How much do you give your uni offspring a month?

[fedup21]

Looks like we will only be entitled to the minimum rate of maintenance loan so will have to top it up quite a bit.

His top choice is Birmingham and it’s looking to be between £3/4K for the first year in halls (without meal plan) or £5/7k (with Meal plan) which is the maintenance loan, but how much would they need on top of that?!

£200 a month? £400 a month?

I work at a Uni. I’d say only medical/vetinary students would really struggle to work. The rest absolutely work. Most of our students only attend classes two days a week with flexible independent study. My sister and I both worked through our degrees. DM only paid for us both to have a new laptop and occasionally treated us to lunch/dinner. I’m glad she did and it has taught us how to manage our finances from a young age. My sister is about to go straight from her masters into a PhD and has been able to buy a house.

I’m just hoping I can pay all my debts off to be in a position to give DD enough when she starts in September.
I’m hoping she will also get a PT job.

I’m always wondering what these courses are that they can’t work?

How about First year student nurse, working long days, weekends and night shifts and have to fit in around their mentors rota. Try getting a part time job that’ll fit round that!

Can join Nurse Bank in second year but not first.

Medical courses do have huge workloads but there’s an awful lot of MN kids who can’t possibly work, I doubt they’re all vet/med students

No. Some of them will be studying nursing, child nursing, dentistry, teaching or social work ( on placements ).

I asked around. £3k/yr (£250/month) to £500/month was the range.

DD did performing arts and was in uni from 9 to 5 each day , and had a couple of evening rehearsals too ( not every week though )

She did work in Primark , At the weekend , but had to resign as she was required to work on Boxing Day , which would have meant she could not have been home for Christmas, at age 19 , this was a bit too much ..
However ...

Her loan paid for her accommodation, and left a little bit over
We gave her £25 a week for “ groceries “ and did a shop with her when we went to visit her
Her grandpa gave her £100 a month too

We gave a top up if needed ( like the essential Uni trip to New York )

@SHAR0N
My DD does one of those courses inc placement and works weekends and some nights. Bear in mind many students have no parental support (I never) and have to fit it all in.

I am watching this thread with horror and worry... dd is looking to go to university in the next couple of years and there’s no way I can top her up with £200 plus a month We barely manage as it is! I don’t think we will be entitled to the full loan etc either but our living expenses and the expenses of her having a disabled brother and myself having health issues means we just don’t have the extra income to save to top her up to those levels. It’s very scary really! She will have to work to support herself, there’s no other way beyond the odd £20-40 here and there that I give her now.

We apy the rent for ours, phones and nearly all of their trips home if we can’t collect for whatever reason. They live off the minimum loan, and 3/4 have part time jobs.
I am also hmm at all the kids that cannot work, one of Ours is Doing medicine and has done bank work all the way through ( currently in top decile nationally so clearly not affecting his work)
The other do 2 that work are also doing full on mostly full days all week sort of courses. The youngest is still getting his head around being away.

@Fairylea
Is there any University your DD could stay at home and attend? My youngest is planning to stay at home, definitely seems more common here in Scotland and more affordable.

Most of our students only attend classes two days a week with flexible independent study.

What do they study??? In my first year at Uni I had 3h of lecture every morning followed by an afternoon in the labs 4 days a week (Wed pm free for sport), with each year we did more and more labwork but fewer lectures, my final year I was in Uni 5 full days a week doing my research project (minus a daily lecture). Essays and lab write ups happened in the evening or weekends. Admittedly I was at Uni back in the days when very people went but I knew no-one who was working while studying.

That should have said during term time. We worked in the summer holidays.

£80 a week plus pay for phone, that has to include food and travel.

@Fairylea unfortunately you are expected to top your dd up with the difference between what your dd will receive and the maximum student loan. The loans are reduced due to parental income with that assumption.
Are you claiming dla and pip for your son and yourself?

I'm dreading next September when ds goes into private accommodation, it'll be £130 per week plus bills which seems pretty cheap for where he is. Gulp.

We pay for the accommodation and DD lives off her maintenance loan. She is self catering. Not many universities do catered these days. DD is an excellent cook and is a vegetarian. She would have hated catered halls.

Future post from his future DP; My DP is a miser, he’s rather we freeze than put heating on!! @JKScot4

Exactly. But while I'm his mother and responsible for him financially I feel I have to give him money, even if he just saves it. Only 18 more months....

@LynetteScavo
Why don’t you refuse them he’ll need to cough up? Explain to him how paying his way works, he seems to have an odd way of dealing with money.

DD gets the minimum maintenance loan. I pay for her accommodation (at the moment in halls and quite pricey so I’m hoping for a bit of a reduction next year) and she uses the loan for everything else. Tho I do visit and do a mahoosive food shop from time to time and also pay for any ‘extras’ on the course. She’s doing an art related course and materials and printing costs are crippling. I also pay for her phone which is on a joint contract with mine and is quite cheap.
So it sounds like I’m being quite generous!!!
Must let her know.
She has a job back home in the holidays but doesn’t work whilst at uni.

he seems to have an odd way of dealing with money.

He's generally very odd.

We give ours £500 a month, and the maintenance loan almost pays for accommodation, so we top that up to, so £500 is to cover everything else.

£500pm ?? with no rent to pay? That’s very generous, I’d be encouraging pt job there!

No option to work at all at their uni/course really but we are fortunate to be able to afford it.

It depends how much spare money you have.

My parents used to give me 600 pounds a month.

I also had a part time job. I didn't get much loan as it was means tested.

My Dd is a medical student in London. She’s currently in halls and it’s cheaper than we thought - but the other side of this is that she’s further out so the travel in for classes costs time and money. She’s on the minimum maintenance loan, which we top up to the amount of the max maintenance loan, £500/month. She worked all the way through sixth form so had some savings to start herself off - eg her first term rent cost more than her maintenance loan, but she’d already planned and saved for that alongside her A levels.

She’s planning to work p/t this summer but as the course goes on this might not be possible. She’ll also move onto NHS funding in years 5/6 which won’t need to be repaid, but she’ll get less so the difference will have to come from somewhere do she can live.

We have a son who’s a third year student elsewhere. He’s also on the min maintenance but is studying somewhere less costly and can walk to classes. We give him £350/month but he also works as he has fewer contact hours. Once he graduates this summer, the majority of his £350/month will be banked to cover dd’s year 5/6 shortfall.