Help please - what is a reasonable allowance for a 1st year uni student?

[starving]

My dd is off to uni soon. She will be staying at home (her choice). We are in Scotland to get fees paid and due to family income she is only entitled to loans, no bursary etc. I don't like the idea of dd leaving uni with £££ of debt so have agreed with her that she will not apply for a loan (at least for now - you never know what is round the corner!) and I will give her an allowance (We can afford it) or alternatively she can get a part time job. But I have no idea what to give her. I want her to have enough to get coffee, etc, go out (but not every night!), buy stationary, textbooks etc.

What do you consider is reasonable? She will be staying at home so all food etc provided. Her mobile is paid for, as will her bus pass. I don't want to give her so much that she is discouraged from looking for a part time job but don't want to be mean. We will need to discuss whether she takes responsibility for clothes, as for toiletries etc I guess I will continue to buy (or else she pinches mine!).

As a starting point I was thinking £30 per week, but honestly have no idea. Anyone with any experience or suggestions gratefully received. Thanks

You could use the student loan calculator to get a figure of what loan would be available to your dd should she have taken it and consider using that figure

Work out what your dd would have received if she had been entitled to a full maintenance grant and give her that amount (but deduct the amount you are already giving her for her phone and travel costs). When I was at uni a few years ago I think that was about £3.5k per year, (so £3.5k less the bus fares and phone costs is what I would give her) which probably equates to around £50 per week.

Glace if you started your degree before 2012 like my DS did, unfortunately you only have to earn £16,910 before paying it back. They were the £3000 a year degrees

True though, a lot won't earn £21k or whatever, which is what the current student loans pay back at. Doesn't mean they won't have a satisfying job though.

I worked and supported myself all the way through uni and left with a first class degree. Totally do-able.

So, assuming worst case scenario, and they can't get a job. And their loan barely covers accomodation. How much a week will an undergraduate need to have a reasonable life?

I watched the secret life of students and one of the girls was really struggling due to not getting any help from her family and struggling to get a job. She was finding it really tough to find the money for her rent. She considered giving up the course due to the financial situation but managed to get a job at HMV but then ended up missing lectures due to being tired from working a lot of hours and eventually had an anxiety attack and collapsed with an ambulance being called. The saddest thing was that she had been phoning her family asking them to release her childhood savings but they refused to do that. They never even visited her or sent any food
I think if the family can afford it they should try and provide around £30- £50 per week on top of whatever contribution the student finance says the family need to make as it makes the whole thing much less stressful for the young person if they can cover their rent, but food and socialise (important part of uni life).

LightAs I started before 2012 (obviously?!) and earn less than 16k so it's not affected me, but I am certainly in the minority.

On the job front from the POV of university workload:

Yes, most potential employers expect graduates to have some sort f work experience.

BUT, if working gets in the way of study, that is not a good use of the student's resources of time & energy. If you think about time & enerhgy as resources for investment in the future, an excellent result in the degree will outweigh huge amounts of work experience.

Lateral thinking is needed: work during vacations, unpaid work experience & interning (a lot of universities have funds that students can apply for to fund some unpaid work experience).

Students need to have some targeted work experience, as well as some random, part-time NMW job anyone can do. The latter demonstrates that they can turn up on time, do a basic job, and get along as a normal member of the workforce.

But they also should be looking for specific targeted experience that is likely to develop the specific learning & skills related to their degree course. It's unlikely that a student will be offered a place on a PGCE course, for example, without some demonstrated experience pf working with children/young people. Not necessarily in a school, so you can think laterally about these things.

Overall it's about balance so some of the statements on this thread are not helpful in that respect.

Missunreasonable - did you miss the part where she spent a large proportion of her loan on clothes? When she called her family and they said they couldn't help, she screamed abuse at them then refused to contact them again...

Yes, I didn't see that she spent a large chunk on clothes, I must have missed that bit. I did see her screaming at her family on the phone but given that she wanted access to her money that they had been saving since she was little and they refused to give it to her I didn't think she was being totally irrational, but if she has form for blowing money on clothes then that makes sense. They could have paid her rent directly from that money though surely?
She did come across as lazy but (having missed that she blew some of her money on clothes) I felt really sorry for her financial predicament and couldn't understand how her family wouldn't help if they could. I also found it odd that they never visited and that she didn't go home at Christmas (even if I had an argument with my children we would make up and remain in contact same as I do with my own mum).

Gro bags you misunderstood me , I think students should work, but oynin the holidays not term time.

There is a real dilemma between working in a job anyone can do, which has its place in life, and doing work experience or volunteering to get ahead in the profession a student wishes to follow. In some cases it is possible to do both, but not always, especially in the summer holidays. It also depends what career you want. I think paid low level work in a totally unrelated field without any relevant work experience for a career is not a good idea. A balance of the two is best.

I asked my DD who has recently graduated about students working and she did not know a single one who did. I think this greatly depends on what university you go to, parental income and expectation. The competition for some jobs between students and overseas workers should not be over estimated either. The main thing is a student needs to get the best degree they can, demonstrate they can think for themselves and have relevant work experience.

The viability of doing paid work whilst studying thing also depends on the degree that somebody is doing.
For example: If somebody is doing a social work, medical or nursing degree which involves full time work placements as well as study and assignment writing then it is much more difficult to hold down a paying job whilst maintaining good grades than it is for somebody doing a purely academic degree who only has a few lectures to attend each week.

I very much wish that babysitting had occurred to me as a student. Being paid £7 / hr or so to study in a warm house during term time? bring it on... I was a cocktail waitress instead and earned lots of money but did appallingly on the degree because I was so tired.
Vac schemes and holidays are for doing relevant work experience / topping up - I did a lot of temp typing which was a great moneyspinner then, not sure that exists so much in the world of voice recognition technology etc.

Anyway - point is it's quite possible to work and earn as well as study properly, but if you can afford to help, why not do it in the most efficient way possible?