accommodation. There no absolute correlation between cost of accommodation and how good a university is!!! She wouldn't automatically be losing out by going somewhere with cheaper housing costs or somewhere closer to home - particularly because you don't even know where 'home' is for her! OP could live somewhere with better universities than Durham (course dependent, obviously!)

Oxford and Cambridge, for example, can often offer far cheaper accommodation than other universities because a) their terms are shorter and b) many of their colleges have huge endowments and bursaries they can use to both subsidise cost of accommodation generally and individual students (who are struggling) specifically.

What a bizarre argument.

@ReeseWitherfork

regardless of how well off you are, students/ children can get £8800 per year maintenance loan for accomodations The maximum maintenance loan is £8800 ish. It’s dependent on household income and someone making £70k will get a lot less.

Apologies, it's £6k for living outside home, in London, and with parents earning £70k...not £8.8k..

The maximum is actually £12k though, for lower income.

Unless you have an unlimited income, you have to put some limits on what you can pay for.
You want to give your children everything - sports, clubs, activities, driving, University...
You can't provide everything, especially when you have more than 1 child.
I would definitely ditch the driving. It's unnecessary and expensive.
And she might need to take a year out to save up the money she needs to support herself through Uni

We are expecting to top up 5k per year per child, to make up to 9k per year including loan, we are similar income to you. Well aware it won't be enough. Luckily we were aware and able to save. OP I honestly don't know how anyone does it really, not surprised you are shocked. The government really needs to make this clearer.

Once your teens have had a few of the early and hairy driving lessons out of the way, where dual controls are a must, could you take over and teach them yourself?

They certainly can't all borrow the max! It's means tested even though it's a loan. www.gov.uk/student-finance-calculator

We are in a similar situation. 3 dc similar incomes. All are at uni. All have taken out the maximum loans.
First year is usually the most expensive as uni halls aren’t cheap so we did help out in first year paying a couple of big one off costs such as kitting out their room ( duvet, bedding pots pans etc ) accommodation deposit and bus pass and after they they have worked. Oldest will be going into 4th year medicine next year so will be on a bursary and I think we will have to help as it sounds as if it will be quite tight financially, there will be costs incurred in travelling to the clinical placements and not much free time to work.

I just think it’s a scandal that parents aren’t made aware that they are expected to contribute towards university costs in a clear, understandable and timely way. All parents should get that information when their child starts secondary school (With a sliding scale of income and likely annual contribution) so that they have time to try to get ready financially. So many people have no idea it’s coming their way....

@SodaPerson

• Apologies, it's £6k for living outside home, in London, and with parents earning £70k...not £8.8k..

The maximum is actually £12k though, for lower income.*

No. You're still completely wrong. Where on earth do you get your figures from?

Basic loan for all is £4,200 (£6,000 if studying in London).

thevassal - I'd already pointed out that Oxford and Cambridge have cheap accommodation. I was commenting on the fact that OP was being advised to send her DD to a university with low tuition fees. The best universities do not have £5K tuition fees.
RTFT?

@QuizzlyBear

We started saving £50 pm each when ours were born. With birthday and Christmas cash gifts from relatives, it ought to cover the tuition at least.

The rent / accommodation will be paid for with their student loan.

@quizzlybear the tuition fee is a separate part of the student loan. It's the cheapest loan they will ever get, and should be in no rush to pay back. This thread is about the living expenses part of the loan, rent and food and going out, and is not enough to cover even the uni rent charges.

Basic loan is £4,200 - it’s all you receive if your parent earns more than about £40k. Plus it’s charged at a 6% interest rate. My DS’s uni has halls that charge just short of £10k. Someone has to plug that gap. Even if the student worked an entire gap year they’d be unlikely to save the whole lot. The government doesn’t spell this out as it’s more politically expedient to be opaque about it. Of course then you end up with the ridiculous situation of middle class kids whose parents contribute more in taxes but who receive less in terms of finance. If parents don’t cough up the student is skint. And some parents do refuse to help. University is the great leveller.

@SodaPerson this is 19/20 info so not for this new academic year but the maximum maintenance loan for students living away from home (but not London) was £8,944. This however is a combination of money you're loaned from the government and what your parents are supposed to contribute. For any household earning more than £62,212, the maximum amount a student gets from the government is £4,168. The other £4,776 is supposed to come from your parents.

If your parents can't afford to give you that, your "maximum" loan is £4168.

To answer the OP, its been a massive campaign of Martin Lewis for a few years now, saying this parental contribution is hidden in all the uni literature. We became aware of it a couple of years ago, we have 15yr old twins now and realised we'd be looking at parental contributions of almost £10k per year. We've been saving but like everyone else has said, its going to be expensive, they'll have to get part time jobs to contribute too.

I think the ‘it’s easier being a single parent’ comment is a bit misplaced. My single parent friend is on a very low wage and has two low paid, low skilled jobs. She starts work at 6am every day cleaning. She has a 23 and 19 year old. The 23 year old has just started uni this year, she has scraped and scrimped and saved for four years to get to where she is going. Her mother feels terrible because she can barely get through the week, let alone give any extras. She has been housing and feeding the 23 year old whilst she saves and does the same for her SEN son who is in a voluntary work programme.

Her biggest worry is that she has absolutely nothing in the pot to help her daughter if she needs it whilst she is away. The daughter has worked and saved so hard that a group of us gifted the daughter Ikea vouchers to celebrate her huge achievement. Her mother cried, because she had been so worried about helping her to get basics like towels and mugs.

You have the money, it is just being channelled elsewhere and into other things. Yes, it is difficult, but for you it is about your choices and deciding which ones are most important.

I do sympathise as I know you just want to provide as much as you can for your children, but I’m also a little bit bemused that this has crept up on you when you have four children so close together in age.

Similar situation here. DD1 has now graduated and DD2 is in her 3rd year. The way we have managed is:

1. Student sets their sights according to their means. Student accomodation generally has different price levels. Cant afford the expensive halls then dont look at them.

1. Dont forget to factor in bus pass into accomodation cost.

1. Remember that you can pay your contribution weekly and dont pay for holidays. We paid DD2 £60/week. Enough to live on, not enough to party on. Any party money she has to earn.

1. Many universities have term time jobs. They dont pay a fortune but will help.

1. Student factors in cost/length of journey into choice of course.

1. Student must not get into a Costa habit. I gave DD1 this piece of advice and I heard her pass it on to DD2 before she went away.

@Theatrically and others saying OP's DD should stay home and go to the local university:

This is often simply not possible. Not all universities offer a wide range of courses. Our local university doesnt offer any physics based courses at all and also only a very narrow range of biological science degrees.

Public transport outside major cities can be practically nonexistent and expensive.