Student loans not rising to manage rents increasing

[B00kmark6525]

What are families supposed to do?

£400 rent shortfall this term when we’re already having to pay £300 a month so he can eat. It’s a grotty tiny terraced shit heap with mold up the walls. The loans don’t cover living expenses, now they’re not covering rent.

We have 2 other children. What do they expect families to do?

@caringcarer universal Credit has removed (or at least complicated) the ability to save large enough amounts for those who are less well off. This shower want the plebs in their place.

My ds has a job in a supermarket. They will allow him to switch between stores when he is at uni if he wants. Or he can just come back and work in the holidays. He is currently in Y13 but got the job last year to ensure he’d built up enough goodwill to enable this. He will also be doing a very challenging course but will make it work. Just as he’s managed to do several work placements in the holidays alongside his pt job.

There are lots of retail jobs that allow switching between stores, it’s an industry that struggles to find and retain good people so they tend to be very flexible. I know all this as it’s what I did many, many years ago when I was at uni.

I don’t necessarily think that you’re wrong about the loans, the amount should be increased in line with inflation but frankly it’s not the best attitude to think that you and your ds bear no responsibility for the situation he is in. You chose not to save for uni for your dc. Your ds chose to move away. The only available solution is that he needs to work like so many other students.

There are lots of issues here.

Firstly, it was Blair’s Labour government who introduced tuition fees. Always seems to be conveniently forgotten in discussions around this. Same as I posted on the night school thread a few weeks ago (I have NC since), it was Labour who withdrew funding for that.

Secondly, a lot of unis seem more focused on international students. I used to work at an airport and end of August/beginning of September unis from all over would have ambassadors there, meeting them from flights and be bussing students to their accommodation. They seem to all come from wealthy families and pay larger amounts in tuition fees.

Some unis (Oxbridge) don’t allow you to work while studying there.

Students are paying a much higher proportion of tuition fees now than they were under labour.
Yes universities are aiming for a higher number of international students now. They are not allowed to increase for domestic students whereas they can charge a lot more for international students.

Numbers of international students are falling sharply, to the point that some universities won't be able to balance the books. If that continues then all of student funding will have to be re-thought.

https://www.ft.com/content/71b4c6e0-aad9-4e07-9859-152ca7f2dae2

I honestly think the whole lot will be pulled excepting kids who have been on FSM. That's why I'm doing my Masters now as there's no way I'd be self funding along with paying for DS1!

My dd worked as a cleaner at her school during sixth form until going off to Uni. Not a pleasant job fishing sandwiches out of toilets and cleaning up piss off the floor. She has also worked voluntarily in a charity shop for many months. Since going to Uni ( just starting second term ) she has been unable to find anything which didn't involve early morning cleaning miles from her halls of residence. She has sent off a lot of applications. We pay over £750 a month between two of them to support them and this will last for three years for ds and four years for dd as she has had to do a foundation course also. As she is doing a Nursing course we are really hoping she gets an Nhs bursary next year which will help a bit.

I wish all nurses got half price tuition. It would work to encourage more nurses we so badly need and in turn they could agree to work for the NHS for 6 years. I think that would be fair.

What about room sharing? I think accommodation is more expensive because most students have their own room now.

In the UK they have had their own room since the 1970s.

Not everywhere. I knew some students in university halls in the 90s who were sharing a twin room.

There were one or two rooms that were shared in the 80s too but not the norm at all, unlike the 60s.

@coffeeaddict77 my sons uni has shared rooms now.

I left Uni in the mid 90s, and there were double and triple rooms in our halls! I was fortunate enough to have been allocated a single. And there were no ensuite rooms at all - absolutely unheard of! I don't think anyone shared rooms outside of halls though once we moved into shared houses. The building and halls of the campus that I went to (it was a subsidiary campus of a larger Uni) has now been razed to the ground and a new housing estate built on the land. I can't imagine any double or triple rooms in Uni halls accommodation now. They seem to mainly be ensuites with double beds!

I can't imagine any double or triple rooms in Uni halls accommodation now. They seem to mainly be ensuites with double beds!

I wonder if that’s partly why rents have gone up so much - students seem to have vastly different accommodation expectations now (not so much the shared rooms - there were some, but not many - but the en-suite and general non-grottiness)

I've just been on a website checking out accommodation in USA, and Barcelona for students. Sheesh it's not cheaper.

University halls tend to be ensuite so they can rent them out in summer for conferences etc. Nothing to do with student expectations. And private accommodation is no cheaper.

No my son had the basic tiny non en suite room in halls, exactly the same as I had in the 90s. They have a range. Those on full loans and from rich families have the en suites rooms.

He has got very cheap basic accommodation this year. Moldy room in a tiny cramped terraced house on a main road, the type that never sells. No en suites.

Yes, they do have a few in one or two universities but not the norm

My son got an en-suite as gets the disability funding and had an ehcp. They advised and gave him a room so that he didn't have to share a bathroom.
I am a single parent on a low income.

If you go on Rightmove rentals and check out some of these student rentals they're dire. Son and girlfriend found a lovely furnished trendy flat in Leeds two bedroom so they shared with another couple. £1100 pcm, £275 a month each plus sharing utilities including WiFi. They were paying £160 per week in halls the previous year

The parents had to act as guarantors which I guess could have gone wrong. But two ensuite bedrooms, a lovely kitchen living area. We saved a lot of money.

Out of curiosity I’ve just looked up student accommodation for 2024 in my old university town. Cheapest I could find in what I think is a private hall (and admittedly I didn’t look too hard) works out at £5,236 for the year.

So OP’s son is either in one of the more expensive university towns or her household has a relatively high income meaning he only qualifies for minimum loan, in order for the loan not to cover the rent.

Because uni is a choice.

He works, lives at home or he doesn't go if you can't afford it.

Bear in mind that for low income families, even though the maintenance loan may be enough to cover rent - it was for DS in halls this year, and will be enough to cover 2nd yr rent next year, but in order to get a rental property your DC needs a guarantor.

.... a guarantor that needed to earn in excess 3 x the annual rent, and despite DH & I both working, neither separately earnt enough. We were very lucky that my DB agreed to be guarantor, because if he hadn't DS would not have been able to rent anywhere at all and would have had to drop out.

As pp have said it's getting to the stage that lower income families just won't be able to send their DC to uni.

My ds receives the full amount of loan as I'm a single parent on minimum wage. He is in a private halls in Lincoln. He had around 2k left of his loan when he came homeless summer. If they sign up for next year before the end of this month the rent will be less than £140pw, utilities included. He has been able to feed himself on around £30pw he says. They go out, but to the local pub quiz and to play in the uni pool team so not spending loads on pub/club nights. Yes, where you go and the accommodation you choose will make a huge difference to how affordable it is but it can be done within the recommended amount.