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?

mrsttcno1 I do get that but since it's means tested on parents, why can't they take into account additional children with additional needs which means a parent can't work, as opposed to income? I'm 50, worked since 16, worked my way up but now salary in "squeezed middle". We paid £3k towards his uni accommodation to get ahead and also pay £100 a month to top up as his loan isn't enough. We also help with additional costs if he needs things. He earns between £100-£200 a month but is in uni in a coastal town equivalent to London costs. He decided there because of the course he wanted.

My eldest DD(14) hopes to go to uni so as my DS graduates we will start all over again. My hopes to wind down and or retire?

So the rich people get to go to any uni and the poor the shittier unis they live near. UCAS is hard to get offers and when you’re paying a fortune it needs to be worth it.

Why can’t we have a system that gives equality?Why are we all settling for such shit shows in every area of our lives?

The government are wanting us to become more like Americans who save a college fund from their child’s birth.
In the meantime it’s a case of taking a couple of gap years before going to university and saving hard. Plus working whilst at uni where possible.
When I went to university many moons ago my parents went into debt on credit cards to fund me.
I will have 3 at university in 2 years. We will also be going into debt like my parents did. My kids will have saved on their gap years and 3 of them should be able to work in term time which will help a lot.
Remember the more the government loans them, the more debt they will be in. Government are increasing the amount and length of time students have to repay every few years.

Surely the biggest impact of one parent not working is a reduction in income? So it's accounted for when looking at the household income?

I’m not sure I understand? If a parent can’t work, for whatever reason, then they would have no income and so that is being taken into consideration when deciding the loans?

And although not ideal, you have almost made the governments point. If they did say okay every student, regardless of family income, gets the same loan then that loan would be say for example an average of £5000, because there isn’t a bottomless amount of money. There will be some parents, like yourself, who are able to find £3k to pay for accommodation and £100 per month plus extras to send to their child so your child will still be able to go to uni. On the flip side there will be a student with incredibly wealthy parents who bought them a flat near their uni of choice (yes I know 2 people who had this at my uni!) who don’t really need a penny of that maintenance loan but will be getting the blanket £5000 and can spend it on their next holiday or night out, they will still get to go to uni. And entirely on the other side, there will be a student from an extremely low income household who previously would have been entitled to the max loan, who’s £5000 doesn’t even cover accommodation, and who’s parents truly do not have £5 a month even to send to support them who then as a result can’t go to uni.

The way it is currently organised isn’t perfect I agree but it’s hard to see a better way that doesn’t hurt somebody else OR lead to everybody paying more tax.

Friends child and partner both doing medicine first five years in Manchester. Now at Newcastle. They think Newcastle is so much better. Cheaper and better hospitals.

Manchester is not cheap, the accommodation grim.

We lost 30k a year when my DH had to give up work.

My original point is students are 18+ when going to uni, thus adults. Many are doing courses 3 years plus, yet their loans are based on parent income. I don't think that's fair. If they are old enough for loans to pay back themselves, they should be equal loans and at 22 (which is how old my DS will be) but his loan would still be based on family income?

No?

Every student is entitled to the same amount as the maximum loan amount. The only difference is that for some students the money entirely comes in a loan from the government and for some students that amount comes partly as a loan and partly from their parents. Rich family or poor family, every student should have approx £10k per annum to budget with (more in London) which is enough to cover accommodation and basics.

The students who have problems are those who don't qualify for a full loan but have parents who won't make the expected parental contribution. But that lies with the parents not the government. Top ups can be a lot of money, but they're means tested and we've all known about the need for parental top up since before our now Uni aged children were born, so there's been plenty of time to factor it in to decision making and financial planning.

The current system does aim to give equality though, there’s a limited amount of government money and they organise it so that “the rich” are not entitled to more than the minimum loan, and those less well off are entitled to more government help.

Unless you mean “equality” as in everybody gets the same, in which case as pointed out it just means the wealthy will end up getting MORE than they actually would have been entitled to, and those who would have been entitled to the maximum loan will get less because everybody will just get a blanket average amount.

This is government money we are talking about, realistically to find more money to give out somebody- the tax payer- has to pay more money. And I think most tax payer’s would agree that if there is more government money to go around then there are many things that should get that money more urgently than student loans.

There are good universities in most parts of the country, though. And if you’re worried about future employment, more and more employers recruit “university blind” now.

I think in a lot of countries people tend to go to their local university unless there are specific reasons not to. The UK system doesn’t make much sense when you think about it.

I think more and more students will need to plan to stay living with parents and get full time jobs for a gap year, saving what they earn, to top up student finance through university. There's still plenty of summer jobs, students will also need to take up these and save.

I do think its mad however that the loan system assumes quite significant parental contributions for all but the very poorest, when the UK has not had a culture of college funds and wages here are lower than the US so most parents can't afford to save in this way.

It is true that in most countries students go to uni nearer home.

To get the maximum student loan household income needs to be less than £25k!!! We’re not talking about rich families not getting the maximum loans.

And maximum loan still doesn't cover a lot of accommodations? My son's halls is £185 a week.

But OP even the fact that you’ve been able to give £300 a month up to now shows that you are significantly better off than many of the students who are eligible for the maximum loan. There are lots of parents who can’t afford to send even £30 per month to help their child out at uni. THOSE people are the ones who need the maximum loans. The ones for whom without that loan they literally couldn’t go to uni.

We haven’t been able to afford it, it’s causing huge pressures.

My American friend says students are expected to work their way through university. But the lecture hours are much more 9-5. Whereas mine were having evening lectures from part time lecturers who had jobs in the outside world.

But you have been able to afford it, because you’ve sent it. Causing huge pressures of course is not ideal, but it has been possible for you to do that. There are many families for whom it just physically is not possible. There isn’t £10 free at the end of any given month to send and no wiggle room to find it. It is those people who need the maximum loans.

You don’t know our financial situation or how we’re sending it or how we’ll cover the shortfall between rent and loan this term.

So families on £26 k don’t need maximum loans?

They are loans and are paid back.

The system is nuts.

But the amount of top up expected varies with income. If you are on near the bottom amount the top up will be minimal, just a few hundred quid a year. And there's been 18 years to plan for it.

We started our Uni savings for our children with £25 a month - less than the cost of a takeaway, and due to interest compounding and the length of time that we've had to save we have more than enough to pay the full top fees from minimum loan for the full three years. The big problem comes when parents fail to plan and save don't even think about how they are going to pay their top up until they are right on the cusp of needing to pay it. We have two children at uni at the same time, and yes, finding £1000 a month out of income would be hard, but we knew it was coming and planned for it! Children off to Uni now even had CTFs opened for them and a £250/500 headstart to help them save!

No, but student finance do as they have based the loan on household income and it is on that basis that as a household you are significantly more capable of financially supporting your child through university than those who sit below the threshold for the maximum loan.

It’s not perfect, but there isn’t an endless pot of money for student loans. They are means tested because otherwise everybody would get an average amount which would discount many students from even considering uni as an option.

There are options other than student loans though as mentioned, DC can take out their own loans with a bank, as adults have to.

You are however fulyl aware of what uni costs would have been when you had your child. Your child wasn't going to uni and suddenly it was sprung on them, which is what happened to me.

You could have put money aside for this since he was born. He could of taken a gap year to work to save money before going.

I also think if I was a teenager thinking about uni I would be seriously considering the degree I was doing does it need a degree for the job I want to do e.g. be a doctor or can I go an apprenticeship instead and still get to a job I enjoy with great earning potential without debt.

And let me ask you OP whats your solution?

They get the loan they need but have to pay it all back? Whereas they don't pay it all back now.

Raise more taxes to fund this?

It does if the accommodation is the cheapest in a cheap part of the country, which is what the OP says it is.

The maximum loan this year would cover £185pw.

Another thing in sons halls 559 rooms over two thirds were international students which keeps the prices high. his building turned over nearly 5 million a year. Unite owned two more in the same block, same size. That's a turnover of fifteen million on a relatively small plot of land.