Uni costs - student/parent paying

[MarysMonologue]

This isn't so much a TAAT but more sort of off the back of a few posts I have seen about sending kids off to university lately.

Is it more common now for parents to pay? I graduated 10 years ago, and whilst I was at University very few of my peers had fees/accommodation paid for. All of us worked, usually Friday/Saturday/Sunday and used that alongside our loans. I only knew one person who had their fees paid for and received a weekly allowance (and even still he took out the maintenance loan without telling his parents and squandered it all on having a very very good time).

But I see more and more threads about parents covering costs, and not many mention jobs. Are students no longer working through University? Or is it just a case now where the loans students get, just is not feasible to live on and cover the rising costs these days?

For me, I couldn't have survived without my PT job and to be honest, my £500 student overdraft. But they did keep me ticking over - I definitely had a lot of beans on toast and super noodle dinners though. I got the minimum loan, as my parents earned just over the threshold but they just couldn't have afforded to pay for me. Not with my siblings at home, mortgage etc. Although in saying that, if I was really stuck they would have made sure I wasn't in trouble of course but at the detriment to their own bills I imagine.

Just wondering out loud really. With a very young baby, I am curious at how much it has all changed. Although in saying that, by the time they go to University (if they want to), it will have changed even more! We're discussing opening a bank account for her, but to be honest it was more for general stuff in her future, maybe a car etc, I hadn't earmarked it for University fees.

I don't think it's new. Grants, and then loans have been based on parental income for a very long time. I went to University in the mid 80s and grants were definitely means tested then. It seems pretty obvious to me that if the money that is accessible to a student is dependent on their parental income then the parents are supposed to make a contribution. I don't think there is anything wrong with expecting students to do some work, but depending on what they are studying, it can be a big ask to earn enough to live on. My DS is going away in September, doing a course with a lot of contact hours and only entitled to minimum maintenance loan which wouldn't go anywhere near paying his rent, never mind anything else. I want him to do well at
his course, not be out working in a bar or McDonalds til all hours and I can afford his rent, so why wouldn't I help him?
There is a happy medium of course. My DD had a friend whose parents had all her meals delivered for the whole 3 years of her course, she drove a Mercedes and any time she needed anything she just rang home and it was sorted - I don't think that is good for a young adult. But equally I don't think parental responsibility stops on the 18th birthday. If everyone got the same grant/loan it would be different, but they don't - there is an expectation that parents continue to provide some support if they have enough income so that's what I'll be doing.

Most of us old enough to have kids of uni age were first in family - late 80s when I went less than 15% went. Now it's 50% - higher in London!

I was at uni before you and most people were supported by their parents. It happened when they brought in the 3k cost per year in 2005/6. Most people can’t live off the loans, I had a part time job and my parents had to support to me and I lived off £40 a week for food / drinking etc. Not awful but my no means lavish. The only people I knew where parents weren’t helping out got grants due to low income families.

I remember being absolutely gobsmacked when my husband told me his grandparents and parents went to University! I instantly told him he must be very posh he's not in the slightest, and neither are his family in any way. But my grandparents were farmers and anyone I knew from that generation was too, so I struggled to even imagine it!

It is nice to know there are more opportunities for the newer generations that in the past. Although my parents love to remind us that they bought their first house at 20! Who cares that it cost less than a deposit anywhere now!

My rent was about £180 per month, so I was lucky that even the lowest maintenance loan covered this. I then got about £70 per week if I worked fri, sat and Sunday which I used for expenses and mobile phone etc. And saved up during the summer for any extras on top. I was usually up to the -£500 point in my student overdraft by the time the summer hit though so I would have struggled without it but I'll admit that's because I was a big fan of nipping down to top shop too often!

Many parents are asked to. If their child gets the minimum loan because of their income parents are expected to help.

I got (in 2013) £3000 maintenance. Rent was £5800 a year and then I had to buy food, books, transport, bills etc.

So my parents paid my rent and I worked 15-25 hours a week to pay the rest on top of my loan. Without my parents I'd have had to work practically full time...

My rent was about £180 per month
My son's rent for a self catering hall from this coming September is £110 per week. It's quite nice, certainly better than the halls I lived in, but it was one of the cheaper options available. There were some other places costing nearly twice that which seemed more like hotels than halls to me!
I think expectations have changed. I shared a room in hall in first year - a concept which horrifies my children. I suspect many of the places students of my generation lived in would be condemned as unfit for human habitation these days. My friends and I rented a "posh" student house which had central heating. The boiler wasn't big enough mind you, and we used to have a rota for who had their radiator on, but at least we had heating unlike many of our friends. Very, very few of us had cars - only the really rich kids or a few mature students. And even they often had fairly battered old things.Most of us cycled, walked or used public transport for longer journeys. These days most of the students I know seem to have a car, and a fairly nice one at that. The lifestyle seems very different so I think it's probably that which is leading to more parents making bigger contributions.

And Op, you say your rent was £180 a month! Prices have gone way up - rent is now £100-200 a week.

@MrsAvocet oh 100% I doubt the landlords could get away with it these days, our rent was cheap as chips but to be honest extortionate for the state of the place. None of us really cared of course, the cheaper the better. I think by our final year we were paying closer to £200 per month. But yes, luckily it wasn't anything like the cost of places now.

Which is good to know, as no doubt it'll just increase and be god knows what price by the time my daughter goes. I'd be encouraging my daughter to go a bit further from home if she was open to it, so if that means University in England then I imagine the cost is going to be quite significant. I will be encouraging my kids to get PT jobs though, from 16. It's something my husband and I feel very strongly about as we both did, and loved the independence. But it does sound like that alongside the loans just isn't feasible to live on anymore!!

My mum and dad helped me out when I went to university and I got a (very small) grant. I’m heading toward 50 so this is not new.

Both my dses will take full loans but maintenance loan is the minimum due to our income.

DS1 has a very intensive program at university and couldn’t work. He also has very cheap accommodation and lives cheaply so it’s not too bad. We give him £100 a week in term time, nothing in the holidays so it balances out.

DS2’s accommodation is going to be much more expensive so we will have to top up his loan to pay that as well as living costs.

It’s a lot of money and I do worry as DH is now retired but no choice really. We have savings and we’re aware these years would be expensive but it still bites.

Yes, i imagine even where I'm from the prices I paid just don't exist anymore! To be honest, I hope the houses we lived in don't exist anymore...! the new private halls I see in the city centre look worlds away from where I lived! So students definitely have nicer taste now than I did back in the day!

@DontKeepTheFaith I imagine in some cities there's just no hiding from accommodation costs and no cheaper way of doing it. The cost of being a student in London must be crazy. Although I'm sure they just avoid the more expensive parts of the city for nightlife etc.

I moved to Liverpool after University, and I found it was still relatively cheap rent wise compared to other cities. I was a "young professional" at that point though, so happy to pay for somewhere half decent to live compared to my student digs! But I've never actually experienced an expensive city I don't think. The city I went to University in was Belfast, and I think Liverpool and Belfast are quite similar cost wise for things like rent/socialising.

Ours had minimum maintenance loans.

We generally paid for accommodation, and mobile phones (because they had ongoing contracts). Their loans paid for their living expenses.

My parents had to contribute back in the 1980s as I was on the minimum grant (about £200/year). Students in those days never had term time jobs - I didn't know a single person who did (we had holiday jobs). We marvelled at students the US who expected to have jobs.

In the 1990s I didn't receive any maintenance grant (or loan) and my parents paid an amount equal to the maximum grant as was expected and I think pretty normal. I was at Oxford and not allowed to work in term time, only in holidays.

Today my daughter gets minimum loan and again we make it up to the maximum level (and again officially she can't work during term). For my son I suspect we may need to give a bit more as costs are higher at his potential Uni.

We don't pay any fees, and I think that is quite rare.

So in terms of parental contribution, it is actually less proportionately as they have the loans too.

@toooldtocarewhoknows are you only paying a ¼ to each child because it's all you can afford, or out of principle? Seems a bit mean if it's the latter.

Its what we can do for each child as we have to do the same for all four.

But we have offered each child full accommodation and living costs if they stay at home and travel in. This saves them £8k a year.

We live near a decent university so they have options.

If they decide to study further away they need to figure out a way to bridge the gap between what we can give them and what they need in rent.

I always pay for food for each of them.

Did you know that any pension income is disregarded when they work out maintenance loans? Tell them it's pension not earned income on the forms.

That's a shame @toooldtocarewhoknows , moving away from home is such a big part of the rite of passage of going to university, and your children will have had to compromise on their degree courses too, if they only have one university to choose from. l am glad that one of them has been able to go to a different city. I've always said to mine that fair doesn't always mean equal, so if one of them needed to go to a more expensive place to get on the best course for them, then we would contribute more. But we are lucky to be able to.

Well my old uni now suggests you need around £10k a year for living. My Kids will get the minimum living loan as our income is over the £65k threshold. That's around £4.5k I think. So £5.5k to find - and my old uni is one of the cheapest to live at.

Plus you are not allowed to work during term time - at my old uni at least.

So really my kids will be working n the long vac but I doubt they'll be able to save £5.5k from that.

So yes we will need to assist them.

OP do you know how the figures work? The maintenance loan (in very general terms) is about 10k. If you have a household income above £60k, then your child will only get £5k of that loan from the government. The other half of the loan is supposed to come from the parents. It's not parents choosing to pay that, it's the government telling them they should.

We're in the process of visiting open days now and the halls of residence are really expensive (last week we visited one, not London, and the cheapest were £7.5k and honestly they weren't that great). If parents don't contribute, that's £2.5k to make up to start with, even before food / books / phone etc. Unless as a pp says, the student stays as home & goes to local uni (and it's not possible for some courses, and obviously a different experience not living away) the amount of part time / summer work you'd have to do to support yourself (without any parental support) would be massive. Not impossible but a real burden, particularly if you're looking at a heavy course.

My advice would be to start saving now - even if it's a small amount, by the time your child is looking at uni it will be a good start.

@Africa2go to be honest, why would I? I don't currently have a child at University, she is 7 months old. I graduated 10 years ago. So no, I haven't researched exactly how the figures work. As I've said, we are setting up a savings account for her so I imagine by the time she's 18 we'll have an idea as to what it should be used for. I asked on here as I am aware my background isn't the same as others, given low living costs etc.

To be honest, the main point I was curious about, was the number of people I'd seen on here saying they will be paying their fees as they don't want their children coming out in 60/70k debt. Which many here have stated is not actually that common, which matches my experience so makes a bit more sense to me.

Fortunate enough to know we'll be in a position to help our daughter, should we need to. I can't see me not encouraging her to work though, my husband and I both worked probably every weekend and holiday from aged 16 - 22 whilst studying intense degrees. I don't recall being told I wasn't allowed to have a job, I can't see how the University would have known anyway. I did my uni work during the week and worked at the weekend and did more Uni work on a Saturday/Sunday if necessary. I just booked time off close to exams if I needed to. I'd definitely be encouraging a Saturday job at the least.

But who knows! In 17 years time she even may decide university isn't for her, and she's off to join the circus or I'll have done a complete 360 and be determined to cover every penny! Time will tell. I am very conscious many would not be in our position of being able to save, especially those from similar upbringings to myself where on paper money is good, but in reality every penny is already accounted for with zero spare. And no one quite knows the cards life will deal them. So I don't believe starting up a savings account particularly for university is a necessity, as some make it out to be, it is definitely more of a luxury.

Obviously not of any relevance to me for quite a while yet, but just a topic I've been quite curious about on here.

not convinced 4% is insanely rare, but it certainly is a very small proportion.

I wasn't saying you should know OP, apologies if it came across like that, just that your earlier posts seemed to suggest you get the loan (from the government) and the choice is to work part time OR get parental support. I was just trying to say it's not that black & white with how expensive uni is nowadays.

I agree that it's not a necessity to save for uni, but makes life a he'll of a lot easier. We have twins, both looking to go so we're supposed to contribute £10k next year. If that was just out of income, rather than have some savings to fall back on, we couldn't do it.

@MarysMonologue - oddly DS2 who is just finishing is only paying marginally more than your £180 a month from ten years ago. And planning to do a Masters will be staying in same house and paying around that (its just over £200/mnth in reality) for next year. A house which hardly fits the student house profile either. That has been quite exceptional though - he was paying just over £400 in his second year in an ok(ish) house.. In contrast DS3 has been paying £135/wk for very plush 1st year halls (and that is a near bargain price for what was on offer) and £100 /wk for his 2nd year beach front house.

When I say the DCs are paying I of course mean DH and I are paying. We've got off pretty lightly for all three of ours so far. Fingers crossed for DS3's third year accommodation, hopefully he'll be on the beach for two years.

Most unis do seem to offer a range of hall prices; but demand seems to be for the better equipped end of the market. Back a looooong time ago my first year halls were £330 a term fully catered, and just the 17 of us sharing one shower, two baths and two loos!