Student loans not rising to manage rents increasing

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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?

What course is he on? It sounds a tough slog. Can he look for work online that he can do from home? Cold calling market research type etc? It is hard situation but he has to try something

He can’t. He has masses of course work, is ND and needs to put in extra hours of going over his lectures on top. He can’t function on no sleep, that’s just ridiculous.

Don’t we care about student mental health anymore?

We did have a recession though so it still wasn't ideal timing. My loan was £3500 and my rent cost £3300 in halls for my first year then £4500 when I moved to a private shitty house full of rats. I had no choice but to work - my parents gave me £50-100 a month when they could but by my second year that covered nothing. My dad also lost his job because of the recession.

I've just looked and the same room in my uni now costs £4900 a year and private rentals are £6500-10,000; the maintenance loan/grant is £11,720 in Wales, not sure in England. I specifically chose to stay in Wales though because I didn't want to be scraping around for money.

It doesn't take away from it being crap but I don't think it's all that recent?

Jakers that's robbery. DS had a room student halls in Leeds new building, just checked its £184 per week. Ensuite, seven sharing in September this year.

Actually I’d like a government that thought you know what we’re in a massive cost of living crisis, students will need to borrow more. We care about all sections of society being able to study and educating future generations that will help us as a nation.

We deserve better as a nation than this braggy race to the bottom, couldn’t give a shit, lack of attitude and inability to sort anything government.

VeterinaryCareAssistant

Do f**k off, we both work full
time and have other children to support, elderly parents and a fair amount of stress and struggles to manage.

My son worked every weekend he came home and all holidays. Earned 4k for himself. He tried working at weather spoons in Leeds but wasn't getting home till 4am. Pre covid. Post covid the clubs didn't reopen, many bars closed. These students just don't have the money to spend, so there's less jobs.

It is awful they haven’t increased.

I started university in 2007/08 and I received the minimum maintenance loan as I was only 19, but I didn’t have parents to be assessed, and at the time as you weren’t considered independent at 19 you were only given the ‘refuse to declare earnings’ loan which was the minumum loan at the time. I think it was about £3800 a year, we weren’t allowed to work at university, I did, but I had to get special permission that was reviewed every four weeks and permission would be removed if my average fell below 70%. My rent in my last year (I can’t remember my first year) was £65 per week catered and included cleaning (including my bedroom) and changing of my bedding once a week. The same rooms in those halls are now £220 per week and no longer include food, cleaning or any laundry. The university now states that the average undergraduate student will need around £14,600 per year to cover their costs at university.

If DS is ND has he looked at PIP, he may be eligible for that?

He is in the shittiest cheapest accommodation in a cheap part of the country.

Where is this cheap area of the country where the full loan doesn’t cover the cheapest accommodation? Because if you mean anything other than the full loan surely you realised you would need to top up to the full amount?

I agree, OP. I was at university at the turn of the millennium in a cheap area of the country and my rent was £35/week at one point. I’ve got multiple degrees since and not for one of them did I have to work alongside them - I’ve been very lucky. And it’s not because my parents subsidised me either. I can’t imagine how I’d have done them - I certainly wouldn’t have done so well as I did - had I needed to work alongside them. And even when I was young I was useless past 10pm and have needed my sleep, so the idea that I could have worked until 2am is stupid. I did work in the long vacations but I was lucky enough to live in a touristy area with lots of hotel work.

We have to stop thinking that it’s on individuals and families to cope with an utterly unreasonable cost of living and existing. Nobody, not even students, should be working 18+ hours a day (which is what one suggestion up thread amounts to) just to keep a roof over their heads.

Early morning or evening cleaning 10 hours a week will cover that OP.

Cambridge university does not allow students to work during term time. Some university courses like medicine are so intense, or have so many compulsory placements, that they make working impossible. Are we saying that these prestigious universities or degrees should only be available to those with rich parents?

Sadly the answer is he needs his own job. I completed my law degree in 4 years ago and even then the loans didn’t cover everything, I don’t know anybody who didn’t work while at uni to be able to afford to live there, food, books etc. It’s part of the experience and also part of being an adult really, the alternative is to stay local for university, or for parents to pay.

Yes, I think London is so expensive now that only students of very well off and generous parents can afford to go there.

I think Oxbridge are generally meant to be fairly good for students with lower family incomes - don’t they have all manner of bursaries etc?

They also have a lot shorter terms than most, so more chance for students to be able to work more in the holidays.

A lot of medics seemed to do some kind of bank work - don’t know if that’s still possible?

Yes this is true about Oxbridge. You also can work with their “permission”, one of my best friends went to Oxford and was able to work 10-12 hours a week. But there were also bursaries and as this poster has suggested the shorter terms mean students have a good chunk of time off to work in between.

Re PIp he doesn’t have a ND diagnosis yet because oh yes ND diagnostics is another thing this shitty government have run into the ground.

Families are having to pay their own higher rent/ mortgages, food and bills before topping up
another set thanks to the crappy loans system we have. Something needs to be done and it’s shit that this government either a) don’t give a shit or b) are too dim to see there is a problem.

You're right OP. It is diabolical! Unfortunately, unless you have rich parents, you have to work. No choice. I was at uni recently as a mature student, in the cheapest accommodation on a full-time course with mountains of coursework. I worked every Saturday 11am - midnight and 2 evenings a week during term time and full time during the holidays just to break even. Is it right? No. Does it teach you important life skills? Absolutely. Maintenance loan calculations assume that parents contribute to uni costs, which is ridiculous in my opinion.

You don’t need a diagnosis for PIP…

Students get 3 months off every Summer. My DS picked up warehouse work every summer - they seem to use a lot of agency staff so were more than happy to take students. It was full time hours so he warned quite a bit to keep him going in term time without the need to do part time work. He has an ASD diagnosis so working in term time would have been too much on top of coursework.

His sister who has a diagnosis gets pip and that was hard enough to get. Really don’t think he’d qualify .

Student loans need to be completely re-evaluated.

It's ridiculous they are based on parental earnings when for every other measure an 18 plus year old is considered to be an independent adult
It's ridiculous it only takes earnings into consideration and not outgoings including how many other kids they are supporting at the same time
It's ridiculous there's an assumption the parents will make up the shortfall without any enforcement for them to do so/support for those that can't

However on the other hand I don't think the maintenance aspect should ever be written off. It's unfair that an 18 year old apprentice on a tiny salary or even one working full time on minimum wage would have to pay for their own expenses but a uni student gets a loan which many will never pay back.

I also think we've gone way over the top in how many people actually need to go to university. I'm in my 30s and the vast majority of people I know aren't working in a field with any link at all to their degree.

I s

It’s all very well saying parents are expected to contribute, but many can’t afford to.