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

Lannie he is been quite sensible about it all to be fair yesterday he bought a 80p box of cereal and some pot noodles

Argh, the dreaded pot noodles. Not exactly the best fuel for study.

Knowing funds would be tight he was silly to not get a summer job to save and gain experience/reference. However that can’t be rectified now.

He needs a pt job. I’m assuming any maintenance you received has now stopped alongside any benefits and things are tighter now.

What can you afford to spare with a bit of cutting back?

He needs a job, however full on his course. There's plenty of work available on Friday and Saturday nights in pubs and restaurants and that means he'll be earning, not spending during that time.

If he'd have got work at a supermarket, pub or fast food chain etc over the summer, as well as being able to save up, he is likely to be able to transfer to a branch near his course for term time, or at the very least have a reference to help him find another job.

I was given £918 per term at uni in 2008 and my accommodation was £1,400. If my parents had not paid, I would have been -£500 down before even starting out.

I had two jobs at uni to make up the money. My uni boyfriend was given £3500 per term plus a grant and didnt have to have a job and lived a great life. However, I came out of uni with £18k debt and he came out with £40k.

@Tevion28

He didn't work over the summer as he said he was off to uni and would have to leave anyway and will until he gets to uni and get one

Ah ok, most school leavers get a summer job so they have cash for uni (and the holidays). It's only really well off families that don't insist on that (and most well off families do too because they're not daft.)

Sounds like he needs to work in the holidays and have a part time job. People will tell it’s not possible he work and study but it is. Even for courses with heavy work loads and work placements. I still got a 1st class honours degree and worked throughout

I didn't push him to work during the summer he had worked extremely hard to get his grades for summer and thought he has many years of working life ahead of him so let him be.

For uni not summer fgs

@Tevion28 so you made a family decision for him not to work over the summer?

Did you look at what he would receive from student finance against rent etc? If yes, the expectation for me would be that you were in a financial position to fully support him at uni.

@Blueskythinking123

I'm sorry but to sit around from May until Sept and not work while you are a low income household in m opinion is not acceptable.

I'm low income so my DC get nearly the full loan. I help with bits and pieces. Both had teleport jobs over the summer and have saved a few thousand each.

I would not be willing to support anyone who doesn't at least try to help themselves financially.

This.

And it’s not really 3 months - he’s going to be home for Christmas in 10 weeks time. So that’s £54 a week for food, laundry and course materials.

That’s perfectly possible - some mothers feed a family of 4 on that. Of course it’s not luxury but he chose not to work all summer so that’s up to him. He can get a job like most students do.

I think it’s pretty unreasonable to expect your parents who are not well off to work hard to fund your luxuries like gym membership and gadgets. Especially when you are not willing to get off your backside yourself.

£540 for 3 months is manageable I graduated uni 2 years ago (mature student mid 20’s) he’s looking at approx £45 per week budget food budget for one person which is easily done.
All mandatory course books are available from the library but yes you do have to be organised as they book out fast. If the materials he needs aren’t books there’s usually a hardship office at uni who deal with situations like this although they’re unlikely to help if he doesn’t have a job. Especially given there are so many student jobs going atm.

Not a high earning household unfortunately
From my personal experience low income students in receipt of full loan actually do A LOT better financially than ‘high income’ (earning 50k-70k between them) households. These families generally live in more expensive areas for work, have mortgages, other kids and don’t qualify for any sort of funding or benefit so pay everything out of pocket.
Their teens are given minimum loan then told their parents need to top it up by £3000-£4000 per year just to be in the situation your DS currently is. Many physically can’t afford that.

I'm under no illusion at all that this must be mega hard for some families with more than one dc even in a higher wage because with higher wages comes higher outgoings because people are likely to take on larger mortgages etc. I have said it before and will say it again the government should not just be looking at paypackets but at outgoings the system is shit. I get where your coming from jet rocket

Did he not pick cheaper accommodation IME the cheap accommodation isn't in high demand so he shouldn't have had a problem getting somewhere for much less... is it too late to change?

I think it's a shame if he can't enjoy the freshers week if he is worrying about finances. It all adds up very quickly.

This was my DD's focus when she was working the summer. To be in a position to have a financially stress free first term and focus on settling in with her new friends.

Her job was zero hrs and she will pick up shifts at Christmas to top up her account and hopefully see her through the spring term, the same at Easter for the summer.

You also need to be mindful that deposits for year 2 will be needed, they start looking and discussing this early.

titchy his rent is £6624 for 46 weeks

@Blueskythinking123 well then he should have worked over the summer, if he wanted to have more money

Tevion28 did he pick the most expensive/ more expensive ensuite accommodation, or is that the proce of the cheapest/ only available student halls at his university?

It does seem very have your cake and eat it to both not work all summer and pick fancy/ higher end accommodation and expect someone to fund gym membership... It used to be only the richert foreign students who could afford ensuite accommodation and gym membership.

Student accommodation varies hugely depending on where you are, my DDs friend pays more than that for a tiny windowless room in a shared house so I wouldn't assume he has gone for the best accommodation.

When I was at university my mum and dad gave me money for Freshers' Week. I can't remember how much, but it covered most of the things I needed to pay for upfront. My student loan all went on accommodation. Then my mum and dad asked me to sit down and do a realistic budget. It included money for food, travel and nights out. We then discussed how much I could cover with a job and what they could contribute. We compromised on them providing a weekly allowance which just met my most basic needs (nothing left over for shopping or additional nights out), and me working in the holidays (as I had something fairly well lined up from my Saturday job back home) so that I could focus on my studies in term time. It worked really well for me, and was my first real lesson in budgeting!

We paid the rent.

@Tevion28

titchy his rent is £6624 for 46 weeks

But why did he pick that then? Most UGs have 38 week contracts and for less than that. Has he opted for PG halls? Or en suite?

His rent is at lower end of what was available and yes its ensuite

@Tevion28

His rent is at lower end of what was available and yes its ensuite

Oh so he must have applied late? That's a shame, he would have been able to opt for much cheaper halls otherwise. I think pretty much all unis have options for basic 38 week tenancies at less than £5.5k. Many even less if they share a room.

But basically he's got expensive accommodation, he'll have to suck it up. If he chose not to get a summer job he'll have to find one now. He has enough for food (suggest you buy him a recipe book of cheap meals - Miguel Barclay is good), and you've said his travel is paid for. So really a few hours a week only needs to pay for going out. He'll manage.

I got full loan but it wasn’t enough to live on, if he is in a city it won’t be

It absolutely was enough for me and I was also in a city. Depends on your accommodation.