How do student loans/maintenance loans work and what do they cover?

[Holidayshopping]

Are they means tested or does everyone get the same? Is it paid to them termly like the old maintenance grants were?

Does the maintenance one pretty much cover accommodation but not food?

Then the student loan covers tuition fees-is that right?

Any sort of indication of costs (thinking of a midlands university-eg Brum) would be so helpful if anyone doesn’t mind sharing for accommodation? PM would be fine!!

The maintenance loan is paid termly.The tuition fee loan and a basic amount of the maintenance loan are not means tested. Above the basic amount (c.£4100 currently, I think), there is an additional loan available, but this is based on household income. The HMRC website has a tool you can use to calculate the maintenance loan available to your DC.
www.gov.uk/get-undergraduate-student-loan

DS1 was at Birmingham and was only entitled to the basic maintenance loan. I paid for his first year accommodation and he used the maintenance loan for day to day living expenses (I had the money available from an inheritance and it seemed easier than him paying for accommodation with his loan, which we would have to top up anyway, then giving him an allowance. Others do things differently).

There are no shared rooms at UoB, btw, but the accommodation with shated shower rooms is cheaper than the en suite, of course. The accommodation prices are all on the university website.

Our DD gets the minimum maintenance loan, it didn’t even cover her self catering accommodation in halls! We make up the extra she needs for her accommodation and give her an allowance to cover food, travel, phone, books, gym etc.

Thank you both. So is the minimum maintenance loan £4100 per year? Or term?

For a lot of students the maintenance loan doesn't cover halls so they need a top up for rent then food, phone, travel etc

Some halls are self catering, some are catered. In my distant experience the food in catered halls was fairly shit, mostly fried canteen food but it might have changed.!

Depending on the course there often isn't enough time for a lot of paid work.

Some courses are almost full time hours so it wouldn't be a great idea to then be working all weekend.

Others have fairly low contact time so paid work is easier to balance.

There are some scholarships and bursaries, again it depends on the course and personal circumstances.

£4100 is the minimum per year.

Wow, and Birmingham halls of residence are about £8000 a year!

Do you have to pay that extra £4000 all in one go?

Wow, and Birmingham halls of residence are about £8000 a year!

Certainly not all of them. Even on The Vale, there are cheaper options and e.g. Pritchatt's Park halls are closer to most of the departments
www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/accommodation/UG-accommodation/pritchatts/ashcroft.aspx
www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/accommodation/UG-accommodation/vale/maple-bank.aspx

Oh, that’s interesting-I was looking here.

How many weeks do they have lectures for?

The maintenance loan is paid in three instalments. At DDs university she had to pay her halls fees in two instalments but the first was due BEFORE maintenance loan comes through.

Rent for years two and three has been monthly so sensible budgeting is essential. One of her “friends” used up the first instalment of his maintenance loan in the first two months and had to use an overdraft to mane rent and bills payments.

My dd gets the minimum loan and it doesn't cover her halls by quite a long shot and she's in an en-suite room but it's not fancy at all.

Back when I was at uni the maintenance loan covered about two thirds of my rent, until I got good at finding cheap places to live when it then covered my whole rent with room to spare.

Gumtree and spare room are good for cheap rooms, and often rates are negotiable especially if you can move at short notice and pay up front. Leave it till last minute before term starts (or even a week in and sofa surf) to get people desperate to fill rooms.

It doesn't matter how many weeks they have lectures for - the rent on halls is payable for the number of weeks stated. All universities have a range of prices - just look at the accommodation pages to see annual rents for rooms in halls.

If your household income is over £25k a year you're expected to contribute something. If over £40k a year budget a contribution from you of £4-5k a year.

I think the expectation is that parents contribute to make up the maintenance loan to around the maximum loan, which outside London is around £8,700. My DS1 gets the maximum loan due to my salary being under £15k and it’s been enough to live on. He has chosen cheaper accommodation to give himself more spending money. That’s a higher priority for him than nicer en suite rooms etc.

Although it's expensive and it's a good idea to try to choose cheaper accommodation I wouldn't recommend finding private rented accommodation for first year. Halls is a good idea for young people moving away for the first time. There's security and often student wardens on site and it's a good way to make friends (and fall out a lot too!).

Also, much cheaper accommodation isn't always best if they're miles away from uni and are going to pay loads for travel. Mine was 6 miles away from my uni building and the travel card cost loads.

In my distant experience the food in catered halls was fairly shit, mostly fried canteen food but it might have changed.!

The quality of food in catered halls doesn't really matter. Most students won't eat it anyway. They went away to University to escape from things like regular mealtimes. For most people, self-catering is much better.

'Catered' at many universities now (and certainly at Birmingham) means having a card, onto which a certain amount of money is loaded at the beginning of the week, which can be used at any food outlet on campus (no 'set mealtimes') and sometimes for groceries at campus shops. The downside is that any money unspent at the end of the week is lost, as the balance is reset. DS1 was in a self catered hall, but my impression from talking to students on the 'meal plan' was that they did use it.

Having said that, I would always advise self catered, but catered suits some, obviously.

Generally speaking it is less than accommodation costs. Catered means different things in different places - sometimes is a discount on food purchased, or so many meals in certain outlets on campus, sometimes full board.Either parents top up or student gets pt work (although often restricted by uni to limited hours) or seasonal jobs in breaks.

In terms of topping up and how we do it...we have the termly maintenance loan paid into our account, then the rent is paid from our account (he gets only the basic amount so the top up is considerable) then we give him an allowance. He prefers it that way as it makes it easier for him to budget for food etc. He used to get his allowance monthly but recently changed it to weekly as he said it's even easier to budget (he has a monzo account which is a prepaid card with an app, very good for budgeting!)

DD's loan would have covered her rent with a bit to spare in Sheffield, but doesn't even cover the rent in Bath, so it depends where you go. There were varying prices in halls, so worth looking at all the options.

The minimum loan is £4100 and the max is £8700 depending on parental income. You are expected to make up the difference though it;s not enforced.
In both of my DC cases we topped up to the maximum loan and they managed fine.
The loan is paid in three instalments as is the rent for halls. Generally the first term of uni is the most expensive because there are some one off costs depending what they do. The third term is usually shorter and cheaper.
I really wouldn't recommend living out of halls in the first year for an 18 year old unless super confident and mature. The transition to uni is tough enough without living away from all the other students.

I really wouldn't recommend living out of halls in the first year for an 18 year old unless super confident and mature. The transition to uni is tough enough without living away from all the other students.

I agree with this ^
Halls is a good 'transition' between living at home and having to deal with private landlords.

DS gets minimum loan which is for living expenses (works out at £100 per week term time) and we pay his rent which is around £4800 for en suite self catered in Cardiff. Private rented next year will possibly be slightly cheaper.

My son is in his third year at Birmingham. He lived in Ashcroft in Pritchatts Park in his first year and loved it. It's the cheapest available (it was 2 years ago anyway) and really quite nice, recently refurbished. 6 rooms to a flat, 2 loos 2 showers, big kitchen. Also it's walking distance to the main campus so no travelling costs. Everyone he knows who took the catered option, known as the Meal Plan, regretted it, and thought it was poor value for money. The only downside of PP is that no cleaning is included at all, you can imagine what it was like at the end if the year....they can pay extra for cleaning if they want to.

It's £4021 for 42 weeks by the way.

Also when you look at unis find out the sort of rent they can expect to pay in private rentals after year 1. We found that halls are quite similar prices across the UK but private rentals vary hugely. So my son was looking at Bristol and Royal Holloway but renting there is really really expensive.