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?

YANBU

And it doesn’t get much better when they graduate.

My DD is working in a graduate job and only earns £27k in London (publishing) so I have to support her every month from my own wage or she wouldn’t eat. Her rent alone in a shared house with no lounge is £950 a month in zone 3. Plus council tax, bills, commuting into central for work.

We have a low pay crisis all round.

Perhaps I also went to uni at a more
privileged time - the 1990s. But over 3 years undergrad, I knew hardly anyone with a job, aside from people who did a few hours in the uni bars here and there. I had a full grant and a full loan, which amounted to roughly £3000 per year(!!), and that covered my halls/rent and all other expenses. I occasionally got groceries bought by my parents and I worked over the holidays (in factories, earning a pittance - not sure there was a nmw at that time but I do recall getting £1.25 per hour in the bread factory). I absolutely cannot get my head around what university costs these days.

Op have you looked into DSA (disabled students allowance). It's a grant.

www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowance-dsa

I don't understand why the loans are based on family income. They are adults and responsible to pay them back so why does it have to be based on family income? They are adults!

My DS is working part time around his course but I have two other daughters, one is disabled so DH is full time carer as I earn more, but we just survive on my wages.

Your son says that anyone on his course who isn't Welsh is rich or somehow got their parents to pull strings? Stereotype much Honestly, he's not doing himself any favours.

OP- is he in shared accommodation?

That's generous of you! She should have £900 left over a month isn't mega bucks but ok. My dd also lives in London and lives quite well on around that much.

If DS is struggling so much surely it is worth trying to apply for PIP.

how many other kids they are supporting at the same time

The financial assessment does take into account if parents have other DC who is totally or mainly financially dependent on them. The amount removed is low but it is still considered.

Honestly, the answer is to get a job as the immediate solution. Yes, it's hard. It's not impossible though. I worked my absolute socks off with my full time uni course and then in retail at the weekends and picking up overtime when I could. Holidays, reading weeks etc, all full of study and work. I also have a disability and now recieve pip.

He won't get that without a diagnosis. And it covers specific items like ergonomic equipment and study skills tutors, it's not money in the bank.

This was discussed actually in my last year of uni and the answer is essentially that there isn’t an unlimited pot of money, the logic of basing it on parents income is that with a higher income parents can provide financial support, as OP has said even up to now they have been providing £300 per month in financial support. There are many low income families who don’t even have £30 to provide their kids in support and so those students need the higher amount. When being discussed by the uni and SFE they were basically saying that if they just gave everyone a set amount regardless then that amount would for some students mean they couldn’t attend university at all because it wouldn’t be enough. Doing it this way, although it doesn’t work for everyone, means that those pupils who NEED the max loan to be able to physically go to university at all are able to have that loan because there is another pupil who can have a lower amount and their parents can afford to send them £300 or an amount each month to help.

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.

Some universities will help with diagnosis costs, so that’s something he could look into if he hasn’t already. Then he should be able to qualify for DSA, which would not provide extra cash for living expenses but might be able to help with solutions for going over notes etc

My dd commutes to uni,and has done for the last two years. She also works weekends and throughout the summer holidays. Last weekend she pulled in extra work and was at her first job by 6.30am so that she could get to her 'regular' job for 7.30am. We aren't eligible for any help with fees,so it's this or nothing.
I'm quite glad that her sister has gone the apprenticeship route rather than uni.

Aside from cost of living the loan has never covered the entire cost this isn't exactly something that should come as a surprise. Quite a lot are now deferring uni to work for a year to save up money or doing it part time.

I was at uni when the fees were £3000 a yr I had to work to afford to go, luckily my parents made me work from age of q6 in part time jobs so I had some savings.

It might suck but as someone pointed out majority of people will never pay the entire loan money back and its taxpayers who end up covering it. I dont think that is fair either. If they changed it that you have to pay it all back there would plenty of moaning too.

There is also just the case of living within your means of what you can afford & if you want something or somewhere extra then working to fund it. I initially wanted to go to uni in Manchester, had my heart set on it, but actually when I then looked at the cost of accommodation there and the loan I’d be entitled to it was obvious I couldn’t afford to do that. As it was I picked somewhere else, still lovely, and then worked alongside getting my degree to fund my life. If I didn’t want to have to work or couldn’t work while at uni, then I would simply have stayed local for uni and continued living at home. We can’t all have everything we want given to us, so it’s a lesson I suppose of if you want X then you need to do Y.

Surely the answer is that more students will live at home rather than live in halls or student accommodation. My own dd would have liked to live out but decided it wasn’t worth it when she realised how much she would be spending to live in when she can life at home for free. And she’s got a part time job. I know living out is seen a right of passage but it seems completely nuts when you look at the finances.

DSA can be very helpful if he is ND.

My DD has ADHD and some physical disabilities and for her it has funded some apps to help her organise her time and her thinking, a laptop, it also entitled her to one session a week with study support where they go through and organise and make a plan for that week.

I appreciate it doesn't solve the money situation but it's absolutely worth applying for.

We were surprised how much support was available, and being on dsa unlocked a lot from the uni as well.

This.

You can bet Sunak's children will not do an apprenticeship. There's nothing room with but they should be a choice, not because that's your only option.

Local universities aren't necessarily going to be as good as universities such as Manchester though.

My dd is on a very intensive course and she works night shifts in a night club. I help where I can, but she has to work as it’s the only way.

So 9 x £300 for term time is £2700

The loan plus expected parental top up is £10k

That leaves £7300 - £150 a week if a 52 week contract?

That's really not the cheapest rent in a cheap area of the country!

When we were doing our research last year, cheaper end rent was around £5-6K- mid range around £6-7K and higher range £7k+ for self catering (obviously catered halls more expensive but less spends needed as food is provided, so it balances out). So his £7300 is the higher end of rental costs. Shared housing priced similarly, but less per week but for more weeks of the year.

So if he is actually in a cheap area he should be OK, with actually some spare?

Is the issue that you get minimum loan and were expecting that to pay accommodation? It won't, and it's not expected that it should.
The expectation is that parents top up to the maximum loan amount, around 10K and that total amount is sufficient to cover rent and essentials, which it is in all but the most expensive cities..

If you are not topping him to the maximum loan amount, then yes, of course he will struggle.

I'm not sure it's the case that the majority of students won't pay it back now. They will be paying them back for 40 years rather than 30 years.

A lot of students will live within easy enough commuting distance of decent universities, though. Even if they wouldn’t necessarily be their first choice.

I can also see more places doing part time study / distance learning as an option, which I don’t think is a bad thing.

It depends where you are and what your local one is. For example in the North East you’ve got Newcastle which is a Russell Group uni, you’ve also got Northumbria which isn’t. The same with York & Leeds, they both have a Russell Group option and a non Russell Group uni.

It’s also a case of just doing what you can afford to do. If you can’t afford to live where you want to be on the loan you are entitled to then it’s either choose local or of course you can work while you are at university to too up funds, or I know a couple of people who took a year out between sixth form and university and worked full time for that year literally saving every wage so that they ended up with between 15-20k savings to go into uni with. I also know people who didn’t work during term time but worked full time during holidays, and you do get a lot of time off when at uni to do this. There are ways around it but they require work yourself to get there.

You can also apply for student loans through banks, I know Halifax used to do them not sure if they still do. The difference is that’s an actual loan and so is repaid in the usual way rather than student loans which end up mostly written off.

They might live within commuting distance of one good university but that university won't necessarily give them an offer. I'm not sure that the most popular universities plan to go to part time or distance learning either. Those that can are targeting international students as the fees they can charge are higher.