to think that £500 a month is enough for a child at uni

[FunnysInLaJardin]

we will pay his accommodation and his tuition fees will be paid, so this will just be for food and travel etc

More than I ever got! I expect this is the done thing now? I’ll have to start saving for my 4yo and baby 😳😳

I got my loan to pay accommodation and fees and for food/fun/mobile phone, I had to work 3 shifts a week in a pub! In the holidays, I had another PT job back home in the holidays.

My parents got me the odd bag of shopping but that’s it really. They didn’t pay a penny.

And this is why my child won't be going to uni.

Three shifts a week in a pub? You were lucky! When I was at university, we used to have to get up at three o'clock in the morning, build the pub with our bare hands, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come back to university, and the dean would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky.

But you try and tell the young people today that and they won't believe you.

Yeah, I'm actually quite shocked at the number of parents paying the amounts they do. I got holiday jobs (I was living at home during the uni hols so wasn't paying out much then and was able to save) which covered costs, plus a small loan. This wasn't unusual among friends, none of whom had their parents paying for things. I get that students now have to pay tuition fees though. But I don't think we'll have anything like that amount of spare money to give ours £6000 per year!

I am sure things have changed somewhat since 2015 when I was studying in Brighton but I never lived in halls and never paid 17k for accommodation. There is a Facebook group for Brighton student accommodation where you can find people to share houses with. Our first house share was 5 people and we paid about £100 each per week for a room. It was 10 or 11 months contract, form memory.
In the second year I moved to Worthing to my own flat which was about £600 and I cycled to Brighton every day (train was £5 though). It’s a lovely, safe cycling path along the seafront and it hardly ever rained.
I worked at Brighton university reprographic department where I could do all my printing for free. I probably clocked 4h a week there and they are very flexible with hours. I think, all my combined income amounted to about 16k (loan, pt job plus full time job in summer holidays) and I finished university with 8k in savings so clearly my expenses weren’t huge.
Loads of places in Brighton you can get free/cheap food. I also volunteered sometimes (30 min commitment per week) picking up food donations from supermarkets and small businesses and the organisation would give us a food pack to take home. And I used Olio app to collect free food people shared.
Bar housing costs, Brighton is probably the best place in the country to live on a shoestring.

So if your DC is on the maximum loan of £4.5k, how are you expecting them to pay the shortfall for accommodation and food costs? This is on average for accommodation alone around £3k, plus food, laundry etc.

Tuition fees are nothing to do with this. This is the maintenance loan and if you earn more than low wage your DC will only get £4.5k per year, which doesn’t pay for accommodation and food at any uni.

A job would need to earn them likely around £5k per year to cover costs, and that would be tight in some places. Finding a job that has the flexibility to attend studies in the zero hours contract economy - 🤔

Parents need to be aware that kids need about £10k a year to live outside of london. Probably more in most places.

If you are low income this isn t an issue since your child will be eligible for the maximum loan (of about £10k). If you're not low income then you either need to save up in readiness, be able to pay out of your income, they need to live at home or they need to take a gap year or two to be able to afford to survive. They also need to consider which universities they apply to and factor in living costs.

Working whilst at university is great in theory but there are only so many jobs to go around and zero hours plus variable timetables makes things difficult.

This is different to the £30k tuition fees which everyone can get a loan for if UK resident for the right amount of time.

See post above. If you as parents earn more than low wage your DC will only get £4.5k maintenance loan. This is a shortfall on average of around the £5k required for accommodation, food and laundry in most places. If your DC can find a flexible job that allows them to study and provides enough hours in the zero hours contract economy to pay the £5k needed then they have done extremely well.

Things have changed.

Does no one get a part time job whilst at uni anymore?!

Holiday jobs. Uni holidays are long and students won't be earning enough to pay tax, so entirely feasible to earn £5k.

There are plenty of people on here saying they can't afford to give their kids much, let alone £500 per month!

YABU calling them a child. Adults go to uni.

Massive massive LOL at £16 a day making someone a spoiled rich kid 😂😂😂

is that you, 30p Lee?

The university term is short. There's a month off at Christmas and Easter and they are off from may to September.

Even on an intensive course it should be possible to pick up work in the holidays. If course this gets easier the more work you have done so having a job and saving between completing A levels and starting uni is crucial.

Not only will it earn him money for the expensive early socialising, it will ensure he can easily pick up similar retail, bar etc work in the future.

This thread would be a lot better if people actually read the OP’s posts (her DS isn’t entitled to a loan) and based their answers on the world in 2024 rather than what they did in 1996 or what they imagine they’ll do for their imaginary teenager in 2040.

@Splety Absolutely sounds like it, wow. I knew it wasn’t the same but I didn’t know to what extent exactly.

I suppose it’ll be all change again before my two grow up. Assuming either want to go to university of course!

This isn’t quite right. it’s only the minimum £4.5k loan if household income is over £65k. However, the max loan of £9.5k is not possible for household income over £25k. Figures aren’t quite right, I am going off the top of my head. And my figures are for a student living away from home but not in London.

So any household over £25k is expected to contribute to some degree. You should bring the student up to the level of the maximum loan. And if someone is a single parent and have a live in partner/new spouse that person’s income is taken into account.

Im assuming most parents would just give the money but I suppose they could loan it, or take a small private loan out on the students behalf to be repaid (just as if the student had taken a normal student loan if they’d been from a less well off household). I heard something like this on the Dave Ramsey show. all this is more established in the USA. Sometimes people seem to do 2 years at community college living at home then go away for the final part of their degree. I suppose you could do that here. Our local FE/higher education is affiliated with a university.

Is this enough? I would think so, yes. At least in most cases.

If it isn’t:

1. What is your DS studying? Is a PT job realistic? It usually is and it is a good life lesson imo.
2. If not: could you afford to give more? The whole discussion is moot if you can’t. He’ll simply have to find a solution in that case.

Yes absolutely I just provided top line info re maintenance loan not full detail which can be found online.

Cheapest option is to live at home whilst studying at local uni. It’s the living out that is £££.

It really depends on the course. I got 10 days at Christmas and Easter and 4 weeks in summer.

The university term is short. There's a month off at Christmas and Easter and they are off from may to September.

That isn't the case for every university. DS finishes at the beginning of July.

DS1 gets the minimum loan and we pay his accommodation so he gets a similar amount to what you are proposing. He supplements his income through tutoring.

I do get it, honestly. It does bother me that young adults and their parents are increasingly seriously considering not going to uni because it's so expensive now. And I do have a vested interest for my own dc (7 and 13yo) so I'm trying to 'educate' myself about the real costs, which i know are a far cry from a few decades ago. Of course we'll support them with as much as we can afford, and we've been saving a small amount each month since they were born (which I think we now need to increase) which we will gift to them when they turn 18, to give them and bit of a leg up. I think most parents have been trying to save up over the years with a view to doing something similar.

But I simultaneously believe that students should work to contribute to their uni experience. Courses have always required intensive study, but there seems to be a growing, creeping belief that young adults can't possibly be expected to have part time jobs in case it interferes with their studies. Gym memberships are a luxury many working adults can't afford, yet (if this thread is anything to go by) are commonplace among students. Car insurance is expensive for young people, yes, but i would consider having a car at uni a massive luxury.

£500 per month, in addition to having accommodation fees paid, is a lot when op has said they're also expecting their dc to work and contribute. Few parents can afford those kinds of sums, op's dc is very, very fortunate.

Although if he gets the minimum loan just to live on without rent then he's on quite a bit more than £500 a month (term time)

Mine gets £60 a week, plus we pay for phone, gym membership and car insurance on top. She works in the holidays and is just starting a job in her uni town, so her earnings pay for clothes, socialising etc.

Tbf one DC costing £500pcm when they were at home with fares to sixth form, food, clothing, haircuts etc.