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?

No loan for DS's so financing ourselves. Pay rent then £450 month for everything else. One in halls, one in flat. Will pay for big items such as flights home for hols.

Ah yes, the old "I have too much uni work to study" tall tale! Unless your child is a dentist, medic or (possibly) scientist, they're playing you 😄

£0
BUT.... we're in Wales so the loan/grant system aims to furnish every student with £9250 p/a. If you are a lower income family, you get more of that as a grant. DD only qualifies for the lowest grant, but it's stil £1000 she doesn't need to pay back.

Her accommodation is a little less than £6k so she has £3.5k a year to get by on. Her first term was expensive as the digs aren't paid for with even installments, even though her money is equally split. So we gave her £200 to help out.

Otherwise, we send her off with a full shop to fill her cupboards and fridge with. We pop down to visit mid term sometimes and take her to Aldi when we go to stock up again. And we pick her up and drop her off which saves her transport costs.

Next year, her accommodation is £1k more, so we will help her out with a couple of hundred pounds per term.

Her rent and bills come out of her student loan. We give her £400 a month

maintenance loan covers accommodation and we give her £50 a week for food and £100 a month for tube ticket.

I've had 2 go/ still going through uni and between them they have stayed in catered halls, self catered halls, private rental with bills included and private rental with bills not included, plus private self-catered halls abroad.

We have found that the loan plus £200 to £300 -ish monthly has worked out to be roughly manageable for them in every situation because where the accommodation costs more e.g. because bills are included, obviously the additional cost of living is less for them. We haven't paid anything while they are at home and they have both worked in the holidays and that money has tended to cover their extras - gigs, festivals and holidays etc.

I think mine would say they're roughly in the middle of the spectrum of parental help. Both have found themselves living with some students who have incredibly generous and incredibly rich parents who got way more money than they did (including one who was given a brand new BMW by Daddy when she'd had a bad week), but also living with friends who have far less/ no help from parents and who really struggled to eat and pay the bills. Both lived with friends who worked nearly full time while trying to do their course and who never went home during holidays. One of these couldn't keep it up and dropped out.

The MN consensus seems to be that students are adults and they shouldn't get any parental contribution at all. They should all just get a job like we did in the old days. In reality the student loans don't cover even basic living costs and without some parental help university is not do-able even with a job. If you value your dc's education then you will have to help somehow.

Watching with interest. It's actually an awful lot of money from your own/parental monthly allowance, isn't it?

If they have time to socialise. They have time to do a pub shift or a waitressing shift.

The whole "cant hold down a job due to course" is so ridiculous. I'm a full time student which requires placement, have a child and still manage to work between 20 and 30hrs a week think some need to be a little stricter on their little darlings

Dd is determined to go back to UK for Uni as but as a non-resident she won't get a maintenance loan at all. They are saying that currently home fees will apply and tuition loans are available for the next 7 years, but with Brexit it's a case of watch this space ! Whilst I've saved since she was born, I can't see how we will manage to pay the full cost. She will have to work. And in fact, unless she gets on a VERY good course, I will discourage it totally and ask her to stay closer to home.

My Dd is hoping to go to uni this year and we are just trying to work out the finances.
All you experts in this field, how much would you say a student would need per week once the accommodation is paid for?

@FurnitureAndBackgammon

I think the problem is the loan didn’t even cover accommodation for ether of our kids.

Sit down, make a spreadsheet. Budget for food, books, study materials or
equipment, travel, social life, clothes, phone and everything else you can think of.

Also remember they need a deposit for accommodation for year 2 if leaving halls (our kids had to pay this around March/April) and started paying rent for the new place by June/July.

Her dad gives her £300 and I £200 per month . I pay her accommodation in full and reimburse her travel costs at beg and end of term .

I agree SHAR0N. DD is doing a science degree and has significantly more contact hours (and work) than fellow students doing humanities degrees.

The whole "cant hold down a job due to course" is so ridiculous. I'm a full time student which requires placement, have a child and still manage to work between 20 and 30hrs a week think some need to be a little stricter on their little darlings

Bingo!
It didn’t take long before there would be a “Four Yorkshiremen” answer
I am assuming you are a mature student not living in halls away from home for the first time, and wanting to make new friends and learning to live independently?

All you experts in this field, how much would you say a student would need per week once the accommodation is paid for?

That’s was my initial question .

DD is in Maple Bank which is the cheapest in the Vale village. Looking at the website for next year, it's £89 pw for self-catering, and £130 including meal plan, so £41 pw for meal plan, which puts just over £52 onto your card each week (and it now rolls over if you don't spend it all that week), and a 10% discount on the meals in the campus cafes. The next cheapest in the Vale is £121 self catering. Maple Bank is a bit scruffy, small kitchen with tiny sofa, shared facilities, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the flat is on meal plan too, so they go together to get food. I haven't compared the cost with buying the meals separately. But we said it's up to her whether to spend more of her money on the newer, nicer halls, or have more money to spend on trips/clothing. But she has made good friends there, and really isn't bothered by the scruffiness.

It is at the furthest point of the Vale from the campus, but is walkable.

I'm feeling that this is quite a judgey thread. At the end of the day everyone’s circumstances are different as are their choices x

Dd worked right through her A levels, two bar shifts plus two night sports training /coaching. Still got straight A*s for med school alongside saving for uni, so is no stranger to hard work.

Max maintenance loan for London is £11,672. Someone somewhere has worked out that this what they need to cover their costs. Dd receives the minimum of £5,812 because our income is just over the threshold, leaving a £6k shortfall. Her rent alone exceeds her maintenance loan. We give her £500/month to cover the £6k shortfall. She set herself up for uni and got through the first term (more upfront cost than income) using her savings. She pays her rent, food, travelcard, contacts, phone, sports, clothing, everything. I sent her a mattress topper (to help with lumpy bed!) and will sometimes go up and meet her for dinner but she's otherwise living on what she has. She can't realistically work during term time (medical student) but has her p/t job at home for the holidays. She knows that she can message me if she's short of money (she's struggled with eating disorder in the past, I definitely want to know if she's short of food money) but she hasn't.

I think it was easier back in the days when you'd get a letter saying 'student finance will pay x, and the annual assessed parental contribution is y'. I know some families can’t fund uni students - hopefully the income assessment reflects this, but have heard of students struggling because parents who are able to help just choose not to or are unaware that this is what’s expected when the student finance is worked out.

The whole "cant hold down a job due to course" is so ridiculous. I'm a full time student which requires placement, have a child and still manage to work between 20 and 30hrs a week hmm think some need to be a little stricter on their little darlings.

How patronising and jealous sounding. We wouldn’t want our children to choose to be single parents working and studying for a degree. I’m pretty sure that’s not what they wanted either.

We think their best life chances are very good degrees from RG with good internships or work experience to support them into successful, relatively high income careers. At least high enough to buy houses and to not create stress in their relationships. We’d want them to be comfortable financially and mature enough before having children of their own.
We’re fortunate to be able to facilitate that but accept many aren’t. That doesn’t mean ours should be forced into pecuniary hardship to show they can survive. University is about growing into an adult as much as about the academic study. It should be fun and afford opportunities to do things you might not experience again. It shouldn’t ideally be a drudgery.

TheresWaldo, that is our position. Overseas fees £16000 for one and £18000 for other. Around £6000 each for accomadation and then £450 to live. It is tough but where we are there is no alternative. Some uni's offered home status didn't. Seemed to be no consistency.

My daughter had £300 left from this months loan after paying rent but that is being saved as she has to pay full rent on the house they are moving to over the summer . So we give her £30 a week , my dad £20 and her dad £30. She has a job but the hours are sporadic.

@Fairylea the disability benefits etc are not classed as income so your dd will get the maximum loan.

fedup, it's almost impossible to answer that question .... you can see from this thread that there are huge variances in what parents can (or want to) contribute. And accommodation costs vary tremendously between universities.

The maximum maintenance loan is around £9k ish (it will be on the Student Finance website) but even then at some universities that will not be enough to pay accommodation and just basic food.

It depends on the sort of 'lifestyle' your child expects? Some parents are happy to contribute towards clothes, shoes, clubs, holidays, cars, social life etc etc. Others aren't.

It's an impossible question to answer but personally, our DS manages on the equivalent of the maintenance loan (we make it up to the 'full loan') & a part time job (one evening per week) plus working in the vacations. He manages his money well, as I mentioned earlier he is going on a uni ski trip (he is paying for it of course).

Very well said CherryPavlova

Your DD sounds exceptional HostessTrolley. If DD had done the same work and sports as your DD, she might have scraped some Bs and Cs. She got AAA at A level, but she had to pull out all the stops to do so. Sha also has CFS.

I think some posters just don't understand that every student is different
However, some students really are lazy and unmotivated, and unfortunately I do know some who only went to university to drink and party.

Whatagoodidea - crikey that sounds painful! If there is no access to student finance for tuition, no way could would I pay. As it stands, I would only be happy to use life savings etc if she can get into Oxbridge or other top Uni. They have perfectly good Unis in Europe with tiny fees in comparison. She might disagree with me of course.

Hostess I agree that people should be told what the £full maintenance loan is. I had to search a fair bit earlier today online to find the amounts whereas surely it shoudl be first hit on UCAS.

If you scroll right down to "maximum maintenance loan" on this thread you can see it www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/the-big-fat-guide-to-student-finance-2012.html#contact but in my view it should come right up if you search it.

Eg 5his is useles of the ghvoernment "up to" that's ridiculous. That is what you will get if your parents are on the poverty line. Why not just say straight up many students will be paid a loan less than their rent/halls and the full maintenance loan is £8944 outside London so if your parents earn over £60k they are expected to to find £4644 a year or £90 a week. It is as if the state wants to make it very hard for students and parents to know this and they want to pretend the loans cover all expenses in England.