AIBU to ask what parents on similar incomes give their children at university?

[MagnoliaPetals80]

I am looking for some advice from those who are helping their child financially at university. My DD is about to finish her A'Levels but had planned a gap year to work and save some money for uni. This week she has announced that she wants to go this year and the uni has approved this. She is determined to go whatever we say.

DH and I believed that we would have a year to save some money for her and that she would also have saved some money of her own and we are now trying to understand how it's going to work. She has picked an expensive city in the South East and is bad with money.

Our joint income is £65k or so and it looks to me like that means that she will qualify for the minimum loan amount. But we don't have lots of spare money. I know there are many variables but I'm interested in how much support you give your child (if you are able to support them at all financially). We think we could stretch to £200 a month but it looks like the loan might not even fully cover her rent. What's the norm these days if you are in a comparable situation? As I say, I know there are variables, I'm only asking if you are on a similar income.

Thank you in advance :-)

Have you sat down and done a budget with her? Does she have accommodation cost info?

We ate on c£70k between us.

Loan plus a c£1.5/2k top up from us (get from savings) pays her rent. So we know she is housed.

We then give her £300 a month to live on

It is tight.

Mine will be going next year. Roughly how much is accommodation per month on campus?

Not yet as it's all been very sudden and I have been trying to gather information but I will do over the next week or so.

Preliminary research looks like the loan won't fully cover the rent but it might for the first year and that gave me a shock

It’s cost us 5k a year. Her loan didn’t even cover her rent.

How much is the minimum loan as I think that will be us too?

Sorry, my response was to was to @PermanentTemporary - I didn't see the other responses come in! I'll respond now. Thank you all

She’ll have to get a job

We pay the rent and dc has the loan for everything else. I've increased the number of days I work which makes it manageable.

I top up to max loan. One is in London and gets just short of £7k, the other is out of London and gets under £5k. They get a small lump sum at the start if the academic year for any bigger expenses and the rest monthly.

So approx £420 per month. Did that cover both accommodation and spending money?

thank you for answering - that does sound tight x

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We have double your income so it’s not the same but we top up the rent and give £100 per week. He does need to find a job, DDs had a part time job when they were at uni

Very different life stage but we’re on similar combined income and were at one stage paying £1100 a month on nursery (18 months ago, not decades). So I think you COULD give her plenty unless you have a huge mortgage or something.

Whether you want to/should is a different matter. Given she’s just changed her mind I would be getting her tondo the leg work with research. And I would probably offer to give her a regular amount but tell her you expect her to work to top it up.

Wow.

I’m sorry but I couldn’t be bankrolling uni. Ds is 24 and he did a degree apprenticeship so it cost nothing.

But there’s no way I could have afforded to give him anything towards uni. His younger siblings would have gone without.

If he’d wanted to go to uni, he would have had to have got a job.

I've told her that. I have advised her that she should take the gap year and we will help her as much as we can afford but she is adamant. I'm furious because she worked all last summer and saved 2 grand for uni and then spent it all this year and has nothing left. We want to help her but we can only manage what we can manage, We both work FT

For those saying they need to get a job alongside, how are people’s DCs finding getting a part time job these days? DD currently in year 12 and struggling to find something, my assumption was she would work (I did, all through uni) but I know the jobs market is shit these days

Sorry OP. I am not in the same position but I do work in an advisory capacity with a uni and I know from their bursars that families like you are in possibly the worst position as your DC can only get a small loan but the family usually cannot afford to top up to what is needed and bursaries tend to be for lower income families.
I think best your DD can do is to ensure she has a job to top up as much as she can for living.

We do have a big mortgage and other children so we couldn't give her a lot more. I'm torn because she's my child and I want to help her but as you say, she's changed her mind and also she has spent all her earnings and refuses to take any advice so I don't want to enable further irresponsible behaviour. I think we will have to offer her a monthly amount and tell her to get a job but I feel really sad that she handles it this way

Can she work over the summer to help save?
I agree, my financial plan partly involved the children working through a gap year to save towards the costs (which is what I did) and to get some valuable maturity/work experience.

I think I will be making it clear it will be a pretty basic existence if they choose not to do that

You may have to tell her you can't afford to provide financial support for this this year.

She is bvu, and is old enough to know you can't always have what you want.

that's still helpful to know - thank you

Oh God this sounds like a car crash waiting to happen. I think there are two likely scenarios- she ends up getting a full time job and drops out/fails uni, or she just drops out and comes back home. In both cases she will have a loan to pay back and no qualification.

I do agree. It's hard!