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?

I think we’re moving back to a time when I did my degree 25 years ago. I went to my local uni so lived at home and worked 4 shifts a week in a bar, more in the holidays. I also did this through my teacher training placements. I don’t know anyone of my age who didn’t work whilst at university.

DH and I have been savings since birth for own our children but think we’ll try and guide them into apprenticeships or education linked to paid placements. We’re both teachers and actually our careers guidance is now changing. We now push apprenticeships or earning a degree whilst working.

Hi Op

Sorry i do agree that the system sounds awful nowadays.

Is your son able to make more of an effort to at least find a job in the summer holidays?

For your other children if they go to uni, my recommendation is that they take a gap year to work and save money. I started uni in 2007 around recession time and I has absolutely no financial help from parents, apart from supermarket vouchers at xmas. I worked during my gap year so i could afford to go to uni.

I’m not sure upping loans would improve anything as even on the lower fees I had, it’s unlikely I will pay that back in full. So someone needs to acknowledge them as grants effectively.

I do also think anyone wanting to study any kind of medical degree should go back to having no tuition fees.

Completely understand OP’s predicament. I have one in London and even though he works and sublets a room in the flat, I still have to send him 600 a month. I have another due to start uni this year.

They both can only get the minimum loan as the system insisted on taking into account my husband’s income (he is not their father and has his own children from a previous marriage to support). I can just about bear this financial pain but it is at the expense of paying down the mortgage and making pension contributions.

To add insult to injury, for the first year of eldest son’s degree I couldn’t help at all because…..I was still paying off my own student loan

OP have you seen the interest rates being charged on student loans? An absolute scam.

Op why couldn't your son have done a gap year and wanted some money first ti fund his uni?

Gap years really aren’t the point. The point is this government not increasing student loans inline with the cost of living crisis when other sectors have had paltry recognition and increases.

Ignoring that their calculations are outdated is the sign of a hugely out of touch government. Not that we need any more indications.

My DD and SIL currently have 3 kids at Uni’s, and it’s costing them a fortune😳

Two work as much as possible, but one is training to be a teacher, and seems to go on a lot of placements.

It really does impact on parental finances.

Brilliant idea, can you send your time machine to the OPs son so he can go back and make this choice?

Do universities still do hardship funds? My brother and flatmate at university were able to get them when they were at university between 2007-2012.

I also know people that lived in their overdrafts while at university. My bank had an account which meant the overdraft didn’t need paid back until you were 27.

I do think student loans are a reason for 16 year olds having the vote though. I think most won’t bother, but those looking forward to university will be thinking about how to fund it and student loans will be a big issue for them. If you turn 18 just after a general election, you can’t vote in one until you’re 22, and by then you’ve probably finished university.

Anyone starting uni in 2023 has to repay over 40 years (so pretty much their whole working life) not 30 and start repaying every month on a much lower salary. I think around £21k. So it’s got to be worth it or you may as well start work and work your way up perhaps with professional exams paid for by employer. This is what my DD2 has done.

I know that this is not specifically about your son, and in the whole I agree with you, but there are things that students can do to get money/save money.

Some deliberately choose a local university. Some areas of the country have lots and others have very few so this can be pretty unfair. It does save a massive amount on rent costs though. My DD is at Newcastle and there are quite a few in her course who live locally and commute in.

Many people take a gap year and work through that to save up for uni. Some are able to use this to get sponsorship through uni - a friend of my DS's has been sponsored through by the Navy and is now in basic training.

Some jobs will allow transfer between uni and home branches - McDonald's do this and I'm pretty sure some of the supermarkets as well. This means students can do a lot of extra shifts in the holidays when it's less pressured and only minimal in term time.

The holidays are pretty long, especially the summer ones. Most students will work through the summer holidays, often bar work (my DS) or retail but it usually possible to get better paid office work. I did data entry all one summer - deadly boring but well paid.

If the student is ND like your son is then there really is a lot of support out there. The DSA people are very keen to offer as much support as possible as they really do want you to support disabled students through uni. Most unis have study support, and DSA can also unlock counselling, my DD was able to get a single adapted room, taxis to uni etc.

All universities have hardship funds and if a student is struggling financially they can apply to them.

I agree with you that going to uni is expensive, and with rent rises and cost of living it is getting worse. But there are things that can be done, and support that can be accessed.

Universities are seeing a massive fall in health care course applications such as nursing which traditionally has a lot of mature applicants. It’s either the cost of living crisis and not being able to afford it or the general public working out that working for the nhs isn’t great.

@Octavia64 my DD1 was at Durham and the holidays were very long( month at Christmas and Easter then June to late September. But lots of unis are now switching to semesters where the Christmas and Easter hols are 2 weeks so not long enough to get a job and work enough.

I agree OP, I have heard of a few of DDs friends that have dropped out this year as they were unable to afford the rent and living costs. The assumption is that parents will step in and plug the gap but not all parents can do this. Remember parents have less capacity to help as their mortgage/ rent and living costs have all increased. All these teens were working part time but the stress of balancing work and study plus worrying about money was just too much.

DS will be doing his masters in September after a two year break, his employer wants him to stay and be paid Pro rata to hours worked. He lives with his girlfriend in a flat so will need a loan as well. It's a two year course so a long slog.

OP

IS YOUR SON IN SHARED ACCOMMODATION?

Yes, that is true. They are usually revising for exams during Christmas and Easter so the summer holidays are the only time they can work.

I did my degree 35 years ago and it was much easier cost wise then than it is now, particularly for those who were not from well off families e.g. DH and some of my friends got a full grant. Rents were about 10 percent of today's prices and while some people worked for extra clothes etc, noone had to. No loans, free tuition.

I think I’ve heard on here that most continental students live at home while at university and it’s quite a British/ American thing to move away. Perhaps we need to revisit that model. But the university snobbery in this country means that their local uni isn’t good enough.

I agree. The only chance my DC have of going to uni is if they get into the only fairly local one & commute. I’ve done the loan calculations, and I just don’t have the “parental contribution” to spare. It’s not a question of tightening belts; I just don’t have it. They both have Asperger’s, and just would not cope with working alongside studying, especially as their subject would likely be maths/physics/engineering; but they also wouldn’t qualify for PIP.

As for all the people saying “you should save from when they’re born!” - well, divorce happens, ill health happens, redundancies happen…

As a minimum, the “parental contribution” thresholds definitely need revising - the assumption of what households can afford is just way off given the rise in cost of living.

Neither DH or I went to university and it simply never occurred to us that we would need to save for it when the children were young. They had savings from family and one had that government plan that didn’t amount to much more than £600. I was listening to colleagues talking one lunchtime and realised how much we would have to contribute and knew university was on the cards for DD1 and I changed job and started saving more for that very reason. I had assumed the student loan would cover her accommodation! I don’t think that’s unreasonable given that it is a loan.

Well OP is moaning so much but its not like uni costs are something that was suddenly introduced. This isnsomething that should have been planned for by either saving from early age, taking a gap year, choosing a uni close to home etc.

One didn’t foresee a cost of living crisis and a government so crap they don’t keep student loans in line with the cost of living and inflation.

This isn’t the argument you think it is. The standard element of UC is lower for under 25s because they are more likely to be living with parents. For those who receive the housing element that is lower for many under 35s.

PIP isn’t means tested for anyone, student or otherwise, so isn’t relevant to your point.

The parental contribution idea is getting ridiculous. Kids are going to be living at home for longer as many can’t move out due to rent costs. Are their student loans still going to be calculated on parental income in their 30s when UC, PIP etc aren’t?

@B00kmark6525 some posters like @LumiB think it’s perfectly fine to penalise students who’s parents can’t afford to support them. Probably best ignoring twats like that. They are just on here to stick the boot in.