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.

atia

In September, the basic loan is £3821 (dd2 just did her student finance). Her accommodation contract will be for 38 weeks. That gives a neat £100 a week to live on, assuming a summer job. Which seems like it really should be plenty.

She is lucky. For a lot of people that basic loan only just covers the rent and heating and lighting and some charges.

Sometimes it is not possible to just pay for the term time only accomodation.

I think London halls of residence are at least £180 per week.

So to get the extra £100 per week to live on is the problem.

It is wrong in my opinion that for poorer students, who are not in one of the universites that give their own bursary, the loan available is ridiculously low in comparison to the actual cost of living

I think there are lots of students who volunteer and do other things such as internships whilst at university. This experience can be very useful when they need a job. My DDs do know the real world and they are not in a bubble. Obviously if you have triplets, then £350 a month plus topping up rent for three is a big commitment. My DDs are perfectly capable of deciding what they want to spend their money on. I never top up weekly. They have a monthly allowance. Our financial relationship is not childish. I rather resent that because we do nothing that is so unusual regarding student finance.

Obviously some people have a different approach to "need" and that is fair enough, really. What we do with our money and what other people do with theirs is entirely up to each of us. I do not think one type of attitude towards finances makes any student less employable or less worthy than another one. In fact, there are so many privately educated people at the top of British Society it could be argued that those who struggle do less well overall. Class of degree (above a 2:2) and degree of struggle counts for little in many work places. No-one ever asks about it! It is whether you can do the job or not that counts in the long run, not whether you lived on baked beans for a month or went to 6 balls in a year!

I understand that hellsbells. My parents low income meant they couldn't help me but I had a reasonable Loan. However I also knew I had to pay that loan back.

I am in a far better position than my parents ever were but I still don't think sending £350 per month is going to teach an 18yr old anything.

There is a balance. I completely understand wanting to help your child, but it's much more useful for them to understand how to earn and manage money.

Life doesn't work like that

Fortunately it does in our family. Both mine and DP's parents were poor working class. We still went to Uni, parents helped us out when we were skint and newly graduated, gave us a big chunk of some money they inherited etc.

In return, now we are wealthy, we do everything we can, financially and otherwise, to make our parents lives more pleasant. We have also helped out siblings.

We have talked about whether to move to our dream house or give our four kids house deposits and decided to go for the deposits. Our kids are hard working and grateful and generous to each other. That's how families should be I reckon.

And as I said above I also think having a part time job boost their chances of being employed after uni. It's too their detriment to have nothing on their cv until they are 21

tinkly you sound like you have an incredible life. I doubt I will ever have money on that scale, despite being better off than my parents were

Jean we live fairly averagely; big house but on an estate, kids in state school. We don't go without anything. But we have four kids and we think the future is going to be tougher for them. Our savings are for them. We want them to have a good start, while they are young.

Yes you had a proper loan Jean, DD doesn't get enough to even cover her accommodation. This thread is not supposed to be about you. It was Op asking how much they need to live off.

Thank you for that reminder hellsbells I was just contributing to a discussion and all I can base my opinion on is my experience, but you are quite right it isn't about me

So why can we not all accept that we have differing incomes and ability to help? Why is it that we always come down to the "when I was young all I ate was coaldust for a week" type of debate? I too, came from a very poor family. We had very little money. I worked from age 17. I did not go to university because I needed the money right away. I did not envisage that for my children and I am delighted they went to university and have done well. I am also delighted to make a contribution towards that and my DC are not lazy because they have been given some money. In fact older DD has volunteered for a long time in a very difficult field with extremely complex clients. Having any old part time job does not necessarily boost employment prospects. So many people have them they often find it difficult to be employable if their skills do not match what the graduate employer wants. It is a case of being a rounded person, with suitable skills for the job they want, not just basic skills that anyone can acquire.

I feel very fortunate that DH and I do have enough to pay for what we want adn what we would like the children to have. We too have money put aside for houses etc. I feel lucky to be living in my dream house with a dream car on the drive too. We know we are fortunate and so do our children. That does not make us bad people with children that a waste of space.

bojo my DS works in a cafe to eek out his income as a student not to make him more employable as a doctor. He does it so that his money can extend to doing the sociable things he likes to do which cost money; without this job he'd be constrained. Not all DC have the luxury to CV build exclusively but it's great for yours that they do. I'm not too worried about mine since I think they can probably manage both - multi tasking/ time-management is a skill in itself!

In the interests of full disclosure, I must confess that I sent my daughter a fiver tonight. For no real reason, I just wanted to

DD1 in first year, only entitled to minimum loan.
She had about £3k in savings from p/t work during year 13 .
We also paid for all the essentials she needed for halls.
We paid her (self-catered) accommodation at just over £5k, leaving her the loan to live on. We did not want her to have to struggle in first year, or to work regularly in term time. But made it clear she would not be subbed in holidays, just bed and board if she wanted to come home.
With roughly 30 weeks term time, and minimum of 31 away, worked out £120 a week but she sensibly allowed herself £80 or £90 so funds there for course needs, trips home (around £35), visits to BF and friends at other Unis, events, unexpected purchases.

In reality, she has lived off an average of £50 a week for food, social and clothes.
Has been home at her own expense 3 times in term time. We e dropped and collected at start/end of term.
Admittedly she doesn't drink much, and nights out are often course related so little cost. Had very few books to buy, mainly online resources and practical workshops.
She worked a bit during Xmas hols, but not over Easter, possibly wll over summer, but some of that may be voluntary.

As she has more than enough money, next year we will pay rent only, so she will need to budget for bills. That equates to her getting roughly the same as someone on full maintenance loan.
She may work a little if she can either get something on campus, or course related. More for the work experience, though she does already have some.

When I was a student I worked all through term time, and so did everyone I studied with and lived with. Then I went home and worked through the holidays.

Surprised that so many people don't expect students to work!

in my final year I had around 4 hours of lectures a week. Plenty of time left to earn some money to support myself, and still study to get a good degree.

As has been said many times, some universities heavily discourage term time jobs, and some courses (at any uni) make it pretty much impossible to work around.

No one is saying that it's not a good idea for them to earn some money each year, just that earning enough to live on with no further parental input isn't always a realistic option.

IfIwas , re " When I was a student I worked all through term time, and so did everyone I studied with and lived with " , as Atia and others have said, at some universities some of the "so many people" are the university itself ( I know it isn't a person you but yswim) - this from DS's university "Undergraduate students: Term-time employment is not permitted except under exceptional circumstances and in consultation with your tutor and senior tutor." Holidays - yes - a different matter.

Hocus, ok, take your point. But the holidays are plentiful and long, lots of time to build up some financial reserves and also get some actual experience of working.

I interview fresh faced graduates every week and the ones that have worked whilst studying are much more interesting. It's not just about earning money. They learn skills about rolling their sleeves up, getting their hands dirty, interacting with people of all demographics and ages......they also tend to be much more realistic about what the world of work entails. I've had so many graduates who turn their noses up at the idea of doing basic tasks that they think are beneath them, they have a huge sense of entitlement it's genuinely staggering to me.

OP I know your question was purely about how much money they need....I do think it is worth saying, if they can work, they would do better to do so.

We pay the lot, so pay the tuition fees, the rent and give ds an allowance of £500 per month in term time only. Luckily, dh's employer defrays 60% of education costs up to age 24, with special arrangements for UK university costs, so we do get some our costs back, which covers the tuition fees for the next year.

I don't like the current loan system, and am not convinced that the terms and conditions won't radically alter once HMG realises just how much they are losing on this. Furthermore, helping a child out with their education is a way to give him his inheritance earlier without any nasty IHT implications, and no having to survive 7 years etc either.

It would be difficult for ds to work as we are based overseas, and the rules for student jobs where we are are complex. I have pointed out he needs to get something on the CV, and that he should try to find a term time job, as he is in the UK for university, but comes home for the vacations. He is hoping to do an MA, and we will fund that as well, given the help from the employer.

scaryteacher most normal tax payers estates are tied up in their home so not of much use in terms of early distribution. Also, are you quite quite sure that covering post grad costs isn't a gift for IHT purposes?

goodbye I'm sure - covering maintenance costs whilst in full time education is allowable. I checked. As his MA will be full time, it is full time education. I don't see why it is any different to having your child living at home and supporting them if they are unemployed and under 25.

The problem with giving them their inheritance is that you are giving away money that could have been more usefully engaged doing something else. Ours have loans. We may pay them off or they may prefer us to drip money so IHT is reduced. We have yet to decide what we will do because we do not know what their incomes will be. However taking out a loan makes most financial sense when 50% of students will never pay them back. It is the best deal.

I disagree about the loans being the best deal, and what we do with our money is down to us really. It would be hard to have an investment that even begins to cover the interest on the loans, and that is compounded each year.

Were I looking for a loan for anything else, I would not touch a loan with a variable rate of interest, no fixed repayment term and where the lender could change the Ts&Cs at any time. It would have been cheaper for us to extend the mortgage than for ds to pay the interest and the loan. As we can get him through without a loan - why not? I wouldn't want to be saddled with that sort of debt for ever.

If you really think that HMG won't look at the black hole in the finances caused by non payment of student loans (be that default, or not earning enough to pay it back) and decide to do something about it, then you are deluded. HMG has to borrow for this and pay interest...and the Treasury will want it all back.

I think funding ds's education is usefully engaging the money. We are investing in him.

scaryteacher I'm not sure post grad is straightforward. I myself think it should be, but I've been advised that it isn't. I wouldn't bank on the term 'full time education' to cover any degree whatever the DC's age.

Also, what you think makes sense and what HMRC thinks makes sense won't necessarily be the same. Otherwise we could all think of what we conceive of as parallels and write our own rules. Bit annoying but hey :)

.scaryteacher. I assume you have not read Martin Lewis then? Your children may not pay off the loan ever. So why pay in advance? It does not make sense at all. You would be far better off investing it in a property for your children. We have large sums with a private bank and we easily get a good return. You are also paying the fees out of taxed income. The loan repayments are before taxes are applied. If you have enough to pay it all, and it is your money, and provide your children with the money they need for life, then of course that is quite different to most people. However, it is not good value to pay up front when the graduates may never pay it off. No one is saddled with the loan forever. If you are not very rich, paying up front is not sensible. Someone I know had a dd at university, paid the fees and maintenance up front. By 25, after several low paid jobs, she is a sahm. Nothing paid off at all. Probably never will be.