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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

Are all of you saving for children's university maintenance grant contributions?

153 replies

worldsworststepfordwife · 12/08/2019 07:50

I’m not too late to the party am I? I have sort of heard Martin Lewis say on telly it’s not the course fees you need to be concerned about it’s the expected maintenance contribution that should concern you, but I’ve never really looked at what he’s talking about until I was talking to my 14yo on Sat luckily she’s my only Uni capable one as I discovered that if she was going to university this September the minimum we should give her is £450 a month.

Is that not a shit load of money??!! Also it nowhere near covers all her maintenance she would still rack up extra debt with maintenance loans then I read that there’s a general agreement that the minimum contribution plus maximum grant combined isn’t enough to live on, that there’s a shortfall of £170/month so a lot of parents contribute more!!

I gather as well that this whole situation is deliberately not publicised

But anyway I’ve got 4 years to save £20k lucky me

How are you all tackling this?

OP posts:

MarchingFrogs · 12/08/2019 14:43

Some also offer 'scholarships' in the form of fee reductions for students with very good A levels.

Unfortunately, not having to (potentially, not even inevitably) pay back £3000 or whatever over the 30-odd years following graduation doesn't actually translate into that amount extra to spend on rent / stationery/ food in the here and now.

Does make one feel loved and wanted, I would think, though.

Serin · 12/08/2019 19:55

DS is doing nursing in Wales.
He is very lucky that tuition fees are covered but living costs are not.
He will get a £1k bursary from NHS Wales and a £2k loan from SFE.
That leaves £6k for us to find.
He needs accom for 48 weeks instead of 42 and has had to commit to working in Wales for 2 years on completion of his course.
Then again we wont have to spend so much on our weekly food shop! He does have an expensive bacon, and avocado habit.
We will use DHs pension to cover it.
More worry next year when his younger brother goes

thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter · 12/08/2019 20:14

Ffs

AmateurSwami · 12/08/2019 20:17

I can barely afford to pay my own uni fees and rent/ bills, so I guess my DC won’t be going. Great.

BeckyButters · 12/08/2019 21:30

Out of interest, any DC go straight to private rented? I did years ago initially with older students then with same year group. I never fancied the giddiness of halls and never felt I missed out. Seems to be a cheaper option.

I'm aware there's tonnes of private student accommodation now being built but the monthly rent seems extortionate to me

LoafofSellotape · 13/08/2019 08:04

I can barely afford to pay my own uni fees and rent/ bills, so I guess my DC won’t be going. Great

Of course they can go, they will be able to borrow the full amount and you won't have to contribute at all.

TanMateix · 13/08/2019 08:10

I have been saving for years. I’m sure DS will get the full maintenance loan BUT I know this will not be enough: there is that time when you need to pay the deposit of next year accommodation months BEFORE the previous year deposit is returned/loan for the year is paid.

With a recession on our doorstep, it won’t be easy for them to find jobs to have while studying (or at least that was the situation with the last recession). So I think it is incredibly naive to assume the loan will be enough, you need to save at least a good few hundreds to cover those deposits.

TanMateix · 13/08/2019 08:11

EleanorReally · 13/08/2019 08:13

dd had full maintenance she was ok but she is finished uni and really struggling for money.

TanMateix · 13/08/2019 08:14

Of course they can go, they will be able to borrow the full amount and you won't have to contribute at all.

Nope, there are already thousands and thousands of students not able to afford to go to University already. Their families may say they have preferred other routes but it is incredibly common to see families who cannot afford to send their kids to uni even with full loan entitlement. This is not the 1960-1990s, things have changed.

TanMateix · 13/08/2019 08:16

I guess that apart of saving, one thing we can teach them is to budget accordingly and live with little money. That could help (and avoiding universities located in expensive rent areas, which is more than unfair)

EvaHarknessRose · 13/08/2019 08:25

I am halfway through saving 500 a month for 3 years towards top ups for 2 dc, will pay the rest out of income at the time. Only possible because mortgage paid off, which is why we started saving. The rents quoted above are so scary.

Binforky · 13/08/2019 08:32

I really worry about this as I have no savings and we barely scrape by as it is (single mum 3 dc) my dd is talking about going and I just worry I'm going to hold her back. Plus who knows what it will be like when she can go shes 15 at the moment.

BizzzzyBee · 13/08/2019 08:35

University fees in the UK are ridiculous. I’m planning to send my DC to study an English language course in another EU country. Most offer free tuition to EU students, some even offer free tuition to non-EU students as well. I’ll still have to pay some living costs but presumably DC will contribute by working part time, and at the end of it will have no loans to pay back.

Fairylea · 13/08/2019 08:37

We are a low income family (I am disabled and we have a younger child with complex needs as well) and there is no way we will be able to contribute if dd wants to go to university- beyond the odd £20-50 here and there for emergencies! Most of the other families we know are the same, I think mumsnet is a weird rich world portal at times! If dd wants to go she will need to get herself a good part time job and make use of all the bursaries and loans she can - as many, many others do. Dh worked 35 hours a week at Iceland during his university years.

EdithWeston · 13/08/2019 08:38

"Of course they can go, they will be able to borrow the full amount and you won't have to contribute at all."

I don't think this has ever been the case (or at least not since the 1960s, possibly earlier)

Even when tuition was free, maintenance grants for living costs assumed a parental contribution, based on parents income. Everyone could get minimum grant (until abolished in the 80s), but only qualifying low-income families received full grant (and it was arguable whether that was enough to live on)

The next iteration of student loans is expected to make the parental contribution more explicit.

And yes, costs of maintaining DC at university have been in the family financial planning for over a decade

meditrina · 13/08/2019 08:45

"and at the end of it will have no loans to pay back"

Think of it as a graduate tax, not a loan

It only makes sense to avoid the loans if

a) you can very comfortably afford to PAYG
b) you expect your DC to be a high earner right from gradation. This is stuff of crystal balls, but I suppose there might be circumstances where confidence is well placed

raspberryrippleicecream · 13/08/2019 09:01

Tanmeteix advance accommodation fees were something I worried about. However one DC is at a uni where the private letting is managed by the uni, there is no deposit and in fact nothing is payable until the loan comes in. The other DC is not as fortunate, next year is her first year in private but at least deposits are capped now, plus the extra admin charges have been abolished.

errorofjudgement · 13/08/2019 09:15

Presumably BREXIT will impact the status of uk students looking to study in other EU countries.

errorofjudgement · 13/08/2019 09:17

Re student halls, from experience of 2 DC having gone through this, you don’t get to choose your hall, just a preference, then you get allocated a hall.
So you can end up in very expensive accommodation despite listing cheaper halls as your preference!

Jins · 13/08/2019 09:25

DS was lucky in that his maintenance loan was slightly more than his hall fees and arrived the same day as the invoice. Funny that

Seeing as the loan arrived termly and was quite a tempting chunk of money he used that to pay his hall fees and we gave him money for food, travel, equipment etc. That was quite hard to calculate initially so we used what he’d get on JSA as a starting point and we paid it monthly. I think with the leftover money from his loan and what we gave him he had about £80 a week which was plenty in the event as he lived centrally with a nearby ALDI.

SparkyBlue · 13/08/2019 09:29

Mine will just have to go to third level in the city where we live. Luckily there is a good choice of third level here so it shouldn't be a major issue. My sister in law was the same with her DS. He is at home with a part time job and doing a course he loves.

SirJamesTalbot · 13/08/2019 09:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pumpkinpie01 · 13/08/2019 09:51

What often gets forgotten about is the deposit that's needed between years 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 for when they move from house to halls then probably to another house again. A deposit of a few hundred is needed plus June, July and August at half rent. My sons payments were £1085 one year and £970 the next. My DD is going to uni in Sep, we are not high earners so I have already started saving for next years deposit for a house when she leaves halls as it will be due April /May time.

AmateurSwami · 13/08/2019 09:54

Of course they can go, they will be able to borrow the full amount and you won't have to contribute at all.

Then what on Earth is the point of this thread?

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