Living costs- How much to give?

[SlugsyMalone]

Morning, ds about to head off to university, he has a tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan of around £4000, just wondering how much people give their children a month for living costs. He’s planning on getting a job as soon as he can but obviously that may take a little while whilst he finds his feet. Thanks very much.

Ours get the minimum loan at £4,000 we add £1,000 pa to cover rent and give £75 per week on Monday (helps with budgeting). We also pay for books. She didn’t bother getting a job until the summer and was definitely having a full social life, so it works well. We chose not to give her more, life lessons and all that.

05ShanghaiDiva did I say anyone earning over 60k was poor?

ssd
No you didn't and I did not say you did.
You said that rent is not covered by the maintenance loan, which is not true. A full loan will cover the rent and other expenses. Those whose income is higher are expected to make up the difference to the full loan.

yes, althougu by law are not obliged to make up the difference which is the weird thing and it was weird back in 1979 when I went and I received only a £50 a year minimum grant (although no fees in those days) and the full grant was £900. My parents kindly chose to make it up to that but they did not have to do so. We have ended up with a similar system today. No legal obligation on parents to top it up even if the parent earns £1m a year,

We are topping up the maintenance loan to the full amount. That's what's been decided students need to live on. DD gets the loan in 3 chunks so our contribution will be the same. I believe that managing money and budgeting are important lessons to learn while at uni. She has already decided to go without an ensuite to save £30 a week. If we were paying her rent directly she would have made a different choice!

@TropicalSunshine seems reasonable. We didn't do that because of the vast differences in accommodation costs - cheapest is £2600 (shared) and most expensive is £8500! even a full loan would be nearly completely eaten with that.

So we simply calculated (finger in the air!) a reasonable living amount and dealt with accommodation separately. Only caveats were that if DS wanted something better than average (eg ensuite or expensive catered) he'd have to help cover the difference

Wrt 'separating rich from the poor' kids from a lower income household can access the full loan amount so no separating going on.

05ShanghaiDiva, going by a lot of posts here, the full loan doesn't cover rent and other expenses. Parents still need to give money.

ssd
I disagree. From what I have read, those who are giving money their child does not receive the full maintenance loan. Maximum loan is 8.7K and even if accommodation is 5.5K a year that leaves over 3K to live on for a 30 week academic year. At ds's university the cheapest accommodation is 80 per week - single room, self catering, shared bathroom which would leave a plenty left over to fund food, travel, books, entertainment etc.

@shanghaidiva yes its not black and white.

Max loan may or may not cover all expenses. In best case, they may have 'too much' to live on. At that point it can be good to encourage not to spend all as next years rent may be a lot more expensive when going private (52 week agreements for example)

I think we can all agree there isn't a 'one size fits all'

@MrKlaw
Agree - it's always good to encourage saving.

Unfortunately at most unis the students can request accommodation, but it is the uni that allocates it. Therefore if they want to be in halls, as most first year students do, they could request the £80 a week but be allocated something much more expensive.
This happened to my niece, who ended up in accommodation that cost about £7500, at Birmingham uni, my nephew on the other hand was allocated accommodation at Leeds that cost about £3000.
It is not like booking a holiday apartment or hotel, many unis guarantee accommodation if you put them first etc, but do not guarantee the price.

The prolblem for parents is the differences between accommodation costs. If the child gets the full london £11,250 or whatever it is in London that is likely to cover everything and onlyt hose not very well off would get that amount of loan. Instead someone going out of London might get a £4k loan if there parents are not on the bread line, but frst year hall fees be £7800 which I think my son's were in Bristol for example (2 meals a day catered).

Also what the child gets depends on the parents' income but the parents might have many more expenses than others eg 3 children at university at once or paaing care home fees for a granny or a massive London rent of £36k a year.

Thank you for all your replies. Her hall/college fees are about £7200 I think. She’s opted for a shared room which reduces the price, but she’s a science student and her timetable is quite full so term time work is unlikely. If I topped up to full loan it doesn’t leave much to get by on each week. I think I’ll go away and do some calculations but it has been really useful knowing what other students are getting. Thanks

I am expecting to pay about £8k a yr for DD.
Doing a 46 wk/yr course, can't earn barely anything to help herself.
We qualify for fairly minimal loan level.
Wants a course in London.
Won't be cheap.

Something that did occur to when shopping for all the bits and pieces for my son to go next week, is that this is the time that is probably difficult for those on a low income.
Yes, their child may qualify for the full loan, so they don't have to fund them throughout the year, but the cost of all the bedding, kitchen stuff etc. before they go soon adds up, even if you try to do it as cheaply as possible.

I’m actually quite shocked at all the responses here. My parents were very well off so I got the minimum loan but I honestly don’t think it ever occurred to them to give me any money.
I worked 3 jobs and admit this did mean I got a 2:1 where I probably could have got a first but it instilled a very strong work ethic in me and I was in a full time professional job the day after my final exam.

DD is the youngest.
DH pays the rent and transfers £1,300 (or equiv min loan) to her bank account each ter. As he did for DS.

I send 100pcm, pay for her phone, dentist, optician, occasional haircut, occasional clothes, ball tickets etc.

Ours have been taken and collected each term.

Neither has had an overdraft.

Maximum loan is 8.7K and even if accommodation is 5.5K a year that leaves over 3K to live on for a 30 week academic year. At ds's university the cheapest accommodation is 80 per week - single room, self catering, shared bathroom which would leave a plenty left over to fund food, travel, books, entertainment etc.

Thing is @ShanghaiDiva , at many, many universities there is no longer a range of 'cheaper' accommodation. Yes, when my ds went, he was able to get a room for £82 a week. At dd's university, there is nothing under £100. I've been on a University open day today with dc3, and the shared bathroom option, off campus, in a relatively cheap part of the country, self catering, is £116pw, but you have to pay for 44 weeks. Much of the accommodation we've seen at other universities we've looked at no longer offers the shared bathroom option. There are only fancy flats with en suites. Even universities that have some cheaper accommodation, as a pp says don't have enough, and you have to take what you are allocated. I've even heard of youngsters ending up in catered, when they wanted self catered. It really isn't as straightforward as 'choosing' cheap accommodation.

The cheapest accommodation was off campus and that's £116 at 40 weeks. I was so grateful we got that!

Although Artie, my sons just took the duvets, pillows and sheets of their bed at home and a spare cup from my kitchen (even though I'm well off as I don;'t like wasting money). I don't think parents should assume they have to buy a new duvet etc. Just take your home stuff with you.

What do they use when they come back for holidays,that only works of you have multiple of everything.

Blimey Xenia I hope they were in catered halls or they would have starved/got on everyone’s nerves borrowing stuff/spent a fortune on takeaways.

They were in catered halls but what would anyone need to buy if in catered? They took from the kitchn a mug, a knife, a spoon etc. I was just making the point that it does not have to cost anything. However it seems that some parents like to take the child out and spend money on them at Ikea and that is fine of course too.

For year 2 they could certainly take and took my old frying pan and a spare saucepan from home and that kind of thing

Although Artie, my sons just took the duvets, pillows and sheets of their bed at home and a spare cup from my kitchen (even though I'm well off as I don;'t like wasting money). I don't think parents should assume they have to buy a new duvet etc. Just take your home stuff with you

Dd is doing this. We have enough spares and old kitchen stuff which i deliberately kept for this reason so we've avoided the dreaded ikea trip.

She's getting 350 a month living which should be plenty, I pay her phone (which is too expensive but I think I'm stuck with it for a year and then will review), plus we need to top up her accommodation by 2k which is the annoying part.