Applying for Uni 2019 Part 8: Results Day - congratulations, champagne, clearance, commiserations... Our DC will get through it whatever happens.

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Following on from our previous thread.

Good luck to all DC awaiting results and university places.

School question: Is it only the SLT and the Exams Officer(s) who get to see the results today?

yeah we're saying 50 a week - she'll be self catered but the hall fee includes a bus pass (plus we're only an hour away) so she won't have travel costs. We'll pay phone & gym & have said we'll buy her a laptop combining that with the occasional supermarket shop & I think she'll be okay.

@milesandmilesandmilesandmiles

Wouldn’t it make sense to do the same approach for DD? If you pay rent and she gets maintenance that’s a lot more than £50 a week (over double)

I have only just realised the maintenance loan is based on 2017/18 parental income. I'm not sure why they are working almost 2 years behind. My husband sold his business that year. So it was a good year for us, but also a massive tax bill which obviously isn't accounted for. I thought they'd go on tax year April 2018-March 2019 in which case my son would have been given the full loan. I know there's a form you can fill in if you are now earning less, but that form is 2019/2020. We don't really know in advance what we will earn this year and into next. I guess I just have to dig into my savings. But I really had no idea they'd work 2 years behind 😡

I think £50 a week is tight. They’ll probably spend about £30 on food, which means paying for transport, books, societies and socialising out of £20.

MrKlaw, mmm... yes.. I'd probably have to not pay any money into her account monthly...definitely need to give that more thought than I did earlier!

Rice cookers were banned in one of my dc's halls MrKlaw - so were deep fat fryers. Maybe both are a fire risk if they get left on by mistake?

They were obviously serious about it as the prohibition was repeated in several parts of the brochure/ts and cs etc.

I think some dparents pay for club/society memberships separately so that dc won't have a disincentive to join up.

Is anyone's DC going to Birmingham?

£30 per week for one person is a lot I'm guessing? DS budgeted £20 and stuck with that, I'd rather he ate well I truth and had spent a little more but he seemed to live on toast.. we did send him back each term with food though too. They do bulk shops often within their flat, so benefit from this.

I've got two there now, so that would be 100 per week, plus any balance of accommodation, plus phones, gym, travel, books for Dd (DS is maths and all notes are provided).

Tricky!

I think some dparents pay for club/society memberships separately so that dc won't have a disincentive to join up.

But most of the fun is going to freshers fair and signing up for something you’ve never thought to try before.

Or like DD and her mate, signing up for the surf club cos the surfie boys were the hottest . (DD’s Friend is now engaged to someone she met at surf soc)

I've not RTFT, so sorry if this has already been covered, but parents are supposed to make up the difference between the full student loan and what loan they are awarded. This is called the parental contribution. I have no idea why the government has stopped spelling out the parental contribution, but am alarmed at how many of my daughters' friends' parents are not planning to make up the difference. Those children have no option of borrowing more.

Yes, I have four kids so I’ve had various combos of two in uni for many years.

But I chose to have lots of kids and it’s because of our income they only got the minimum loan, so we suck it up and top them up to max loan level.

They did/do term time jobs and work in the summer, but for extras, not essentials.

I thought they'd go on tax year April 2018-March 2019

I think the challenge for Student Finance would be that self assessment tax returns for 2017-18, can be submitted up to 31st Jan 2019. So in reality 2017-18 is the most recent year for their wider purpose. I believe that if income had changed substantially in 2018-19 they do have a process to allow that to be submitted.

My DC has a friend whose maintenance loan is reduced because of step parent income and he has no intention of paying the parental top up. He has been working all through six form saving and working two jobs over the holidays. It is not a great system.

I'm beginning to think DH and I are being stingy with DD. We were planning on giving her £40 a week plus the odd shop etc.

Yes, the use of non-parental income to calculate the means test is an oddity imv - including the fact that non-resident parent's income is totally disregarded. There is an assumption that nrps won't pay up, I suppose?

I've never looked into this but what happens if you have, say, an aunt or uncle living in the house who's working - is there income counted towards the means test as well? What about an elder brother/sister?

My son is working the summer and others he's working with are at university, they say the student maintenance loans are no where near enough. I was working on him having £100 week. Surely that's enough? My food bill for 5 is on average £150 week. So I'm sure £100 will be enough. I pay for his mobile. I know they will have to buy books too.

We pay the accommodation & the DC's get to live on their minimum loan. It seems to be plenty. DS1 had a job as well but he is more extravagant! DS2 won't be able to with his course I don't think. We expect him to work in the holidays.

I think it's an entirely individual thing, depending on your own situation and also your individual child. DS is extremely low maintenance and £200 a month has been plenty, he's come home well in credit. If it hadn't been enough, and it may well not be for Dd who is entirely different, he absolutely knew he could come to us and we'd review the situation. To fund a massive party lifestyle, perhaps not - struggling to manage despite being sensible, of course.

Good to get other points of view though, for sure! 😁

Sorry to intrude, my child is almost out of university but we live abroad and she is not eligible for a student loan of any kind. She has been living in shared flats these past few years and tuition fees aside, we have been supporting her to the tune of £400 a month rent and £400 a month living costs. This went up to £500 a month this year when she moved to a different city for post-grad and no longer had a campus bar job to top up her income for living costs, as she did whilst she was an undergraduate. She isn't extravagant, though she does travel quite a lot, as cheaply as possible, though.
I hope this is helpful to some of you who are wondering what to budget for your offsprung. This business of parents who can easily afford it not topping up maintenance grants for their student children really pisses me off - I remember a friend when I was a student who was only given a minimal grant by her LEA (yes, it was more than 40 years ago, when most students were given LEA grants for tuition fees and living costs, assessed according to their parents' income) as her parents were reasonably wealthy, having to work as a "go-go dancer" to earn money to live off as her parents refused to subsidise her at all. The majority of the rest of us were lucky enough to have parents who kindly played their part, and topped up as necessary, so we didn't need to work during term-time to support ourselves, though mostly worked during the vacations, if we could. (Remember the Christmas Post, anyone?!)
Anyhow, good luck to all of you and your student children!

“Any idea if those would be allowed in kitchens?”

I doubt it. Can’t he learn to cook rice in a saucepan? Besides, rice cookers take up a fair bit of space.

Interesting reading about finances, thank you. DC1 has now had her accommodation offer for Cardiff. Not the ones she wanted but she dithered for so long, she presumably was one of the later applications.

Accommodation is £4400 so a couple of hundred more than the minimum loan she will get. I’ve asked her to think tonight whether she wants to live off her loan and we pay accommodation or use the loan to pay accommodation and we’ll pay a monthly allowance.

I’d prefer the 2nd option and was thinking £10 per day. That seems plenty for food, travel and a few extras. We also pay her phone £10 pcm so will continue that I think.

She is the eldest of 4 so we will potentially have 2 in uni in 2 years then a long respite of 1 (3 year gap between 2 & 3) at a time then 2 again - I’m doing a lot of dreaming of a time when I can holiday again ...

I also appreciate the equipment suggestions from those who already have dc at uni - please keep them coming

I have bought DS a large box of microwave rice pouches and the same in curry pouches. He looked at me like a freak until I made him make a meal up in a couple of minutes. I think it was my years in the military and ration packs.

PhannyMcNee - because our daughter had no family living in England, we decided to order on line and get stuff delivered to her self-catering flat in her first year (she subsequently lost most of the kitchen equipment when she moved out of uni accommodation). It was a very efficient service. We then topped up with throws and laundry baskets and food basics from John Lewis and Waitrose when we took her to her extraordinarily middle-class university campus to settle in! We used someone like this, www.mystudentessentials.co.uk/ which might be of use to you for working out what your own student might want?

DS2 has just had his accommodation offer through - £5800 for the year. As mentioned above, we will pay that & he will live off the loan. Let's hope he doesn't drop out as we will be liable for the whole year).

After accommodation DD will have around £80 a week left from her maintenance grant and loan. We're still not sure of the exact figures as she hasn't had her halls allocated yet.
£100 a week from us on top seems too much. She's been living off £80-£100 a week from her part time job at home including buying her own lunches most days as she refuses to make packed lunch