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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

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Original poster

Just how much are you paying for your DC to go to uni this year?

41 replies

LaineyW · 14/10/2010 08:43

My DD (18) has just attended her first open day at Southampton Solent. She loved it and is very fired up to go now but obviously we're looking closely at tuition fees/accommodation fees/food bills/new laptop etc.

Can anyone tell me what they are actually paying on a monthly basis to keep their DC at university?

OP posts:

kidsncatsnwine · 24/10/2010 17:53

We sub our daughter £30 a week to eat and that's it.. her loan has to pay for halls and everything else:( It's tight, but she is resourceful (and attends anything with a free lunch!!) She's doing medicine so has little time left over even if there were jobs around, but is going to work back at her old p/t job in all the holidays and try and save.

It's tough but character building

Lilymaid · 24/10/2010 18:24

I've just had discussions with DS and found that even at his comparatively cheap university everything is expensive. He only gets the minimum student loan and that just covers his hall of residence. Until he gets a job we are having to pay out quite a lot in order to pay for the two meals a day he doesn't get, his sport and his books. At present we are fortunately in a position to do this - if we weren't he would rack up far more debt from overdrafts.

palomadove · 24/10/2010 20:17

We'll be in this position next year when (hopefully) dd goes to uni.

Can I just check something - if your dc gets just the minimum loan - does that just cover the tuition fee, or is there some left over that they can use to pay accommodation?

I'm expecting we'll have to pay her some sort of allowance, but like the OP, am trying to work out how much - and how to be fair to dd2 who will be 18 in a few year's time when tuition fees will have gone up.

DD1 does a part-time job now and is saving as much as she can.

Lilymaid · 25/10/2010 10:17

Tuition fee loans at present cover the whole amount of the loan irrespective of parental income.
Maintenance loans at present are a maximum of £4,950 for students living away from home. For those with parents with incomes over the threshold (which is quite low) the amount paid out is reduced. We don't have an enormous joint salary but DS only gets 72% of the maximum - £3564 - which would not cover the accommodation fees for a first year in a catered hall of residence in many universities.

thekidsmom · 26/10/2010 15:45

If it helps, we 'paid'* £11k for DS for last year in Bristol - covering catered hall, fees, all living costs.

I think we gave him rather too much because that covered the cost of a student ski trip at £600!

This year we plan to spend the same in total but his private rent is much more expensive at £350 per month plus bills with no meals included, of course. But he did earn £1500 working over the summer which helps.

*When I say 'paid', that includes a promise to repay his student loan in due course - £3000 on fees plus £3400ish living expenses. So we paid him about £4500 on top of that - or roughly £500 for each month he was there. HE could have survived on less, I'm sure.

Of course the whole arranagement may need a rethink when his 2 sisters go to uni too and we run out of cash.....

Original poster

LaineyW · 26/10/2010 20:43

Crikey, it varies so much! Have just read the other thread re. applying early to UCAS rather than waiting until the January deadline, which has frightened the Bejesus out of me... is it really all worth it?

My heart really wants her to go (I never had the chance as my stepfather made it very plain that he thought all students were scroungers and a huge drain on society), but my head says Bloody Hell! Do a management trainee scheme and get paid from day 1.

OP posts:

NotanOtter · 26/10/2010 23:46

ds is also at a university where not allowed to work

he has 12 hours lectures ( some at 8 am and 3 hours sat mornings)
4 supervisons ( in a 7pm)

12hours work from supervisions

16 hours practicals

SO no time for work even if he were allowed...

His rent is V reasonable but room tiny weeny- we pay rent he pays everything else

MmeOrangeBlackandBlueberry · 27/10/2010 10:13

We haven't paid anything for DS1 (yet). He has paid for his halls with his loan, and was left with £1500 to live on.

Unless he gets a job, we will have to start subbing him, but so far, he seems to be taking his own responsibility seriously.

He is in Central London and was shocked at the prices of everything. He spent his Freshers' week scouting out the cheap places to eat and be entertained.

mollymole · 27/10/2010 12:06

we found that £100 per week would cover rent of shared house (did this from start never went in halls - too expensive), but we did have to pay in 3 termly chunks and all other costs - food/clothing/gas & electric etc/travel - he is quite good with his money
and tee total- and then in hols he worked in our small business for no wages to 'pay us back' - he even managed to save some of the £100 per week
we did use the loan for the tuition fee but did not borrow anything else - if you are in a position to help surely it is better to come to sort of agreement with offspring so as to avoid them incurring interest but ensuring they don't get a free ride

Original poster

LaineyW · 27/10/2010 19:50

I agree mollymole. We'd rather she paid the loan back to us so she doesn't incur interest.

OP posts:

mamatomany · 28/10/2010 10:07

but my head says Bloody Hell! Do a management trainee scheme and get paid from day 1.

Unfortunately they require a degree for that these days where 5 good GCSE's would have done 10 years ago.

mollymole · 28/10/2010 13:23

management trainee schemes are like gold dust
and the majority require a 2.1 or higher these days - my son applied for a fair number of these and the initial application forms take at least 4 hours a time to fill in and then some of them do not even have the manners to acknowledge at all. he did get feedback from 2 that he got near to the end of -after on line, then telephone, then 1st interview stage and then lost out at 2nd full day of interviews. Both of them said he should be proud of getting as far as he did in the scheme as 1 of them had only one vacancy and over 2000 applicants and he got to the last 7 - the other had 4 vacancies and whittled down from over 4500 applicants!!
With these numbers of applicants how do they even start to choose - they cannot surely read all the forms - or is this why you need to apply in November for a September the following year start

Simbacat · 28/10/2010 13:38

I suppose it depends on what you can afford and how much you want them to be in debt when they leave.

Mine go soon and will not be eligible for any grants but obv can take loans.

The gvt look like they are changing funding anyway. Ideally I don't want mine to be in debt. I Intended to pay for it all - partly from savings from birth.

It roughly seemed about 11k a year when I looked at it.

The new policy is suggesting that parents will no longer be able to pay and loans will be for all.

NotanOtter · 28/10/2010 20:18

well done simba

i think 9k should do it - 3 fees 3 rent 3 rest is how most of me and friends roughly assess it

Original poster

LaineyW · 29/10/2010 19:03

The management trainee schemes I mentioned were the post-A level ones, not the graduate schemes. M&S, John Lewis and Tesco all seem to offer management training schemes for students with just A levels. Of course these must also be like gold dust... if only DD would get her arse in gear and get on with applying. You have to be in it to win it!

OP posts:

mumeeee · 01/11/2010 14:42

NotanOtter.
9k a year would be puhing it. DD2 is in London and her halls cost 5k for the year which was about the same as her student loan. So she would have been left with nothing to live on. She has a tution and maintenance loan. We paid all her rent in the first year everything else she paid for herself. We did give her alitle bit of money at thee end of the year it was from some of the deposit she got back from her halls. This helped her pay for some of her rent through the summer as she stayed up in London as she had a job up there for the summer.
Anyway she is now in shared accomadation we pay her rent is £395 a month. We pay £300 and she pays £95 plus all utility bills. Everything she pays for comes out of her student loan.

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