How much will your DC have to live on per week in first year at university?

[Bouledeneige]

My DD is off in September to a vibrant northern city. We have applied for student finance for a tuition loan and the minimum maintenance grant because of our earnings. Her Dad and I (divorced) plan to split paying the self catering accommodation rent which also includes utilities and insurance but not food, and she will live on the maintenance grant - £4,168 (which over 52 weeks would be £80 per week though I would expect her to get work in holidays and possibly part time during the course). We also pay her mobile phone bill.

I have checked the Save the Student website which says all in the average student spends £770 per month but that includes rent and bills. When you subtract those that comes to about £82 a week for food, travel, social life, books etc.

What are you expecting your DC to live on per week after bill and rent?

So someone show me how a student can live on £35 per week if u all think its possible

Thanks for answering me. How much difference is there between the maintenance loan and actual living costs then? Is this the problem when the news says students from poorer backgrounds can't afford to go to uni? I thought the problem was the 9k fees, not the costs of them living out.

I already gave you a breakdown of dd's budget.

She does her weekly shop at Tesco or Aldi, lunches for a week come to roughly £18

She doesn't buy toiletries every week but her budget is £5 per week. Deoderant, shower get, shampoo from Home Bargains

Clothes again she doesn't buy every week, she will maybe buy herself something avery 4-6 weeks or so, she has to buy dance tights or sometimes she will need to replace something.

She cycles most places but very occasionally will have to use a taxi if she needs to travel into town late at night

Then she has £10 per week to spend on herself. Sometimes that's treating herself to a coffee or lunch in town, or other times she will have to save up for a ticket to the summer prom and the price of a couple of drinks whilst there.

She chooses to use her wages towards a gym membership (as her course requires her to stay fit) She gets a unidays discount and its about £15 per month.

Ssd - the £9k fees arnt really worth thinkig about. They are paid upfront by the student loan and you only pay them back via a graduate tax once you earn over a certain amount.

But the amount of the loan often means a shortfall once accommodation is paid for.

I meant to say althouhg we give her £45 per week now back in September when she first started dh was off on long term sick so we gave her £35 and increased it once he was back in work.

I think 35 is quite hard to live on if you are in self catering accommodation. My ds spends more that that on food per week.

ssd, it depends. In England, if your parents quite well off you might get £4k maintenance loan and your first year most expensive halls might be about £8k so you have a £4k shortfall before you even get started and there is no legal obligation on parents to pay a penny.

However if you pick cheap halls in a cheap town it may be enough particularly if you have a job.

If your parents are worse off they you might get up to £6400 outside London.

In a sense we have almost gone back to my day except that then only 15% of us go to go to university atll - a system when I got £50 a year maintenance grant (gift) but parents expected to make it up to a £900 a year full grant but no obligation on them to do so - with the big difference today that the minimum loan is higher than £50 even allowing for inflation but the downside that you have the 9% graduate tax on earnings over £25k a year.

dd's accommodation (includes breakfast, evening meal and bills) is £120 per week which I know is incredible cheap. She was looking to move but other places are between £140 per week upwards. Halls which don't include food cost between £120-£160 per week

Students drink at each others houses with alcohol bought from supermarkets before going out these days

These days? They were doing that 40 years ago.

We are planning to pay ds's rent and he will have the maintenance loan. He will be expected to get a job at some point and hopefully chip in with the rent as that's £120 a week.

That seems harsh on the amount parents are expected to top up but they aren't obliged to. It must make going to uni in England a massive family decision. In Scotland, both dss have fees paid and lived at home for first 2 years so not too much debt. Seems very unfair to their English counterparts although I know this is because Scotland is devolved.

Unless your child can come up with £100+ a week for rent you kind of are obliged to. Such a lot of money.

ssd Everyone gets a tuition fee loan which pays the full fees. The maintenance loan varies but everyone can get something.
Those from poorer families get £8700. In most cases this is enough to pay rent and living expenses.

Those from wealthier families have it scaled down to around £3500 according to their parents' income. The parents are supposed to top it up but it's not enforced and these students often struggle.

Mine both got a loan which just covered rent and I gave them £200 a month to live on.
Also they are home a lot. Four weeks at Christmas and Easter and pretty much four months in summer.

ssd I don't see why students from poorer backgrounds would struggle, they are eligible for much higher maintenance loans. In fact the ones I have seen struggle have been the families with an income above the £60k (approx, haven't checked this year's figures) threshold meaning their dc gets minimum loan, but they have a large mortgage/several dc/high outgoings which aren't taken into account. This has meant they can't afford to top up the maintenance loan/top up rent. In fact when my eldest was at uni the students with the most disposable income were the ones from single parent families on low incomes who had been eligible for the highest loan plus bursaries.

In my experience its the ones from wealthier families whose parents don't support them (maybe they disagree with their choice of course/uni/whatever) who struggle.

In my experience its the ones from wealthier families whose parents don't support them (maybe they disagree with their choice of course/uni/whatever) who struggle it'll be because they can't more likely.

Comefromaway This is true of a number of DC friends. It used to be the case that parents were told how much they were expected to contribute to top up the loan. This no longer happens and many students are left to manage on much less. These are people on £60k+ so well above average income.
I don't think it would be fair to take outgoings into account, it would be a minefield - should someone who has chosen to have a large mortgage or family or car loan get more than a family on a lower income with modest outgoings?

It sounds like a minefield right enough.

yearin, yes, that;'s who it used to be too - the less well off had the "full grant" and were quids in and those of us on £50 minimum grant had to hope parents topped that up.

(Wales is more generous too).

Dh's family thought of themselves as poor working class (and they did have periods of unemplyment etc in a city wioth high unemployment.) But in actual fact at the time of him going to uni his parents both worked full time, his dad did a lot of overtime in a trade earning a good wage and they lived in a 2 up 2 down terracce house , he didn't get the full grant.

It never occured to them to give him any contribution!

Our local university charges £112 per week for a non ensuite room, rising to £206 for some ensuites. They don't seem to lack people willing to pay that amount for them. Couples & families obviously pay more. The length of contract, whether term time only or up to 51 weeks p.a. is also an important factor.

My Dd has just had her first year. She got a full loan and a £500 bursary.. after she paid her rent, she had £45 a month left. We paid for food and transport home. She got a job up there which paid for nights out. This year she won't have the bursary as my earnings went up.

Her rent is cheaper this year and closer to uni and town centre, and we'll pay her transport and food again.

Dd will have the minimum maintenance loan, her bursary (£4K) plus an allowance of £150 a month. She is very fortunate to have such a generous bursary and I'm not sure how we could have afforded university otherwise because I don't a a spare £4K

DD will get just over £5100 maintenance loan, and her first choice accommodation costs £5485, so we will have to top it up, and provide funds for food, books, other essentials and a bit of a social life.

Well, quite, Sproink
I was just replying to someone who said £35 would barely fund one night out.

I think 35 is quite hard to live on if you are in self catering accommodation. My ds spends more that that on food per week.

Of course your could spend that, but there is no need. my dd doesn't spend anywhere near that on food. That's not because she is a petite, eat nothing kind of a gal, she's a sports loving, active hungry kind of a girl but she does know how to cook. My ds is over 6 foot and rugby player shaped, and he managed fine on that too. Both reckon they only spend around £17 / £18 on food / supermarket stuff.
Not sure what you want us to say Hollow. We settled on £35 (well started with £30 for ds, 5 yrs ago) after asking 3 x dns who were at universities or just graduated when he was starting - all reckoned they spend less than £20 a week on food (+ other stuff they'd buy in the supermarkets). Make stuff with mince, makes stews, bake potatoes, cook eggs, make pasta dishes, make curries, thick soups. Yes, learn when you can pick up bargains at the supermarket or shop at Aldi or Lidl. Cook with friends or make something and freeze the spare meals.
Laundry - these day in most student houses they are inclusive of bills, and include washing machines and even tumble driers. They don't have to print that much - neither of mine have had their own printers. Text books are in the library (Univ libraries are open 24/7 nowadays), and lots of relevant stuff available on line, or if a specific article needed, they tend to put them on the University intranet - so buying text books' is hardly a weekly expense.
Clubs and societies are free at dd's University. The one we looked round today for dc3 they each cost £5 for the whole year - so again, not a major weekly expense.
Haircuts - they tend to only need one during term time and sneak in to me paying my mobile hairdresser when home.

Clothes - new clothes hardly a necessity. Something specific they can ask for for Christmas / Birthdays, but they all went with a full wardrobe of clothes - it's hardly a necessary or weekly spend. SO if you need new shoes or underwear or whatever, again, it is spread over the year, not a weekly expense.
Entertainment - well, that comes out of their earnings if they want to spend more than what they have left from what we give them.

However, as others have said, there are all sorts of budgets that different students have. Quite often, the 'cash rich' are the ones on the full maintenance loan, my dc say. But there are lots where separated parents mean they have money due to one parents income and then the other parent gives them cash every month. Or, like, others have said, Grandparents help out / send extra.