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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

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Original poster

DD starting uni, what to do about money/accommodation?

150 replies

whatIforgottoday · 08/04/2017 21:50

DD1 holds a conditional place to Durham for October and has had her maintenance loan confirmed at £5000.

Her accommodation is £7000 a year so DH and I assumed that the £5000 would cover her accommodation and then pay the extra £2000 needed, she would then live off a monthly allowance of £250 from her grandparents.

However DD feels the £250 a month is too little (accommodation is catered too) and wants to keep the maintenance loan for living (i.e. Clothes, going out) DD will probably get a job in the second year but would like to have a break from working in her first year (has worked every Saturday since the age of 14)

Would any of you mind telling us what you do regarding finance/are planning on doing so we can get a better idea?

Thanks

OP posts:

jaxxyj · 05/05/2017 00:31

The maximum maintenance loan for outside London is £8430 for students with parents on low income. Parents who earn more are expected to make up the difference, otherwise your daughter is being penalised. I have twins and make up the loan to the maximum for both of them. I live near Durham and I would say it is quite an expensive place catering for tourists and students, and a lot of students are from wealthy backgrounds so she certainly will feel it if money is tight. it is also not that easy to get work there either, especially if catering may affect ability to do certain shifts. Hope that helps.

Pibplob · 17/05/2017 13:24

Reading this with interest but no one has mentioned how they find the 9k tuition fees? Does that normally come from a loan or paid by parents?

patheticpanic · 17/05/2017 13:40

We are going to pay for the accommodation which is catered, other than that they have to pay their own way.

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 17/05/2017 16:43

Reading this with interest but no one has mentioned how they find the 9k tuition fees? Does that normally come from a loan or paid by parents?

All UK students qualify for the £9k tuition fee loan.

LIZS · 17/05/2017 16:53

"Catered" means different things to different unis. Some will include all meals, a choice of eateries with some meals included or up to a value, or a card which is topped up and gives discount on food for residents in specific dining facilities. For example, although ds is in catered he pays for all meals on top of the accommodation fee via a prepayment card, at a 50% discount and no vat, including food purchased in campus shop.

FrancesHaHa · 17/05/2017 16:54

Even if she doesn't have a term time job (and some courses do make this more difficult), surely she can work in the holidays? So work over this summer to get spending money for next term, work over Christmas holidays. That would at least top things up.

JanetBrown2015 · 17/05/2017 18:12

Pib most students also borrow the fees. My children don't (lucky them) and in fact my son says a lot of boys in his class have parents who will be wholly funding them. That is unusual. Probably as we already pay about £16k per child school fees the £9250 fees and say £8k rent is about the same as that so not such a shock for those of us who have had years of cutting back already to fund the school fees.

Pibplob · 17/05/2017 21:44

Ah I see. Thanks. My eldest is only 8 so a lot may change by the time they go but it's interesting to see what we may be in for. So most students will get loans for the 9k tuition and then another loan for maintenance at somewhere around 5-6k? So looking at £15k being borrowed a year? Average course is 3 years so £45k debt on average at the end of the degree? And that's now. God knows what it will be like in 10-13 years time. I dread it.

scaryteacher · 18/05/2017 00:33

We pay the fees as well.

JanetBrown2015 · 18/05/2017 06:26

Pib, that is right although you never pay the loan back if you don't (currently) earn over certain amounts - i think around £21k. They expect only 40% to repay it so a parent instead paying it up front is taking a risk their child will be a high earner. My daughters are London lawyers so in their case would have been paying it back. I would not worry about it now as it is nothing up front at all so in many ways a much easier route than ever before actually. Even in the days of "grants" when I went if you got minimum grant £50 a year in my case unless your parents made it up to full grant (about £900) you were stuck - no student loans, nothing.

JAM68 · 18/05/2017 13:59

When my DD went off to Uni we gave her a budget of £300 a month she's on the minimum maintenance loan for outside of London and she did fine. I was shocked when she announced she had got a job in a bar to have a bit more money for nights out.

HotelEuphoria · 18/05/2017 14:13

Neither of my DC got to keep the maintenance loan. I kept it to cover the accommodation. Both had different situations:

DS went to Uni in the NE, he received minimum maintenance loan but it did just cover his cheap rent with a couple of hundred pounds a term left over. We paid a standing order of £30 a week into his bank account for food and paid his mobile phone. He worked at a supermarket 12 hours a week which paid for his social life.

DD is at Uni in Leeds, expensive rent in comparison. She is doing an NHS health care course. The means tested loan and bursary come to less than DS's minimum loan. Combined they don't cover her accommodation or bills. We therefore take all her bursary and loan for rent and top it up with £180. As she is on placement 50% of the year she cannot hold down a part time job so we also pay for her food and social life. She costs us £580 a month in total.

We absolutely wouldn't fund her social life if she was on a regular course and would expect her to work for this.

silkpyjamasallday · 18/05/2017 14:30

My parents let me have my loan for living on and paid my accommodation costs, but my loan was just shy of £4K and my accommodation cost over £10k in halls. I had about £75 a week to live on which in London was pretty miserable after tube and train costs and I found it impossible to find a job to work around my studies. If she is in catered halls though it will be more than enough but she may have a shock in second year when she will have to buy food out of a budget that was previously just for fun spending.

mumeeee · 18/05/2017 14:58

HotelEuphoria. How did you keep your DCs maintenance loan? It is paid to the student not the parent so is actually not yours to keep.
We paid for our DC's accommodation all of it in the first year and they paid part of it in the following years. They used the maintnenace loan for food, general living costs and any other uni costs. We didn't give any of them any extra money all though I did do the occasional food shop

JanetBrown2015 · 19/05/2017 07:46

(Presumably the parents allowed the child (I mean adult) to live at home and they have no duty to permit that and are allowed to charge rent. Nothing wrong with that. So they just reached agreement with the child. Just as any of us could say to an 18 year old if you want to live at home in the holidays then I want XYZ rent or ABC chores done.
A bit like my contract with the 5 children - in consideration of my funding university for you you agree to take out no student loan, no over draft, no personal loan, no debt; I am not going to fund them and then find they take out the student loan on the sly)

Moresaltedcaramel · 19/05/2017 08:22

We make up our dcs income to the amount they would receive if they got the full maintenance loan. We give it to them as a lump sum at the time they receive their loans. Then it's up to them to budget. This is ample for accommodation, daily living etc. They both work as well to fund holidays, extras etc.

scaryteacher · 19/05/2017 09:56

janet For us paying the fees is not about if he becomes a high earner or not (probably not considering the field he wants to work in), but not liking the Ts&Cs which could change at any time. We only have the one, and it is something we could do for him (and he already has money towards a house deposit from an inheritance).

PUGaLUGS · 19/05/2017 10:08

mumee we kept our DS's maintenance loan for the first year - when he completed the forms he put my bank details down. When the invoices came in for his accommodation, he told me how much they were for and I then went online and paid the amount due - we had a shortfall every time and we put the remainder.

We then put money in his account every week to live off.

hellsbells99 · 19/05/2017 11:37

My DDs get the minimum loan which they pay over to me. I then pay for their accommodation which is more than the loan and give them a monthly allowance - DD1 gets more as she is self catered.

Fortysix · 19/05/2017 11:52

silkpyjamas What would you consider a fair maintenance amount if you were in same situation in September with no catering?

ExConstance · 19/05/2017 12:04

DS2 has always been able to find accommodation that is fully or very nearly covered by his loan. (up north so cheaper) On top of that we five him £400 a month for 9 months of the year for his other expenses, I earn less than DH so £150 from me and £250 from him. On top of this we pay for his phone, travel to and from home and, by ancient family tradition, buy his socks, pants and shoes - essential that they have these! He has had to buy some quite expensive materials and equipment for his course and we have paid for some of this. He gets the minimum loan. DS1 went to Oxford which was cheaper as there are 8 week terms and the meal cards were heavily subsidised. Both sons have worked to earn money every holiday. DS 2 was on the basket check out at Tesco the day before he set off for his proper job in London!

Lolly49 · 19/05/2017 12:07

We pay for Dd's accomadation and she keeps her maintenance the minimum you can get.Also as she is at Oxford she is not allowed a job.So we also give her extra for food,gig's etc.
She is in year two so we are renting a house at the moment as expensive as London.

mumeeee · 19/05/2017 15:05

I still don't get people keeping their DCs student loan. The idea is that they are supposed to open a student bank account and the loan is paid into that. I know that you can use other bank accounts but student ones usually come with some benefits mainly an overdraft facility with no charges.
Yes a lot of parents do help with finances but that shouldn't be because the parents keep the students loan.
We have always encouraged our DDs to manage their finances themselves. Yes we did pay accommodation but that didn't come out of their maintenance loan and as I said after the first year they paid something towards it. Not one of the 3 of them has ever asked us for any extra money. DD2 was terrible at managing money before she went to uni. But she learnt and didn't run out of money.

Sabina595 · 19/05/2017 16:49

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JanetBrown2015 · 19/05/2017 18:35

mum, I don't know anyone other than the one poster on this thread who mentioned it who keesp the loan for board and lodging of the student but I suppose if a family is short of money and the student is living at home it might be essential in order to ensure everyone is fed. It is not that many generations ago that teenagers gave their whole wage packet to their family when they left school and started work at 14.

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