Can somebody explain the costs involved in going to University to me please?

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I didn't go and even if I had gone it was back in the days when it was free.

I understand that there are tuition fees that make up a student loan, which is repaid once the 'student' begins to earn over a certain amount. What I don't understand is what happens in regard to rent, food, general living costs? We wouldn't be classed as being on a low income, but my three dc's are all very close together in age and if they did go we couldn't afford to pay for three lots of rent etc. Does this mean that they couldn't go to University or would have to choose one close to home?

Are there any other costs?

My eldest is 11, so in theory it's a while but I know how quickly primary school went.

Well, the system is about to change again, so there's no knowing what will happen in 7 years time.
At the moment there are two types of loan available

1. Tuition fees loan (and this is currently the same everywhere in England and is not assessed on parents income)
2. Maintenance loan - which can be assessed on parental income.

This loan does not cover the likely total cost of living as a student away from home, so the student needs to earn some money/have rich parents/run up an enormous overdraft to get through.

At present Tuition fees are about £3000 a year and the student can take out a loan that covers this - they never see this money as it goes directly to the university and so just appears on the loan statement.

Secondly the student can take out a maintenance loan to cover living costs - the amount that can be borrowed depends on the parents income, everyone can borrow 72% of the maximum amount but the remaining 28% is means tested. DD1 has the 72% which is about £3500, this just covers her rent to we give her a monthly amount on top of that.

There are grants available but there are dependent on parents income.

Obviously this is the situation as it is now and the new regime of higher tuition fees may have different limits on what can be borrowed.

Brilliant - well not brilliant, but thanknyou all for explaining I didn't realize about the
maintenance grant.

I think quite a few unis also offer smallish burseries like this
Household Income University Bursary
£0 - £26,137 £850

£26,138 - £36,592 £530
£36,593 - £52,550 £215

As it'll all be well in the future (you say your eldest is 11 now) things may be different then from how they're currently projected to be.
My guess (and hope) is that when fees skyrocket, as they're going to do from 2012, there'll be a wider range than currently of students eligible for help towards costs.
When the time approaches, it will be worth considering living costs in the towns/cities where there are university courses of interest to your child/ren. Life in the northern towns and cities is a lot cheaper, for example, with lower rents.
Trawl also through the UCA guide to see which universities offer the best bursaries. These vary; many offer bursaries to students who have had particularly good A Level results.
If any of your children is bright enough to get into Oxford or Cambridge, these universities offer the most, in terms of opportunities for financial help, being as they are such rich institutions.

dotnet my dh went to oxford and sadly is not a high earner. He gets asked very frequently for contributions towards the bursary schemes. Most of these rely on the generousity of alumni. We give about £25 a year......

DD3 gets £4.500 maintenance loan but it wasn't means tested. I think students can get up to £6000 if thier parents income is low. This is for London it's about a thousand pound less for the rest of the country.