How much money do students need?

[bevelino]

Eldest dd will be going to uni this year and has chosen catered accommodation. Tuition fees and accommodation costs aside, how much extra cash will she need to live on?

A friend gives her Dd £250 per month, another gives £500, and another gives nothing and says they expect dc to get a job. Dd is unable to work as uni frown upon students working during term time. I have to budget for 4 dd's (triplets) at uni at the same time and this is a serious issue/question.

bevelino

Ouch!

If you are inferring Oxbridge for you DD then there are a number of plus sides. College accommodation tends to be cheaper, although there are variations between colleges, and is for most available for all three years. DS1's college is fully catered, but only charge for meals actually taken. Best of both worlds. Compare with somewhere like Durham, his insurance, where catered now starts at around £7k per annum with all meals included whether eaten or not. Conservatively, for him at least, Cambridge is a good £2k less per year to be at than Durham

Add to that the sports clubs he is part of have no fees, the annual gym memberships is only around £20, there are a plethora of non income dependent travel bursaries etc.

And whilst it is true that property prices in both Oxford and Cambridge are high, very few undergrads are aiming to get on the property market as soon as they arrive!. A pint of milk, load of bread, packet of pasta costs no more in Cambridge than in Cardiff or Carlisle.

DS1 got a very good job, more of a placement, straight after finishing A levels. That paid very well and more importantly has opened more doors since then. I'd recommend any DC thinks carefully about what job / experience will really enhance their CV, differentiate them from the crowd, and provide future opportunities. A gap year is worth considering. More so if all 3 or 4 are going to be at Unis (I guess potentially 3-4 different, geographically scattered Unis as well) at the same time.

Of course maintenance loans are dependent on household income, and you've probably seen the student loan calculator and have a pretty good idea about what your DCs would be entitled to. From that you could look at some best, middle, worst case scenario's and assess what is / is not financially feasible. Dependent DCs are taken into account when Student Loans calculate household income, although with my other DCs still being at school (and hopefully I'll have no Uni overlap with them all) I dont know if or how twins / triplets etc also at Uni are factored in. Could be worth giving them a ring to find out that too. The dependent income reduction is not huge, but all counts.

DS1 is just coming to the end of his first year. His maintenance loan does not cover all of his accommodation - we have to put to. Gets it in three instalments and his accommodation fees are billed to him shortly after, we have had to top up by around £400 each time. We give him £60 a week to live on, goes into his account on a Monday. He is self catering.

He will be house sharing for year two will begin at the start of July. His rent for this (not including bills) is due in June. We will have to shell out around £600 per month until he gets his maintenance loan through.

DS1 doesn't work, but we have said he really does need to get a job this summer.

My Ds gets the basic maintenance loan and we pay for his accommodation (400 per month). However he has acquired a part time job- 12 hours per week and earns over £120 a week from this! He therefore is saving quite a lot (I hope!)

Watching with interest as have one who will (grades willing) be going to a London uni in Oct.
We live in London, but he wants to live in catered halls, so wondering how much allowance to give on top.

The student loan calculation makes a small adjustment for multiple student dependants. IIRC it's about £1300. They knock that off your "household income".
This has meant that my DC get a fraction more loan than if there was only one at uni.

One thing to remember though, your home outgoings will plummet!

The fridge will stay full.
No fares to school or college.
No clothes to buy.
No gallons of shower gel.
The fridge will stay full.
No lunch money.
No Pocket money.
The petrol tank won't empty as often.
The fridge will stay full.
All the extra costs of having 3 18 year olds at home will be gone. Presumably you pay for all the above and more at the moment.

This is what UCL suggest as a student 's living costs.

www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/fees-funding/tuition-fees/living-expenses-and-additional-costs

The fridge will stay full.

blimey sad the UCL link adds up to £13,530 for a single year. Or not far off £4,000 more than the maximum maintenance loan / grant for London.

Love to know how the UCL Widening Participation team sell that one

Hmm - yes also just did that math - scary.

mike true to some extent. Only gallons of shower gel though? Do yours only wash once a week?

On the flip side savings need to weighed against the potential loss of close to £200 child benefit every 4 wks for 3 DCs.

My DD starts in October-her grant/ loan is £2000 less than self catering accommodation in Bristol. I have been giving her £100 a month for the last 2 years part child benefit to help her. She will have to get a job next summer to help. She is doing civil engineering so full-time degree. We are hoping she gets ICE sponsorship to help her. It's going to be expensive.

I have found Oxford to be fantastic for financial support. Fantastic. Not just for the obvious, very low income families - they do pretty well with student finance anyway, plus Oxford give great bursaries. But my DS applied for help from a 'squeezed middle' family, and has received thousands in grants and loans. He had to explain why we were going to struggle to support him, and fill in quite a few forms, but the university have been amazingly supportive. I'm pretty sure that 'triplets at university' would be seen as a very, very good reason to apply for help. Financial aid is available from both the university and from the individual colleges - DS got help from both. His starting point was to contact his college chaplain. Good luck X

Mikehat I love your "fridge will stay full" comment because at the moment everyone dives head first into the fridge the minute the food is placed in there. Triplets are concerned about the finances and have offered to take a gap year and work in order to save.

I guess the thing is bev to have a really honest conversation with them.

Let's say worst case they'll only get the minimum maintenance load, £3821 outside London for 16/17. May have increased a bit again by the time they go. Ignoring start up costs (caution money, maybe new laptops etc) each needs around £8k actual living costs. So for ease a £4k gap each. So £12k each, and £16k for overlap year(s) for your eldest DC1.

mike has already pointed out a load of potential savings from having just two of you at home for a minimum 7-8 mmnths of the year, as opposed to 5 or 6. Hopefully takes the deficit down by 1k each, or maybe a bit more. Decentish summer jobs each - at least a net £2k each year allowing for other outgoings they may have (holidays with friends, clothes etc).

That leaves 1k still to be found for each of them. So 3 or 4k in total each year.

It always costs more if you have a sociable young person at university! DD2 in London and is on basic maintenance loan so that is a £8000 shortfall from UCLs figures! Often in these debates I am flamed for saying London is expensive and I put people off going. I think reading the UCL info they do a good job themselves.

I also think lots of girls do like to keep up with fashion and my DD1 went to several balls - at different faculties. There is transport, lunches (catered does not normally include lunch), books, trips to 21st birthday parties, meals out and coffees. We paid for more expensive items such as coats, shoes and boots, party outfits, hair cuts, holidays, car costs to get to holiday work etc. There are interview outfits later on as well. Mine are not sporty, but the sports memberships can be £££.

I am sure some young people can live frugally but others do not thrive living like this and would be utterly miserable. So if you cannot get a bursary, then they either have to work or parents have to pay. Or choose a very cheap city.

I was recently at a parents day for the uni ds is starting in Sept and they said the students ere encouraged to get a part time job as employers dont want graduates who have never worked before

How much you need to top up depends on so many factors, not least how much your DC can get in loans from the SLC and the University.
As a squeezed middle family, our DS only qualified for the minimum loan. No grants available from the university, & studying a course with a 40hours+ workload each week.
We paid for the accommodation separately allowing the DC to use loan for living expenses. This allowed a degree of comfort but was hardly living the high life! Both joined sports clubs, had an active social life, and still had money for food and books.
At the end of term they generally had just enough to manage a few cheapish nights out with friends from home. Both got summer jobs entirely unrelated to their degree - erecting marquees one summer.
The older graduated last summer and despite having absolutely no relevant experience or an unpaid internship, had a fantastic graduate job lined up before leaving University.

Borojo, I think the problem is that you often seem to imply that all DC are like your DC, or that other DC are in some way lacking if they don't share the same aspirations as your DDs.

DS certainly does not have a lifestyle that includes balls, trips to 21st birthdays, and fashion. And he is by no means alone. Most students, international or home simply could not afford it, and many, particuarly in London, are there to study and get a good degree, And suprisingly, are motivated by their course and find studying more interesting than balls and boots. The lifestyle you suggest seems more Exeter than London.

My DD is similarly not really interested in fashion. I still think she will enjoy University. (She has the advantage of having already come across what were known as "the rich kids", the sort who at prep school used to compare their latest pencil cases, and does not find them either interesting or enviable.) Certainly DS and probably DD will spend nothing like the amounts quoted in some posts.

OP don't worry. If your son is going to University because he enjoys his subject and likes being surrounded by other clever people, he will be fine. There is always lots of cheap things to do, including University sport (as opposed to expensive central London gym memberships) , movies, going for dim sum or other ethnic food with overseas sudents etc.

I also think that parents should not feel guilty about not subsidising the extras. If DC want to go to balls, they need to earn the money.

I'm really shocked at students getting weekly allowances from their parents. I had a student loan, a job, and zero input financially from my parents.

Student finances must have changed a lot in 8 years to make all of these adults need so much support from their parents when they leave home?!

This " squeezed middle" always gets peddled out on threads like this. The full maintenance loans plus summer jobs earnings are more than enough to fully fund uni. If your dc isn't entitled to the full amount it is because parents should fully top up the loan. If you are fortunate enough to be high earning you should support your dc whilst at uni. The threshold for full loans is not set at parents earning minimum wage. If you can't afford it that is more often than not due to lifestyle choices such as high mortgages.

Why are you shocked about students getting allowances from their parents? I see university as a continuation of school and would expect to support my children until the end of their first degree. Assuming I could afford to. When I was a student I had an allowance from my parents and as we are in a comfortable position we will do the same for our children? We can afford to minimise their debt without it impacting on us too much so why wouldn't we? A lot of my friends had a parents credit card to use for all food shopping and text books.

Hear hear Sistersweet
I love the way these threads always go. Parents with teenagers give a range of balanced views.
Then along come those who graduated themselves recently, so probably have toddlers at most at berate the rest of us for choosing to finance our DC because they had it tough so everyone should.

Do you know what. I don't begrudge a penny to my student teens any more than I begrudged buying them nappies when they were babies. I don't see parenting as ending at 18. I want them to be able to study hard without worrying about how they will pay the bills. I know students who get the minimum loan and really struggle miserably because their parents are much wealthier than me, and yet choose not to give the DC any top up.

I thinks it's because of the whole fee situation. I went to uni 1996-2000 and no one paid fees then. You could borrow £1650 regardless of parental income which was enough for accommodation (a student room in a shared flat averaged £45/wk up north) and some living expenses. Thus with a Saturday job etc most people managed without parental support. My parents didn't fund me at all at uni during ju four years and didn't need to. I graduated with a £5k loan total.

It's different now - I'm surprised there wasn't more arguments at the time as parents can't always funf their kids and shouldn't be expected to imo. They're adults. Before fees I doubt anyone paid their kids an allowance at uni (possibly excluding London).

I'm not knocking parents funding their kids - the current situation of fees and means testing loans etc means most kids need the support but I certainly don't think it's a better situation. Students now leave with massive debt and start on wages that are prob not much more than we started on. Add to increasing mortgages etc they're in a much worse position financially. Our loan payments only kick in if you earn £2450 gross per month whereas now they kick in after about 10k which is crazy! I defer mine every year (as im part time now) so unlikely to ever pay them off but current students won't have that safety net as the loan payment is linked to NI number etc and taken out directly. I could avoid deferring if i wanted and they'd never find me! It's a very vulnerable situation

Needmore - DS does a range of things but certainly some of his socialising seems to be having a few mates over to his or someone else's room, clubbing together for takeaway pizza or itsu sushi once it goes half price in the evening and watching a film on one of their computers. That seems to constitute a perfectly good evening. They do lot of other stuff as well but they seem to enjoy that (actually sounds OK to me).