How much are you expected to give DStudent and how are you hoping to find it?

[serin]

We are expected to give around £400 a month by the look of things.

That's a hell of a lot to find out of a family budget. We do have some savings to help but are also hoping that she manages to find some sort of employment once there. Not easy though as she is heading to an area of high unemployment.

Has everyone else been more sensible than us and been saving since birth? or are other parents going to be living off beans on toast come the autumn?

I agree with Backforgood. We are paying, rather than have DS take loans, so effectively he can have what he needs. We started with £1000 for the first term. Two months on, DS checked with us whether the money was for the term or the year! I am pretty sure he is saving. This is despite being in the worst of all worlds, eg in catered accomodation in central London where the food is awful and he knows no one (the hall is vast and inter-collegiate), and where he is on a 40+ week contract so has been staying during the holidays.

It may depend on the type of child you have. DS does not understand why you would have more than two pairs of jeans, and sees shopping as a form of torture. He does not drink, and though he pays in a regular football game and is engaged in a couple of societies, probably does not spend a lot on his social life. I suspect he may have eaten more pot noodles than is good for him, though more recently he seems to be more aware of the need for a balanced diet. In part this is having friends who cook. Next year he will be in a flat and think he will cook more.

I would explain to your DD that any money you give her comes out of the family purse, and that you expect her to keep this to a minimum. I would encourage her to save over the summer, and give her less to start with. If she needs more once she knows what she needs to spend, she can come back. She should also apply for bursaries, avoid expensive en-suites, and perhaps see what work there may be on campus. DS is working very hard, but if money were tight, I would expect him to try to find something one evening a week, or similar. (Ideas include: Saturday shift in a bookmaker, get a swim teaching qualification over the summer and teach the busy Saturday morning shift where teachers are usually in high demand, SU bar, etc)

Our first dd plans to go to uni in a couple of years. We'd hoped to save for it, but due to various life events we never managed to. We've looked at estimated living costs from various sources, accommodation costs, and had expected to be topping her up to the tune of about £550 a month. So if £400 is a good estimate that's an improvement for us .

Some of it I suppose will be covered by not having her living at home for part of the year (although we'll lose her Child Benefit). We've also been overpaying our mortgage for the past couple of years, so just before she goes we'll ask for our monthly payments to be recalculated and direct the difference to dd1. Apart from that, I expect we'll be having a few lean years. Especially the one where dd2 may be at uni as well.

For my DD in particular there was a lot of eating out and shop bought coffees

Well, there you go then tantalisingduck
As I always say on money thread - if you've got loads and are fairly confident the source isn't going to dry up anytime soon, then that's fine - I like the occasional lunch out with my own friends, but it's hardly a necessity. In the world I live in, eating out, or buying a coffee is a treat (for me, that is, as a working professional manager on a salary I've worked up to over almost 30 years). I certainly wouldn't count it in a student's normal spending. If any of my dc want to swan around buying coffees, then they need to find a way to finance that.

namechange we will be looking at other countries too. Have heard good things about unis in Netherlands and Germany is also an option as ds speaks fluent German.

We've been saving. DHs eldest wil get 300/mth from us and who knows what from her mother

Ours will get more as they will most likely be international students, based on our work choices so feel it's fair to sub their fees as well.

We are expats and did extensive research and everywhere told us we would have to pay international fees. The student needs to have lived in the IK for 3 years to qualify for domestic fees. If anyone has different info than that, I would LOVE to hear it.

Currently, DC1 is due to start a Uni in the U.S. and it's going to cost us a whopping $40k year and that's with an academic scholarship! It's lucky I'm losing weight, because I won't be able to afford to eat anyway!

UK not IK.

Have heard the same re fees, but was talking to head of IB at school and he said it was up to university. We are anticipating paying international fees and relieved that Ds does not want to study medicine!

I think "swanning around buying coffees" is just about what every student does now when they gave a bit of down time. My DDs would think it very odd if they could not do this with their friends and I am glad they can join in and not be excluded. However, each student, and family attitudes, are different so if you cannot afford to pay for coffee in a coffee shop then obviously your DD and DS has to go without. If you can afford it but just decide your DS or DD has to conform to your standards and is not allowed to have a bit of social fun with their friends over a coffee then I think that is a shame. As we know from posts above, getting a job is not always possible or desirable.

LikeABadSethRogenMovie We were expats outside of the EU for many years, had sold our house in the UK and only returned to the UK two years before DD1 wanted to start university. We had no trouble getting home fee status despite being expats for 13 years.

The things that tipped it in our favour were;
~We could show we were on an expat contract, DHs company head office is based in the UK etc
~DH pension etc was UK based
~We were paid as expats so received housing allowence, school fees and flights home every year.
~We all had UK passports (and were born in the UK)
~We could show we were living with temporary work/education visas in the country we were last posted to.
~We could show we visited the UK at least once or twice a year

We were totally upfront about everything and didn't have a problem with any of the Unis. A couple of Unis agreed to 'provisionally' tell us DDs fee status while some others wouldn't unless DD actually applied to them.

DD is doing medicine so we were very relieved that she was considered a home fee payer.

If you are genuinely expats then you should be able to get home fee status regardless of owning a home in the UK.

MMM, comments were in response to an OP which suggested that these coffees would cause the rest of the family to go without. This, surely, is not right. Other posts have tried to suggest that spending money on inessentials is not "just about what every student does now". DS is proud of having identified a cafe where a cup of tea costs 80p, and in Central London. Not having much money might prevent you from hanging out with some groups, but there will be plenty of friends to be made via lectures, societies etc where money is not required. It may of course be that in London a large proportion of students either live at home to save money or come from overseas and are very aware of the big sacrifices parents are making. But either way, there are plenty of others in the same boat.

(That said one big disappointment has been University sport where unless you are shooting for one of the top teams, selection seems to have been based on performance in the bar afterwards. DS instead has found a casual seven a side team where he just pays towards the hire of the pitch, but he regrets the way sports appears to be controlled by a specific group.)

In terms of overseas fees, we know a family where the daughter had not lived in the UK since the age of six, and the father worked for an overseas government. They had to do a bit of shopping around but were able to find Universities who confirmed that they were willing to treat her as a home student. I assume some Universities would prefer home fees to an empty place.

We both work and are old enough to now have minimal mortgage so can afford to give money to the 2 kids at uni. Our kids are from previous marriages and their other parents are also contributing and we chose not to have any additional kids together.
Also with kids not living with us and not transporting them back and forth our outgoings are reduced with them at uni.
Also my son was at private school before uni so it's actually cheaper having him at uni (in Scotland so no tuition fees and staying in a cheap area of Scotland) My stepdaughter in England is more expensive.

LikeABad, $40k is horrendous. We just couldn't do that at all.

We have 2 other teens at home and I think it's a shame that they will not have the same life chances that DD had as there just won't be the same funds available. It's amazing how creative we have become though, Eg child one has benefitted from years of music lessons, children 2 and 3 have just joined the local silver band instead (£2 a week ).

If it is still true that first borns do better in life then it is no wonder!

DS is at uni in London , living in self catering halls ( and will be next year too ) rent is covered by his maintenance loan , he also has a small grant
At the beginning of the year we asked him to pay his rent , then work out how much was left for each week of term
He then worked out he needed an extra £20 a week which I pay weekly by standing order
If he needs more ( ie he wanted to go on a jolly sports tour to Spain ) we give a bit more
He doesn't work term time , but will in the holidays

Apply for all the student finance and bursaries you can

DS 2 will be off in September too !

I don't have a university aged child yet but I work in a university, in the engineering department and students here rarely have jobs after the first year or so because of the work load. Many students are on 4-5 year programmes , the final year of which students are expected to complete 180 credits (ie same as an MSc normally done in 12 months) in 9 months.

The workload is pretty punishing really with lots of lab and contact time. Most students need to be on campus in lectures, labs or seminars for 2-3 full days a week added to the assessments and coursework they need to do outside of that. They are expected to about 10-15 hours of work a week on top of their time on the campus for each module they study. That is around 40 hours of study a week on top of the 2-3 days spent on campus The best students do this as there really are no shortcuts in engineering so they really are working around 50-60 hours a week either on campus or in doing assessments/studying.

I am not saying that a small Saturday or couple of evenings a week isn't possible but it is pretty hard to keep up grades and to work as well and also to have a little bit of fun. Students should be having some fun too no? Else when can they?

They can get jobs in the summer though if they can find one.

DD1 is just finishing her foundation year and luckily for her she got the top rate as unlucky for us we have been out of work. Her rent was 89 per week which after buying some essentials left her with 40-50 per week to live on. She has done ok and has had a shock lesson in budgeting. I have helped out when i could, usually the last couple of weeks of term when she was living on pennies. She knew when she went that we were unable to help regularly as we lost a big chunk of benefits when she moved out

We bought a house for each of our DSs so they live rent free and they seem to live well enough off the maintenance loan. They are adamant that there is no time for a job if you are studying/living student life to the full.

We pay most of DD3's rent she contributes a small part of it. That is all the money we give her and she manages to go out for coffee or cheap meals with her friends, she occasionally drinks but is not a big drinker, She just tries to budget and does it quite well. She does live in quite a cheap area though. We did the same for her sisters when they were at university. I do occasionally buy her food and send her small items but not very much. My brother didn't pay my DN rent but gave him £100 a month an he did get a part time job in the 2nd year.