University living costs

[Tevion28]

Hi posting here for traffic but do any of you have dc going off to university this year and will be subsidising them or leaving them to it.
Have found that my ds will have £179 a month left for first 3 months after he has paid his rent. This is supposed to cover food, travel clothes. Whats your experience of any dc you already have at uni.

I worked part time in the student bar… 3 nights out a week that I was paid for! You get to socialise quite a bit while you work and meet so many people, plus you are earning money instead of spending it. They want bar experience though, as absolutely everyone wants this job. If he can do a few shifts at your local he will have a better chance at a job when he gets to uni.

I did a STEM subject and also worked in a pub. I did one or two evenings a week and then a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon. I had a full timetable and it was perfectly doable. I also got a job before uni started and saved up quite a bit before I went. I probably tended to go out twice a week. The pub was also a great social life and helped with my social skills (dealing with arsey customers!).

@Tevion28 tell him to get in touch with the uni careers service, most have student temp jobs, student ambassadors etc for part time work.

I wish DD had the energy to have a PT job and study her very full on STEM subject. Unfortunately she has CFS and just can't stay awake long enough to do both.

Ds has some work experience with bar work and retail so good for his CV

DD's loan doesn't cover her accommodation costs. She gets the lowest amount. We pay the rest and give her £400 a month throughout the whole year.

@Tevion28

Ds reckons he wants at least 3 nights out a week and with that comes taxis

Why does it come with taxis? Is he going somewhere with no public transport?

He'll have a lot more money than I or most of my friends had at uni!

I worked part time for two years and almost full time (unavoidable, needed it as rent went up and a bursary I had was no longer available) in my third year, and a lot of people I know worked.

3 nights out a week is all well and good but that's not up to you to fund.

@Tevion28

Without working we expect him to have almost 500 a month with our contribution and whats left from his maintenance loan.

That should be fine.

We also pay for DD's phone contract and she has one of our CCs for train travel, and any agreed 'emergency' and other costs - other than rail travel rest has to be arranged with us and/or paid back.

We also tend to do a big shop with her when we see her.
We also give her the same amount in holiday times.

We haven't asked Dd to get a part time for various reasons, partly due to her periods of placement when working would be very difficult to fit in and also because she tend to come back for holidays. Covid also made it trickier anyway. She has done relevant work experience in some of the holidays and will do more of this next year and year after. This is predominantly unpaid but will benefit her after university and when applying for jobs.

I also agree that in our experience most students aren't working in term time. Some have, though ime it's those who worked at sixth form and managed to get a transfer to local stores. Maybe it is as most if the students we know are doing more vocational ones so have periods of time doing full on placement weeks.
Few appear to have secured holiday jobs too - not sure if that is Covid related, but even those who have looked haven't found much.

@Limewine

I also think that parents comparing their own student life experiences with now is irrelevant. The world has changed. You can't fail to have noticed this - en suites! even single rooms were a luxury only given to mature students. Our kids are a product of their very comfortable upbringing - they have different expectations than we had - we were prepared to rough it - it was seen as part of the experience to be poor for 3 years whilst still managing to have a pretty amazing social life. There's a balance to be had in all things - they need to have the time to study, develop interests and socialise so they can make good friends. For the first term at least they need to be focusing on getting used to looking after themselves, making friends and adjusting to new studies and expectations - it can be a tough but hopefully exciting time too.

It’s not just a ‘comfortable upbringing’. expectations are much higher. Parents’ generation could spend 3 years having a piss-up, graduate with a third and get a decent job relatively easily. Now graduate schemes want at least a 2:1 and extracurriculars (granted a 2:1 is easier to achieve). Lots of research into job and company needed for interviews, multiple rounds of online tests and interviews etc.

Some degrees require lots of lowly paid work experience/out of classroom experience - effectively shutting out those who have to work to survive.

It’s really variable …

DD's student loan covers most of her rent. She gets £200 a month from us plus we pay her phone. She has a part time job (full time in the summer) so has about 5-600 per month to live on.

I think the students who need to work or they wouldn't be able to complete their degree manage it somehow (medical issues aside). The other way around it is working full time (and often more) during the holidays in some form of temp work.

I was a student nurse back in the day and worked as a HCA on the nurse bank during my degree. My flat mate was a medical student and worked in the halls of residence bar.

There'll be students from all courses with jobs in some shape or form.

My daughter is just going into her third year of her nursing degree. She gets full student finance as I am a single parent. She also has a part time job.
Her outgoings excluding food is just over £200 a month, food is £30ish a week. The majority of nursing students on her course have part time jobs

I also think that parents comparing their own student life experiences with now is irrelevant. The world has changed.

I agree. Especially for students.

My student accommodation in my second year was a single room in a house but shared bathroom. It was £20 pw. DD's second year is a room but with double bed and shared bathroom in a house - it's over £100 a week. Her loan didn't cover her halls this last year. Mine covered mine with plenty to spare. Cost of living had also increased much more.

Also re time spent studying. In his second year on a law degree Dh had 4-7 hours a week with extra self study expected. Even with Covid Dd was expected to do f2f for more than this outside of lockdown and then had many more f2f as well, plus self study. No exams so a lot of assignments etc on top too. And during placements it's a full working week with the need to work on both placement work and university work outside of this - so evenings and weekends.

The amount they get is based on your income so if your earnings mean that they get less than the maximum loan amount you are meant to top it up.

Some students with low income parents get the full £9k so their parent's don't have to give then anything. Others only get £6k.

Getting a job depends on the university town/city and the course. My daughter had very high contact hours and lived in an area with few student friendly part time jobs. She's now moved to London for postgrad and got a job there straight away.

Also to add I’m not saying people shouldn’t work/socialise - but the world now can be a very competitive place. I graduated within the last several years from a very academic uni, worked lots and got a job before graduating . It was very hard and almost broke me.
I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else - but then again I didn’t have the luxury of a home after graduation so I needed to get a job ASAP. My field is well paid but also very competitive.
If my DC are in a similar field I will be happy to support financially, even with some fun money if they’re working hard towards a career. If they’re more chilled I’ll give them the minimum and they can find the rest themselves.

DS has just finished uni. He had about £200 left after rent and I gave him a top up of £240 a month. He worked every holiday (Xmas, Easter and summer) in order to make the extra money he wanted to fund his nights out. We found that he would always have far more money left over after rent in the summer term and that the Spring term was very tight (due to the lengths of the terms.) He fared much better when he came out of halls and privately rented.

£500 a month living expenses sounds fine to me.

If he wants 3 nights out a week he will need a job!

At uni he may well find that others have similar low incomes and find ways to enjoy themselves on a low budget (I have vivid memories of drinking cheap supermarket boozed before going out the reduce the cost).

I also think that parents comparing their own student life experiences with now is irrelevant. The world has changed

But there's still the same number of hours in a week and surely still the same expectation that if you want 'extras' like multiple nights out a week that are a taxi ride away that you work to fund these rather than solely relying on your parents and student loans?

Interesting posts. Lots to think about...

[quote SimonJT]@PalmsandCharms Most students can’t even cover their rent with the loan.

I wasn’t allowed to work while at university, I had to seek special permission to continue playing rugby, thankfully that and a small bursary paid enough to get me by.

Nights out at university can be very cheap, so 3 nights out really wouldn’t need to break the bank. Where I was everything was fairly close together so no need for a taxi, but friends elsewhere regularly got a taxi as it was cheaper than bus fares as usually there would be four people sharing the taxi fare. When I visited a friend in Aberystwyth one company had an offer where it was £1 per passenger to go from the town centre to campus.

Parents are supposed to top up the loan, even the full loan isn’t particularly generous.[/quote]
In my experience (my son recently left uni) the loan was more than sufficient to pay his rent. He ran a car and never needed any family support. His loan was enough to cover everything.

My point was why does the OP's son think he's entitled to 3 nights out a week and his parents should fund it? Very entitled. He's an adult now and he needs to learn to budget rather than rely on his parents.

@BarbaraofSeville

I also think that parents comparing their own student life experiences with now is irrelevant. The world has changed

But there's still the same number of hours in a week and surely still the same expectation that if you want 'extras' like multiple nights out a week that are a taxi ride away that you work to fund these rather than solely relying on your parents and student loans?

Absolutely!

I agree with your points about three nights out a week and taxi rides @BarbaraofSeville. I was more concerned about day to day living expenses.

We paid their hall fees in the first year. We gave DS £500 pcm support. We paid rent, utilities, train fares home and food for DD1. They only had to pay for clothes, books and going out.

We believe working takes time away from their studies, and we preferred them to spend all their working time on their degree, so hopefully they could get a first. DD1 has health problems with chronic fatigue, and couldn’t have worked anyway! Both did get a first. We also paid the fees for DS to do a research MA, while he lived at home - he did get a PT job to earn some money, while he did that.

DS had worked in a supermarket during the 6th form, and DD1 worked full time in a gap year; and both got work experience in DH’s office in the summer holidays for their CV.