To not keep paying?

[Tilllly]

DS is in first year at Uni

I said we'd pay for hall for up to a year whilst he found a job

So we're paying £1500 a term, and his £1500 cost of living grant is just for him
He has £500 a month spending money... and has nothing left, plus he's spent the £500 his GPs gave him "for emergencies" bless them!

I've said we're not paying next year. He's had ample time to find a job, plus wtf is he spending £500 a month on? I don't have that to spend. And whilst we're not desperately struggling, the hall costs aren't easy

There are 2 massive supermarkets, 15/20 mins away and he says there are no jobs
But it seems all his friends have jobs

DH thinks we should keep paying but I think he needs to bloody grow up

Am I really being that unreasonable? DS1 got a job and we'd bail him out when he was stuck. DS2 needs to do the same

I believe it is around 60% of students who work whilst at uni. Ds has a course where you can't work, some days he has 7 hours of lectures and tutorials as it is a STEM course.

Ds has £100 per week term time and pays for food (£35 pwk supermarket and a meat eater) £7ish for laundry and occasional takeaway. Everyone he knows prefers to meet up at houses rather than pubs as it is massively cheaper, they sometimes order in pizzas. He saves the rest which covers him for holidays and socialising with mates, buying presents etc. Basically he gets £3k per year from us.

We buy his clothes, coats, shoes, if he wants anything more he can buy them himself. A generous grandparent pays for his £10 phone contract, Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

Personally if your son expects you to continue supporting him then he needs to tell you where all his money is going. We have had open and honest discussions with Ds. He has put money into his LISA.

Stop paying so much for him, you didn't for your other son so don't for this one. He can either cut back or find work. He needs a job, he can work over summer and bank the money. Year 2 summer he could possibly have a paid summer internship.

That was era where everyone qualified for 75% minimum loan. Different times.
Here he’s on under 50% because of his parents income. A household with two parents earning minimum wage is now expected to contribute £2000 a year per child at Uni. I don’t think people realise how much it has changed in a relatively short period of time.
I agree he needs to work especially in holidays. I wonder if he needs some help rather than just saying get a job - his brother might help if he won’t listen to mum. If he’s 19 and never worked it’s not going to be easy. Tricks like applying for a chain locally to you in hols and transferring to Uni branch might not have occurred to him.

I really really really wish that there was proper education about the parental contribution expectations for university costs. So that people can actually plan.

If people know about it then they can start saving from when the baby is born, even £20 a month or something for the 18 years to then be able to cover the costs.

Term time jobs can be really difficult to fit around studying.

However, the long summer holiday he should definitely get a job for.

I worked a part time job during my uni years. I worked extra shifts during the holidays. It was fine. He can do the same. I would treat him the same as your first son, otherwise it isn't fair.

It depends what age gap is. Eldest may have qualified for full or near full maintenance loan under previous rules or household income may have been less meaning he received more loan.
Treating same may equate to ds2 being topped up to full loan that ds1 got.
It does sound like ds1 worked though. If the brothers a close a word may help.

Thanks for the info - no idea it had changed beyond the 3k > 9k fees fiasco. Do they at least take into account outgoings these days or is it just a blanket 'you need to make up xxx amount' regardless of circumstances - other kids, debt etc

Also if you other son is a lot older then he would have been on a different loan arrangement system to today and could have borrowed more.

No outgoings aren’t taken into account. Same contribution expected per child if you have two at Uni. It also goes on household income so if mum lives with a bf his income is taken into account even if he only moved in when teen was 18 and has no financial obligations to them.
I don’t think it’s widely know how little some teens can borrow - it’s often much less than cost of halls.
Obviously most students do work. But if Op doesn’t pay her contribution yr 2 and 3 he’s got £5200 net to earn before he’s on an even footing with a student getting full maintenance loan.

YABU.

About the nature of employment! It's not a matter of just walking into to supermarket and asking to speak to the manager. I found it really hard to find PT jobs as a teenager/young adult. Employers really aren't interested in students, especially without work experience (yes, catch 22).

I did eventually manage to find work, and ended up working between 22 and 35 hrs a week - but it really wasn't easy getting the first job.

My eldest is at uni in a very studenty city. She works in a pub kitchen, three shifts a week covers her spending needs because she is entitled to the full maintenance loan. I send her the odd bit of cash here and there as I’m able, and her dad does the same. She’s managing well.

From what she’s saying, the big chain pubs are usually a decent bet for job hunting, and have the bonus of being able to transfer during the longer summer break.

There is currently a shortage of bar workers / casual hospitality staff. Wages are also pretty decent (due to their being a shortage) and hours suit students. I would doubt that it is difficult to find this kind of work in a university town (it may be different when he returns home if you don’t live in a big town/city).

I hear this a lot. But my daughter is at university in a big university city and has had no success there or here at home in London. She has just printed off another 30 CVs and is going to try even harder when she returns to her studies after Easter. Her friends have found no work other than online tutoring either.

Basically he needs a job but liklihood of him getting that before term ends is unlikely (he will be going into exam season soon).
Be very clear you expect him to get a summer job and expect him to save up and pay his own rent. When he gets back to uni he can find a job!

Reduce the payments by half if he hasn't got a job!
I would say there is a balance to be found I worked a 30hr a week job at uni and did a science degree which was 30hours as well which was exhausting and way too much but I had to do it to survive! Find the balance so his degree doesn't suffer!

@FedUpCoveringOthers
google bar work and see what comes up. I see 100+ ads added within 1-2 days

I agree with this. That doesn't go very far tbh. If you can afford it, then why not?

DS1 is 12 years older and worked throughout 6th form to fund a gap year abroad
Then transferred to a local branch near Uni and worked throughout
He's a grafter, DS2 just sits there and waits for someone to sort things for him
🤷‍♀️
No idea what we did differently, they're like chalk and cheese

So eldest would have been under older loans system able to borrow more and no expected parental contribution. Would older brother talk to him? It’s definitely not unreasonable to expect him to work especially if he knows older brother did.

Do you want ds to get his degree with your financial support?
Another two years
Or prefer him to drop out ?
Maybe best he just drops out ?

12 yrs ago Uni was much less expensive. Tuition was 1/3rd what it is now. You’d get all 3yrs of Uni for what you pay for one year of Uni now.

There were still full maintenance grants, so your older DS got more money even without you contributing a single penny. Jobs were much easier to find- eg 6,000 pubs have shut since then and the number of pubs are at a record low. It’s the same with independent shops, restaurants, cafes and the like.

I don’t think you can fairly compare them as the Uni situation 12yrs ago is extremely different compared to today.

Or given he's an adult, he could learn to budget and look properly for a job. He's nearly finished his first year of uni, he's living in 375 a month which for nearly half the year doesn't include food as he's at home, his mom's also stocking up his cupboards term time so he's not struggling for cash. Meanwhile OP is relying on credit cards to get through.

What the fuck am I reading? Hes a history student who has lectures 3 days a week for 2-3 hours a day, why can't he get a job?? His parents are using a credit card to give him that money. I despair. Why do we expect so little from adults? He has plenty of free time, he needs a bloody job!

Obviously it is expected of the government that parents top up the minimum loan to the maximum, but I can also see how with cost of living this just might not be possible.

It doesn't sound like he is doing an intensive course so if he has a lot of free time I don't see why he can't get a part time job. This sounds very much like he hasn't got a lot of 'get up and go' and instead is quite happy to continue with minimum effort.

While I wouldn't advocate for completely cutting him off, perhaps you can change the way you provide a contribution. Why not say he has to pay the accommodation with the student loan funds, then you will give him X amount on a food card for the shop and X for travel/misc spends? You need to make sure he has suitable accommodation and food, but realistically you shouldn't be on the hook for funding his social life. This might just give him the nudge he needs to realise if he wants disposable funds for the fun stuff, he better buck up and try to earn it!

I say this as someone who went through university and worked throughout so I could get some additional money coming in. My parents were not exactly rolling in it so the only contribution I had was a food shop at the start of the year (and little bits throughout) from my mum and £100 a month from my dad. My part time job of 16 hours gave me an extra £350 per month at the time (this was back in 2012 though).

Well stop paying his subsphone, Netflix and some Xbox thingy subscription
Tell him you will continue to pay 500 nx year but he has to fund thosel phone, Netflix and some Xbox thingy subscription. And all clothes etc