Financial support at university

[Tevion28]

Im already fretting about ds and how he will cope at university financially as after accomdation is paid he only has £540 left for next 3 months. He will probably get a job butvibwas wondering how much do you give your dc each week if anything

@Annoyedanddissapointed it’s crazy isn’t it! I only knew as my brother went to Cambridge when we were younger so my parents had to pay his way. I had to work through uni being the 2nd child as all their £ was gone 🤣🤣🤣

Not possible to do a part time job if you're doing some medical degrees such as Optics

[quote Oh9autumn]@Annoyedanddissapointed Oxford and Cambridge don’t let you get a job when an undergrad. DSS is living off his savings, we are giving him a tenner a week as his back up I’ve got no £ so need something fund.

But he will need to get a job, there’s nothing left after his loan comes out. It’s actually minus £1250[/quote]
Has he approached student services at the university to see if there's any bursary or financial hardship scheme he might be eligible for? Oxbridge are pretty good at these things

@fourminutestosavetheworld

If he already gets the full loan but doesn't have enough to live on is he in a very expensive part of the country, or in very luxurious accommodation, or maybe catered halls?

I am wondering why, if he has a loan of over £9k he hasn't got more than £500 to live on this term.

Did you ask for accommodation to be arranged in three equal instalments? Sometimes the amount due per term varies but you can ask for it to be evened out to avoid a lean period.

If none of that applies, I guess he needs a part time job.

I got full loan but it wasn’t enough to live on, if he is in a city it won’t be. My parents gave me £80/week I also had a part time job and earned roughly £500/month.

It’s simple, he’ll have to get a part time job like every other student there. Supermarkets are always hiring and very accommodating to student lecture hours. He’ll be at uni max for a couple hours a week, so that leaves him lots of days to work. Even 12 hours a week would give him £500 or so a month. I think he’s extremely lucky to have been given enough loan to cover his rent, which I presume he’s gone for the most expensive option available as not sure how it’s that much.

I don't understand how parents can contribute much at all with all our living costs going up.
Particularly if you have more than one child at Uni at the same time.

Actually Cambridge does allow undergrads to work, but in a limited capacity - such as bar work in your own college, or student outreach roles such as sixth form open days run by the university's Admissions Office (CAO). Some colleges are stricter than others too in terms of how much they monitor and enforce it. I did some work for CAO whilst I was there, and actually it allows you to pick up some good skills for the CV and used to pay about £30 for a 5hr day (back in 2002/3).

He’ll be at uni max for a couple hours a week

Really?!

Oxbridge also tends to have a lot of bursaries available at the university and college level, and sometimes through the faculty. Anyone struggling there should investigate right away—there are lots of pockets of money.

As for your son, OP, I understand his impulse to take a break before uni, particularly as his last couple years of education have probably been frustrating. That said, it sounds like it's time to find a job now. He should do something with flexible evening hours (eg pub work) or look around to see if the university is hiring any student workers for easy work. I had a friend who checked out videos for the film lab at her uni (back in the day): she got paid 1.5 the minimum wage to sit in a room for 20 hours a week, and she basically revised and did coursework for most of it, interrupted by checking out a video once every half hour or so.

He will just have to learn to live within his means won't he. It might make his job search more necessary. He is getting the full loan, he'll probably be much better off than a lot of students who will be eating into an overdraft from day one.

I think for some parents the government expecting them to support their child financially through university comes as a surprise, not the support, but the amount. DS gets minimum loan. That means to make his money up to the maximum loan level we are forking £5k per year. We have 2 children so £30k minimum.

I think parents and students should be told this in year 7 with a more detailed evening of information perhaps in year 11 or 12 about different accommodation costs at different universities.

DD1 is moving into her university accommodation on Saturday and we’ve told her to get as much staple food as possible at the start of the month so that she has enough to see her through the month. Whatever is left she can buy fresh/perishable food with/additional extras. She knows she’ll have to keep some money aside for laundry expenses and the like. I also encouraged her to apply for a job local to the university already. She is aware that she will have to cook most days rather than eating out. We are paying her accommodation costs and will give her roughly £250 to live on for the month. I imagine many students will have less than this and will cope ok.

My student loan didn’t ever cover accommodation and my parents didn’t help at all. Had to get jobs every holiday. Best advice cook and freeze batches of meals to keep cost down and if you can stock him up on cupboard essentials and find out what supermarkets are local and make sure he has loyalty cards for them too.

fourminutestosavetheworld I think that's where part of the problem lies the rent isn't decided equally with last payment next year been very low

Divided not decided

@Howshouldibehave yes really, he’ll have 2 hours of lectures a 2 days a week and maybe one or two 1 hour seminars a week. The totally face to face teaching is no more then 10 hours (unless you do medicine but I did Law so still as gruelling ) The rest is all e learning and remote independent study. This was before Covid so now I imagine it’s all pretty much online recorded sessions. So he could easily get a job around this

At uni I couldn't get a job, and got the minimum loan and no bursary.

My Dad sent me about £250pm and my Mum / stepdad sent £100 or so every now and then, but she'd also book me in food delivery slots and send me a weekly shop EOW and money for clothes / coffee! I think it was just over 3k I received from student finance, my accommodation in first year was about £5k self catering! My parents topped up the loan to cover the accommodation, and paid for my phone.

I was really grateful they did as it meant I could concentrate on my course and not have to worry too much about finances. I had friends in my position who got no help from parents and really struggled - the reason we got minimum loan was due to parents earning a certain amount, so it's expected the parents top it up when student finance calculate it.

Make sure your son checks university bursaries - at my university it gave £1k to students on maximum loans!

He needs a part time job at uni, and as many jobs as he can get in the holidays to earn money to live on.

I foolishly picked nice but expensive uni accommodation (in a cheap northern city fifteen years ago, mind) and I had to pay my accommodation costs myself using my student loan, as my parents couldn’t afford to pay it for me.

They sent me £10, £20, occasionally a bit more whenever they could, but were really hard up then. My DGM was generous and better off, so sent a few £100 every few months, but it doesn’t go far. I was foolish and drank and partied too much - he’ll need to be more frugal.

Please don’t feel bad if you can’t afford to send him money - lots of parents are in the same boat and your son deserves to go to uni the same as everyone else.

Unis and often student unions have hardship funds for hard up students - make sure he researches all this, as well as seeing if any scholarships or paid prizes exist at his uni.

He’ll muddle through - everyone does- but he must find work in the holidays, and term time if it doesn’t interfere with his studies.

[quote Henryhoover12]@Howshouldibehave yes really, he’ll have 2 hours of lectures a 2 days a week and maybe one or two 1 hour seminars a week. The totally face to face teaching is no more then 10 hours (unless you do medicine but I did Law so still as gruelling ) The rest is all e learning and remote independent study. This was before Covid so now I imagine it’s all pretty much online recorded sessions. So he could easily get a job around this[/quote]
In my experience plenty of degrees are much more than this, eg the Sciences. I had 9 hours of just labs a week, then 8-10 hours of lectures plus tutorials, as did my siblings and much younger colleagues (we are science teachers). It is something we discuss with our 6th formers a great deal. A lot of degrees are actually 'full-time'.

Saying that I had 2 part time jobs and a full time holiday job to pay for it!

Most summers I had three PT jobs- two in pubs/cafes and one in a clothes shop. Not ideal, but necessary.

I should say too that I’m incredibly grateful to my lovely, late DGM and my DPs for all they did to support me at University.

He’ll be at uni max for a couple hours a week

Bullshit.

He might have two DAYS of contact hours per week (ie 12-14 hours a week of face to face teaching) but
A) this will be spread over 4-5 days, making fitting in shifts between lectures much harder
B) this doesn't take into account all the independent study and coursework that will be required
C) some courses (STEM in particular) have much higher contact hours.

Well, the daft sod needed to be working over the summer to save up a lump sum.

I worked in a shoe shop and a chippy in the summer holidays, and in a bar at uni during term.

He needs to get a job ASAP. I'd be annoyed with him for not having done so over the summer.

At most universities the students union or university will have some estimates of living costs for the year. It might be worth looking to see what these are, and then working out what the shortfall is between his grant and this limit (I am afraid there will be one- there is an expectation that parents and students make up the difference). You can then have a conversation on how the gap is met, which should involve him working out how he will contribute. Depending on where he is studying, it is likely that part time work will be around, so he does need to take some responsibility. Going forward, he will need to work at least some of his holidays to support himself. The bank of mum and dad is generous in our house, but I do not think we do our kids any favours if we are too generous.

yes really

You said a couple of hours a week. That is bollocks!

It's true the rent isn't divided equally, nor is the loan.
The first term is much more expensive and the thrid term is shorter and cheaper.
I'm usually the first to say that parents should make up the loan but if the student has the maximum it's an indication the parents are not well off.
Some unis have bursuries for less well off students - worth looking into.
First thing I would say is Uni gym / sports memberships are very expensive and a bit of a luxury. Could he wait to join until he has a job?

If he has got a job in the summer at some kind of chain, he would have been able to transfer to his uni town. That's what my daughter has done.