The cost of uni

[Seriously79]

I'm not even sure if my kids want to go to uni, but if they do how do we afford it?

I understand that it's based on the family home income. We are quite fortunate that DH (not DS's dad) has a relatively good wage, I work part time to be around for DD4.

Between us we have just over £60,000 a year coming in. But due to car loan, credit card debts, mortgage and life being so damn expensive, we don't have much spare at all.

DS's dad would help out, but I don't think it would stretch far.

I know DS would also have to get a job too.

How do people do it?

To be honest it's becoming a nightmare. We have four kids so I know this makes things harder perhaps for most ( and of course was our own fault ! ). We have a joint income of 63k. Our eldest went to Uni a few years ago and that all went fine, we were able to support him and he has always worked part time jobs at Uni. Part of hi three years involved the pandemic so lots of money wasted on rent for a house he didn't live in much but otherwise ok. thankfully y ds2 did not go to Uni
Due to unforeseen circumstances ( ds1 being unhappy at his first Uni, getting depressed and starting afresh again, and dd having to do four years due to needing to do a foundation course, we are now in the first year of three years of two kids being at Uni at the same time. I guess we are fortunate that dd is hopefully starting an NHS course this September so will get the NHS bursary. But for now we are trying to help the two of them. Neither have been able to get part time work despite a lot of applications. Neither of their maintenance loans even cover their rent this term and that is without even factoring living costs. We are only in January and they have to start planning for next years shared house and guess what - deposit is £800 each per student. Why on earth these greedy letting agents/ landlords need this deposit from each student now eight months before they are even moving into the property I don't know. It's just greedy landlords feeding on the situation. Hoping ds's deposit isn't so high, he is up North so hopefully less. We are lucky we have no mortgage, i don't know how other parents cope having hefty mortgages as well, you basically need to remortgage your home. My db and sil have two at uni and sil has had to cash in her NHS pension early to get the lump sum to afford it. It will become totally unaffordable for many parents. My dd says there are students on her course who are living in overdrafts after one term as their parents don't have the means to help. It's a sorry situation.

Dh is a high earner and we don't have many outgoings but dd costs us a fortune at uni ..

Uplift on the difference between the maintenance loan is around £6k and £250 a month for food and we have to pay her bills too.

She wants to live in a studio flat next year which is £900 a month !🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Mine both wanted to go away , and we wanted to support that
Pay them £1100 a month to cover rent and expenses

Student loans because 1) that's what they are called and 2) because it is the student who borrows the money.

The loan funds all the tuition fees and approx. half the living expenses for most students who are on minimum loan due to household income.

Therefore, if on the minimum loan, most students need an extra approx. £5k py.

This £5k py top up may be funded by parents, if you can, but if not it could be from other family members, savings (family or students), working (pre Uni, during the long holidays or during term time if your course permits).

It isn't ideal but is perfectly possible in most locations.

I lived in my overdraft every year. Thankfully was at uni when fees were 3k and not 9, but the maintenance loan was still as crap as it is now.

Parents earned too much for me to get anything above the minimum loan BUT were in an IVF arrangement to pay back debts so couldn't afford anything for me, bar the odd 50 quid every now and then.

Lived in my overdraft and paid it off every summer by working. Year 3 was tight because I didn't get much work in the summer.

That said it stood me in good stead as I walked straight into a job after graduation (actually before my last exam) and it's formed the basis of my career now. Took me 4 months of working post last exam to pay off my overdraft though.

As an example DD's rent is £600 pcm for a studio, would be £400 cm in a house share ... this is obviously not in London! She gets the minimum loan, £150 a month from me and £3k from the money saved up from child benefit/birthday money.

It depends what you can afford. Mn thread helped me get the cheapest Nottingham accommodation ever, ds1 loved it. He saved beforehand, had a job on a Saturday at screwfix locally which they kindly transfered to Notts. Dh and I calculated how much we could afford monthly and we pay that to him on 1st of the month. Thats it. End of.

Minimum loan and we pay rent. It's crippling - over 800/month 8 people sharing and will be more next year. I put money away over the years but it's turned out to be quite a bit more than I was expecting. Otherwise she would have to get a job. In hindsight, I wish we had set a budget earlier on and pushed dd to get a job to make up the difference.

They work part time through sixth form to save up. Save some Christmas and birthday money towards it and use any other savings.
Make sure they get the bursaries they’re entitled to, and apply for appropriate scholarships - all of them. Even if it’s boring.
Consider unis they can commute to.

Theyre the big ways to make it affordable without a gap year but you MUST have conversations early with your child about what’s possible financially. After Christmas of y12 if not before. So they can do their research and make their choices with all of the facts.

On an income of £60,000 you will be expected to top up the £4500 maintenance loan to £9,500. So £5,000 a year. The issue we have is that the rent alone is £10,000 a year for a room in a shared house. Then living costs on top means that there is a shortfall of about £12,000 a year.
We pay £9,000 a year or £800 a month by doing extra shifts at work and cutting back where possible. DS works outside term time to make up the remaining £3,000. He has lecture hours plus study hours mean it is not possible to work term time.

The fees will be paid for by the fee part of student loan which is not means tested.

They get part time jobs - in 6th form, and whilst at University.
They work after A-levels full time, for coming up to 3 months.
They think carefully about which universities to shortlist. Some places are hugely more expensive than others.
They (will have) learn(ed) about budgeting. About cooking. About shopping. Looking for the yellow stickered items becomes a sport.
Some decide to live at home and save on rent (it is a very different experience and not what a lot of students want to do)
Some decide to take a year out and work, and earn a FT wage for a year first.

There are all sorts of things to do, or some combination of them.

We pay hundreds of pounds a month!

They need to work when they are there, consider living at home and choose university and accommodation very carefully. Some are double the cost of others.

I dont think its worth the 9k a year.
My halls were only 1800 a year 20y ago. Anf i lived on 130/month. I didnt get any loan and had no fees they came in at 1k the year after.
Up to 3k may be reasonable but 9 is insane.
Many on my course did benefit and went into consultancy or accounting. But i was awful at interviews. I eventually got a job as a temp and permanent there within a year. I would have hated the grad scheme as they had to pretend they knew everything with no training.
Dh course 1 stayed on and became a lecturer. Dh had to change his system/language as taught one at uni that wasnt what industry use. So that took an extra year. His other coursemate became a site manager.

Saving for uni or generally we put in child isa. The current rate is 4.15%.

I think working if they can cope with it during alevels and first years of degree is actually very important - i had no work on my cv. But might be motovator to get better degree or change subject etc

So your student lives on £17k py - £10k accomodation and £7k living costs?
Both figures are way more than they need to be and are unnecessarily scary to parents of future students.

DS is on minimum Maintenance loan and is at Lancaster which is one of the cheaper universities for living. It’s a fully campus uni with literally everything you could need on site. Lancaster is a small northern city. Campus is just outside the city and a bus takes about 15 minutes into the city centre.

His halls accommodation is middle band (bathroom shared 1 between 2) and the cost is approx £170 per week on a 40 week contract (about £2300 a term). So his minimum maintenance loan basically only pays two terms of rent. We then top up the rest of his rent and give him £110 a week to live on (equates to about £15 a day or £500 a month but term time only). The very cheapest accommodation on campus for the coming year (sept 24) is approx £130 a week on a 40 week contract. That’s for fully shared bathrooms where you share with 8-10 people.

So at a cheaper university it’s costing us about £7k a year out of net salary for him to be there. That’s with him getting minimum loan. Having done a straw poll of my friends, the amount we give him per week of £110 is typical. Most are giving between £450 and £550 a month but it varies depending on where they go. One friend gives her daughter £85 a week but her daughter is having to supplement that by money she earns because it isn’t enough.

DS says that in his flat of 12 the typical amount is about £100 a week to live on. They all have about the same apart from 2 kids who get a fair bit more. They all overspent in the first term with freshers and so many things going on. Lancaster is definitely cheaper to live than some other university towns/cities.

He pays for all travel, food, subs, socialising etc. We pay his phone and contact lenses.

Hopefully that helps.

OP, have a good read on the MSE website about student funding.

They can all have a government loan for their course fees. Loans for living expenses are means tested. All can have a minimum amount of about £5k and those with lower family incomes can have up to the max of about £10k. So £10k is what’s expected to be needed in average and nay family who doesn’t qualify for the further maintenance loan is expected to top up to the full amount.

So OP, you might be looking at providing about £5k per year and your child taking loans of about £15k per year. Many families provide this £5k. They do it by saving for a few years if that’s needed to reach what they need. Others only think about it in 6th Form and can save some of it but won’t make the full contribution and their kids fund the rest via working through 6th form and saving or working during term time and hols at uni.

So OP, you need to work out what you can afford via savings already in existence or what you can save during the time before and during uni. Let your DC know what they can expect from you and if they will need to be funding any themselves. It might influence if they work through 6th form and their attitude to money now - ie saving some instead of spending all their earnings.

If they take the loans, most will start working life with £45-60k of debt, depending on how much maintenance loan they were entitled to.

The sooner you think about, the more control you’ll have. You might wish you’d thought about it 10 years ago, but even looking at it now and doing some planning and actually talking about it with DC can make a big difference.

TBH the worst scenarios are when the DC themselves know zero about it and only start thinking about it very late on, and have no idea if their parents will be providing anything for them or not. And if they find out the answer is no, it’s much more difficult for them. So knowing yourself what you might be able to provide and telling them helps everyone start planning and thinking ahead. Most families find it a struggle.

I'm sorry - but thats what DC room costs - £10,000 a year for a room in a shared house (£195 a week) Friends of his are paying more. It's not unheard of to be paying rents of £200 /£220 a week in his University city.. It is crazy but I don't set the rent charges. This is not London but a SW University. The living expenses of £7,000 are not excessive - thats £130 a week for phone, food, travel, gas, electric, water. I am just demonstrating my experience. Yes, it can be cheaper, but Im sure it could also be far more expensive if your child choose a London Uni.
Research rent rates in the University town carefully.

Save that it was Tony Blair who brought in tuition fees. Yes rant at the Tories for loads of other things around cost of living crisis but this isn't one they brought about.

Dependent on the age of your eldest DC the flippant response @Seriously79 is live in Wales.

More seriously….

Assuming though you are in England, start saving now, but also as others have suggested a part time job in Y12 / Y13 can start to further build up the DCs own money as well.

At 60k that is near the upper threshold, although household income is net of any pension contribs I believe.

The maintenance loan thresholds have not changed for a long time. Household income below £25k attracts the max maintenance loan, that amount has not changed since 2008. Equally given the rate of inflation over the past two years the max maintenance loan is now near £2,000 below where it otherwise would be.

as many have rightly noted costs can vary considerably based on location and accommodation type. Research to allow pragmatic and informed decision making is key, ideally undertaken by the DC who wants to go to Uni. Plus as parents honest conversations with DC as to what is financially practical from a parental contribution perspective. Once started holiday jobs, especially in the long summer break, can be a good source of income. Just over 50% of students also have term time jobs, although course intensity and placements for certain subjects can place constraints on that.

Most students don’t have help from their parents.
They have to save their earnings from jobs they had whilst at school and college/6th form, take a gap year (or 2) and work full time then get part time jobs whilst at uni.

The best thing to do is start saving when they start school. They are at school for 14 years. If you could save £1.5k each year for each DC in a high interest ISA then if they wanted Uni you would be able to help fund them. If they don't want it you could keep it to gift them towards a deposit. It's no use saving nothing and then complaining when they reach Year 10 or 11.

Is it true that most students don’t have any help
Certainly not among my DCs friends

I work overtime, DH works 2 jobs, dcs work part time. One dc in a cheap city, another in expensive city and deferred a year to save up, third looking at degree apprenticeships but I don’t know what she will end up doing, dc 4 likely to go but dc1 and 2 will be through it by then and hopefully we’ll be in a better financial position. I could manage one at a time but 2 is really hard. We have a good income (ironically the OT and second job decrease the amount our dc can borrow and it’s only pennies over the minimum) but covid and Brexit hit DHs business hard and we borrowed to get us through.

The best thing to do is start saving when they start school. They are at school for 14 years. If you could save £1.5k each year for each DC in a high interest ISA then if they wanted Uni you would be able to help fund them. If they don't want it you could keep it to gift them towards a deposit

Can't decide if this is just hilarious, or if people actually think that most people have £1.5k a year per child "spare" for 14 years prior to their eldest turning 18

I suspect the poster posting this has a very different financial situation to most on here judging from previous posts.