DD's uni costs

[WarriorWalrus]

DD1 is 17, 18 at the start of August. DH and I can't agree on what costs we should be covering while she is at uni and what she should budget for herself.
Due to our income DD only qualifies for the most basic maintenance loan. We have savings for her, so it won't be out of our monthly income (though I intend to keep putting money into her savings while she is at uni). Her grandparents have offered to pay for her accommodation (£350 a week).
So far we haven't figure out how much her monthly allowance from us will be, but we disagree on what this should cover. DH thinks the amount we set should cover everything, food, clothes, socialising, club fees, holidays etc.
I think food, socialising and day to day clothes sure, but she plans to join one of the sports teams so I think we should pay for the initial registration cost and kit costs, allow her to use money from the savings for travel, she currently gets private coaching in her sport, I think we should pay for this to continue at uni (I know she wants it to) and step in with extra money for more expensive clothes for events or such.
We don't want her to and she doesn't intend to get a job (Uni, Socialising, Sport and extra work to help future career should take up most of her time). But we do want to teach her to budget.
AIBU to think the additional things should be covered by us, anyone with Uni aged kids got a rough idea of how much she will need monthly?

Why are his parents going hungry? Most would never accept money like this? It sounds wrong.

Also that money is for the 9 months of the academic year - that's a grand a month!
Not the entire year....

The entire loan would be enough to live in Birmingham if though . Surely you don't think that students should be able to borrow more so that they can give money to their parents and siblings too rather than just look after themselves?

The 'best universities' IMO is irrelevant.
A degree is an academic qualification. Teaching academic skills.
For some reason we have made this an exalted status above all others.
It is perfectly fine to acknowledge that only academic people should be getting degrees.
There are other qualifications, like the ACCA that are equivalent to a degree (NVQ level 6 or above) but they are not degrees. They are still fit for purpose!

We should accept that not everyone is academic. People can start work when they're 18, progress through qualifications, maybe change to something else if they want tox then gain a top up to a degree. Absolutely.

But full time university should only be for the truly academic. That's the point of a degree.

@TizerorFizz was agreeing with you! Sorry if it wasn't clear 😂

I do think university matters though. Not for every job, but for some it will. Would you think engineering at Imperial is better than engineering at the University of West London? Future career and earnings might suggest the former!

For the jobs where it DOES matter, the capable will get into universities that suit, and the ideal is to remove barriers.
Degree apprenticeships make you more valuable with work experience.
In my field (software engineering) Computer Science degrees are very theoretical at top universities. Few jobs require that level, so plenty of those graduates, or even STEM at top unis end up in the same position as degree apprentices.
In fact, when you look at the success stories 10 years later..most aren't from the top universities!
They are in fact people like my husband who is bad at exams but can break anything down and rebuild it from scratch... no instruction manual needed.

In recent years we have had more bright students apply for our apprenticeships (both degree and school leavers), simply because going to university has become so expensive and doesn't necessarily yield better outcomes.

Our graduate recruitment, like that of other large companies comprises mainly of weed out automated tests at the start and is university blind. We only review CV's of those who pass, and usually it is those with no work experience, rather than from 'bad' universities that we drop. For technical roles - we can weed out the incapable with technical interviews.
For non-technical roles common sense is more important than a degree and names don't matter... So many students from fancy unis with none of it!

I went to LSE... You'd think I'd be biased towards good universities but after this long in the business my opinions have changed. Quite rightly so.

My son got into university with Cs and Ds. He did a foundation year then ended up with a 1st class then did his Masters in Physics at one of the top universities in the country for his subject and was awarded a Distinction. He’s now works for a consultancy. Yes he was disappointed on A level results day but don’t write off kids who don’t perform at A level. Degrees are a totally different way of learning.

A foundation year is fair enough. There are many people who get bad A-Levels results. Physics is a largely exam based/lab based subject , both at A-Levels and at university with a large volume of content so it looks like your son had other issues that prevented him from achieving.

I'm talking about those that accept people straight into first year with those grades.
And also those where the degree isn't up to par.
For my first degree - accounting and finance. The 'lower ranked' universities have quite a few modules with marks from things like pop quizzes - same as the homework questions. Group presentations where every member gets the same mark regardless of who did the work. 'short summaries' of simplified financial statements instead of a full and complex analysis. That sort of thing.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely approve of university blind hiring. In fact some of the 'least academic' people are the best employees in terms of initiative, tenacity and conflict management.

But a degree isn't meant to make people into model employees. It's meant for academic exploration of the degree subject. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging the different types of intelligence

i might also add that, while people love to discuss the 'critical thinking' aspects of a degree, again I have met many graduates from good universities who were incapable of thinking outside the box. Or anything beyond their own degree subject. A lot of our apprentices are better!

Source : better part of a decade as a hiring manager for early careers across many roles
As well as a mentor and line manager

*bad A-level results for various circumstances....

A foundation year was good-it gave him a lot of confidence in his knowledge and consolidated things he’d done at A level. He also made really good friends at university and helped and supported his peers. At school, he had friends but they were all competitively academic and he wasn’t-I think his confidence was dented in sixth form. Also, he was away from parental nagging to study and got his own motivation and he and his friends encouraged each other. I think my point was that kids are written off with poor A levels-or at least, not regarded as university material. Some don’t achieve their potential until a bit later. But it’s interesting to read your pov as a hiring manager @Astsjakksmso

@TizerorFizz
I don’t see why a student loan, which taxpayers pay for up front, should be used for other purposes. If it is, that’s wrong. It just is and it’s also a choice. It feels fraudulent.
Are you referring to students helping out their family with the loan? Helping feed your family isn't fraudulent ffs, it's called necessity.
Spoken like a Tory.

Pay for her private coaching if you must, then work out the maximum loan and pay the difference to her. She should work though, even if it's just in the holidays. Most employers would be bemused by a graduate who had a three year gap with no job.

It's not a necessity that the student loan providers should take into account. That's the job of other benefits.

@HerMammy Well, ok not fraudulent but not spent on what it’s intended for. It’s unnecessary to do this. If a family needs money, they should not take it from a tax payer funded student. It’s wrong. Also I don’t vote Conservative. Ok.

If the student is getting minimum loan because parents earn over x amount then the intention is the parent gives the difference between minimum loan and maximum - so 4k loan and say 10k is max, cover 6k. It’s still not a massive amount to live on but my son’s girlfriends parents don’t give any extra and she gets minimum due to their income and I think that’s unfair. It’s not because they can’t afford it.

Same with the grant times too back in the 1980s - My parents made the tiny minimum grant I got up to the maximum. Many parents did not do so although their income allowed it. Apart from the fact nowadays it is a loan not a grant it is the same idea - they don't force the parents to make up the difference so only the badly off get the full amount and a some of the better off might if they are lucky have parents make it up to the maximum.

One young man used his whole loan to fund his flights etc to go to fight for ISIS. I haven't read the terms of the maintenance loan - they might well say you have to use it for particular p urposes eg not use it to fund terrorism or hand to charity or give to parents.

I got into an ex-poly with my CDD ‘A’ levels. I worked my backside off for 3 years for that 2:1!

I think my letter from the local authority actually stated what their contribution would be and what the parental contribution would be. The fact that it was explicit meant most parents paid. It was expected and we thought really badly if anyone who didn't pay.

Not entirely, if you aren’t going to live in halls and plan to rent privately instead it’s going to be incredibly difficult to take something for 9 months as opposed to 12 months.

Why are his parents going hungry?

Well, let me introduce you to the benefits system, @TizerorFizz. Currently designed to prolong hardship, not to prevent it.

If a family needs money, they should not take it from a tax payer funded student. It’s wrong.

This is one of the stupidest comments I’ve ever read. They’re not fleecing a student. He is so concerned about them that he’s sharing the little he has. If you cannot applaud that simple act of love and generosity you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

As for taxpayer funded - this is a joke, right? Do you also object to students buying a drink or paying for a night out with ‘taxpayer funded’ money (which they will pay back at obscene interest rates)? If a student sees someone homeless on the street, are they allowed to pass on a couple of quid from their ‘taxpayer funded’ money to them? I wonder if you apply the same logic to pensioners when they help out a struggling family member? Because that’s ‘taxpayer funded’ too, isn’t it?

Sometimes it’s a compassion-free zone on here. Utterly, utterly depressing.

one of my kids is a journalist (26)- they worked all their holidays in a restaurant- worked p/t while at uni at a restaurant as well as (unpaid )worked on and then edited the student newspaper and involved in other student organisations /. Saved enough money to pay for all their living costs while they did their masters and 6 months travelling. The only money we gave them was deposits for rent and trains home - they lived off the loan and their earnings for the rest. Getting a job - it was important that they had work experience not just journalism - but life experience. Give her the money for sports coaching if it’s important but she’s already going to be better off than most if her rents paid- you’re not doing her any favours by giving her more money.

Wombling, so did my grant letter say that in 1979.

@notwavingbutdrowning1 Where do you think the loans come from? The ether? The bank in the sky? Of course the loans come from taxes! From the government. Or rather from government borrowing. I guess you didn’t study any economics or even read about government finance!

How is giving huge amounts to parents, leaving yourself very short, the same as giving a small amount to charity? Obviously students living at home are different but there’s no escaping the fact that a student loan is to facilitate study.

I used to manage a grants and awards section of a LA. We did indeed tell parents what they had to pay. This was when around 10% (or less) of young people went to uni. Times have changed. However there is info out there about contributions from parents in this era. Not least from Martin Lewis snd sensible mums on here.

Oh, and by the way, loads didn’t bother to pay up in the old days either. My father and my husband’s parents for two. In fact my father refused to submit any details to the LA at all for dsis. My DH’s parents (both working) preferred to buy a new caravan, car and colour tv. So never think times were all rosy back then. In fact it drove DH to be very self sufficient and successful in business. I do think his parents utterly spoilt their relationship with their son though.