DD going to uni - we don't qualify for anything but the minimum loan - what does everyone else do in this situation?

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This is a question specifically about/ for people who do not qualify for the maximum living cost loan and/or any means-tested grants/bursaries/ benefits etc.

Our first DC is (grades permitting) going to uni this autumn.

She will take the same, non-means-tested, £9k tuition fee loan that everyone is entitled to, to pay her £9k tuition fees every year.

In addition, she will be able to borrow the minimum living cost loan (65% of £5500 which is:) £3500.

Her accommodation alone - non-catered - is £5800.

On top of this, she will need money for food and toiletries, stationery, travel, going out etc.

She is doing a very heavy-weight course with lectures pretty much 9.00 to 5.00 and lots of work, so a part-time job during term-time is not advised.

She can and will work when she comes back home during her holidays and whilst this will help a bit, I think that it is unlikely to make a hugely significant contribution.

I have heard that people in our situation (who don't qualify for the full living cost loan or any means-tested bursaries/ grants etc) let their kids take the £3500 living cost loan for food toiletries etc (ie living costs) and that they pay the accommodation costs of hall in the first year (£5800 pa) and rent in a shared student house (hopefully quite a bit cheaper) in the second and subsequent years.

Has anyone got any thoughts or advice?

We are in the same situation as you and DD is now coming towards the end of her second year.

We have done what you have mentioned in your post. We pay accommodation and DD has the maintenance loan to cover all other expenses. This has worked very well and seems to have been plenty for her to live on so far. Admittedly she doesn't have the wildest of social lives but she eats well, travels a lot, and is still able to pay for books, travel pass etc herself.

Things were a little different for us as DD's accommodation was nowhere near as expensive as your DD's. She is at Newcastle University and was in somewhat grim but very reasonable accommodation for her first year, which cost less than £3000 a year. This year she is in a shared house for £78 p/week plus bills. We pay the rent, she pays the bills.

If you can afford to do it this way I would recommend doing so. The alternative is to use the maintenance loan to pay the accommodation (with a top-up) and then just give your DD a certain amount a week to live on. The downside of this is that they don't have any sort of lump sum for larger expenses, eg text books at the beginning of the year. Have also noticed with DD's friends who do it this way that they don't acquire any skills in budgeting.

It's difficult. If our financial situation remains as it is currently we will not be able to support our children through college and yet they will only qualify for the minimum loan. When the time comes I will suggest to my children that they might want to consider applying for local universities to keep the costs down. We are lucky in that we live within commutable distance of lots of universities from Russell Group right down to ex polys.

Is it possible for your dd to commute from home to save on accommodation costs?

Can you afford to pay her rent or give her money to live on?? Could she go to a uni closer to home so she could live at home? If not, a part time job may not be advised but it may be necessary! When i was studying law it involved a lot of work but had not choice but to work part time. options for students tend to be supermarket or bar work generally but what about B&Bs and small hotels. they may need a waitress over the breakfast period or part of it. for me working 7-8.30am meant that my evenings were free to study. alternatively she could approach temping agencies who may be able to offer her weekend work - the benefit of that is she can choose what weekends she can and cannot work depending on her study load. Banking on getting work during the holidays is very risky because every student in the country will be in the same position. Also what is to say when she gets to uni she will want to come back every holiday for all of the holiday? Perhaps you could give her a small amount money every week, £20 or something for her to buy food and toiletries. When she does move to uni provide her with a hamper of foods such as tea, coffee, pasta, rice, tins of soup/beans etc, toiletries. adding an item or two to your shopping from now until she goes will mount up without you noticing the additional cost.

I got a job!
Try that

BonnieBumble - Thanks for replying. Too late to consider going local - she's out of the other side of the application process for this autumn and going to a uni three some distance away. In any case, I want her to go away to university for many reasons.

Spiffspoff Thanks for replying. I'm sure you're right about learning to budget. I think we'll do it the same way as you. We'll pay the £5800 hall fee and she'll have the £3575 living cost loan for food and all other living costs. I think that she'll get given £1191 at the beginning of each term and will have to budget for everything out of that.

Couple of questions for you:

1. What happens when she comes home during holiday time? I'm thinking that I shall feed DD but that she will need to pay for her own toiletries, clothes and socialising. Is this what you do or do you revert to buying all of her shampoo etc and replacing worn-out jeans?

1. Re this £78 a week for your DDs rent in Newcastle: Is the contract for 52 weeks - ie total annual cost to you of £4056? Do you know how much your DD will have to budget for, for all bills (again -I'm interested in the per annum figure)?

1. Did you take out an insurance policy for your DD? She has a nice phone and laptop and I wonder if it might be worth taking out a separate policy for her rather than relying on our contents insurance.

Thank you so much!

Thank you for your contributions Svrider and countydurhamlass My DD has been working part-time for the last 18 months since she turned 16. Her employer has given her an undertaking that she can come back to her part-time job in her holidays at university. I explained in my original post she is taking on a course with a very heavy programme and lots of work and has been expressly told that it is not advisable to work during term time for this reason.

DS is just coming to the end of his first year.
We are in the same situation as you, and we have paid his accom costs and he has had his loan to live on. TBH he has found it has been plenty - even had money left at easter!
But.... when he is home we do pick up the usual costs eg toiletries, a new T shirt if I am out shopping and spot one I think he will like, etc.
At Christmas we had to put down a deposit for his rented house for next year. This will be £80pw for 52 weeks so will work out about the same as his rent this year in halls. However I do expect that he will pay bills, and transport costs from his loan.
Like your DD, he is doing a "heavy" course with 20+ hrs of contact time, plus equiv time working on projects and assignments. He hasn't had a part time job, and we have discouraged him from working in term time, but he is hoping to get something over the long summer break.

Dd1 has to pay her own way. Without her part-time job she wouldn't have any money to pay bills, food, entertainment etc. Luckily this year the maintenance loan covers the rent. We are unable to contribute but don't qualify for any extras.

I know they say a job is not recommended, but when I was studying I had children, so had to give them time and couldn't study 24-7.

If your DD worked every Saturday or a few nights a week it would be possible to sacrifice her social life rather than her study time. Not ideal for a young person, but do-able.

We are in Scotland, and have got to fund the boys to the tune of about £8K a year - if more than one is at university, it is split between them, and they top it up with a loan, but whilst it is just ds1, he will get under £1k as a loan. Dh has been having sleepless nights over this (especially when we lost child benefit in the budget), and we have scrimped and saved, had no holidays for 2 years (nor will we have holidays for the next 6 years, until all three are through university) and by the time ds1 goes to university in the autumn, we should have saved up his first year's money. Then we start scrimping and saving for next year, when ds1 and ds2 will be at university.

The boys know they will have to work to supplement what we can give them - and to incentivise them,dh isn't going to claw back all that they earn - for every pound they earn, he will probably deduct 50p from what we give them.

Like JustGettingByMum, we tend to pick up general costs when DD is home. She uses shampoo, toothpaste etc that is in the family bathroom but anything fancier she buys herself, as well as make-up. To be fair, she is very low maintenance anyway and occasionally I buy her the odd item of clothing while she's home, partly because I'm tired of seeing her in the clothes she's been wearing since year 11!

As regards her rent, DD was very lucky to get a contract this year that only ran from September until July as the previous tenants wanted to stay in it over the summer. However, she and her friends are keeping the same house for next academic year, which means that we are having to carry on paying the rent over the summer holidays. I think most contracts run for a full 52-week year. I'm afraid I don't know how much she budgets for bills and I know they have varied widely. It was a very cold winter in Newcastle but they were still very reluctant to put the heating on, often only giving in when their hands were so cold they could no longer type or hold a pen. She did most of her work in her bed and I did treat her to an electric blanket.

I contacted our insurers about getting cover for DD's house and was pleasantly surprised. By increasing our premium by a very small amount we were able to get cover for everything she owns, not only while it's in the house but on any journeys between the house and home too. She is even covered if she leaves her laptop on the train. Worth looking in to.

We are in the same situation and pay dds accommodation costs and she uses her loan for everything else. However when she comes home I don't expect her to pay for toiletries etc. I just wouldn't feel comfortable. She just uses whatever is in the bathroom which she shares with her younger sister. she does buy her own make up, clothes etc

I really don't get the "make her get a job". If you can afford it and want to do it for your child, I see nothing wrong with it. It's just another parental choice.

I am a landlord. We have 4 student sharers (from outside London) living in the house. They pay 1500 pcm between them, plus bills. Rent is then in the region of £90 per week per person, in London, so not terribly expensive.

They all have part time jobs.

I had a pretty have course, but still manage to find time to have two part time jobs. One as a library shelver in the uni library, two hours, twice a week. And two evenings working behind a bar. Rather work than social life, to be honest.

Another way of seeing this is how will it be different from what you pay for now.

Tuition is covered by the loan.

You already pay for her room, food and personal expenses now. That continues when she goes to university, except you've made a £3500 saving already because she's getting a loan for that.

thirdhill She will be taking a £3500 loan to pay for her food, toiletries, stationery etc that I am currently funding so there will be a bit of a saving for me but in addition to this, her non-catered accommodation is £5800 and there is no loan to cover this. I shall have to pay it. In order to find this money, I have taken on extra work and we have completely abolished any plans for family holidays or house maintenance for the foreseeable future. There is absolutely no doubt that we will be significantly poorer when DD goes to uni.

We are in the middle-income trap - too "rich" to qualify for all of the grants/ burseries etc but too poor just to be able to shell out for the cost of our children without it hurting a lot.

Thanks Quintissential - £90 per person, per week in London. Do you know how much their bills are, roughly, please?

My DD is not allowed a job in term time, but she also worked from age 16 and all Summer & Summer holidays. The first year she didn't join us on holiday was the SUmmer before she went. She had saved £6k+ from earnings before she started uni.

We pay her rent and she actually saves money from the basic loan as she has learned the art of cooking with Aldi's finest and sharing cooking with friiends. She also manages a social life - but she drinks very little. Fortunately for her, terms are only 8 weeks long so holidays are long and allow for earning.

Second year is not cheaper in my DD 2's case. A very expensive town (tourists etc) and having to pay for 48 weeks. Going to cost too much : (
DD1 again going into second year will not find it cheaper than halls. Halls have no water today. No loos,showers nothing. Ho Hum

I think it is all too easy to say they should get jobs, but it's just not that easy. DD hasn't tried to get a job during term time, but of her many friends who have tried hard to do so, few have succeeded. University towns are overflowing with students who want jobs that fit round lectures.

DD worked all of last summer and was promised her job back this summer. Sadly it now looks like that promise is not going to be kept. She is devoting as much time as she can to job hunting and applications, whilst also preparing for exams, but there is very very little available and competition is fierce.

DD is very aware of what it is costing us to put her through university, and that we will soon have DS to pay for too, but in our area holiday jobs are very thin on the ground.

Our plan is that we are saving money not having dd at home! Dd1 will also be off to university in October.We'll pay for her halls (she's getting round to no en suite though she has one at home) and I will give her the equivalent of the loan from some extra tutoring I'm doing - next year the interest rate on the maintenence loan is far from enticing (RPI plus 3% while at university) so we are stuffed whichever way we try to do it! Am planning on her having the money at the start of term (£40pw so she budgets and if she runs out tough). She also has a credit card for books only - currently used for petrol as she needs to drive to school as we are very very rural - or she can buy stuff on Amazon using my password.

When she's home any toiletries just go in the supermarket shop (3 more kids so it's already a bottomless pit). She'll buy her own clothes but I fully expect to be taking her shopping from time to time - it's what most of our friends seem to do.

She's getting a dab hand at making soup!!

I'm so angry at the situation for our dcs. I know many people who will genuinely feel hardship despite earning pretty good money and doing everything right. We're not in it together at all.

OP £5800 seems pretty steep for room costs, we're looking at £3900 for term time, less for non ensuite rooms, is she paying for a full year, if so, why? Cheaper rooms may be worth looking into.

It will cost no more if the £3500 loan all but covers room costs, since everything else was paid for from our coffers anyway. It does feel a lot more when it has to be pulled into a lump sum for DC to budget with, but in reality it used to drip out over time anyway. I've told mine that frugality is part of the privilege of student life, there's always working life if they can't do frugality.

Thirdhill, catered with en suite is £6200 at Bristol.

If it really is going to hurt your families finances as much as you say it is then consider not doing it.

Instead offer her the option of applying for next year to a nearer uni and she can work the whole of next year before going to save.

You have other children, don't you ? If it's really going to be a problem don't bankrupt yourself - what if you can't do it for the others?

She should check out the university's hardship fund, being advised not to take a job may make her qualify. It may hae a different name now and be called a bursary or something else.

We are in a similar situation, although dd is at uni now so not on.£9k fees.

Firstly, while encouraging her to go to uni (but only a good uni and a good degree, not a mickey mouse degree at a former poly with no chance of a graduate level job at the end), I made it clear this will be her debt at the end.

She worked part time during A'levels and did 2 pt jobs the summer before going so had a financial cushion.

We currently fund her accommodation which is £100 a week - that grates a bit when she is home for 3 weeks holiday and we are still paying! Her 2nd year house will need full rent from July onwards,not a retainer, which is what happened in my day.

I bought her the Good Housekeeping student cookbook, which was a good move, and she spends £25 to £30 a week on food, eating well ion that.

In total, her weekly costs when in uni are about £65, so she is managing well within her budget and spending a fraction of that in the holidays.

She doesn't work at the moment, and is volunteering at the Olympics this summer, which probably rules out working this summer.

Next term, we intend giving her less, probably £250 a month, as she will be living out and tbh I think she could work pt now she is settled in with her course...I don't intend working 45-50 hours a week while she lives the life of Riley with no job! But she's not doing a course which demands her presence all day, so really can fit in at least an evening's waitressing a week or similar.

thirdhill

Can I ask, do you genuinely notice that it's cheaper for you now that your DC is away at university? In theory it should be cheaper for me (food and toiletry bills cut by a percentage) but in reality, do you notice a dramatic difference?

She's been buying her own clothes, paying for all socialising and so on with the money from her part-time job since she turned sixteen so I won't notice any change there. She doesn't cost me anything in travel either as she can walk everywhere.