Living on max maintenance grant at Bristol University?

[Poundshilling]

DS hopes to start at Bristol university in the autumn and we're trying to get our heads round the finances. It's going to be tight.

Reading previous threads on Mumsnet, some parents pay for the accommodation and the student receives the minimum maintenance loan as living costs (£4289 for 2020/21.)

DH feels that the total annual outlay shouldn't exceed £9203 (maximum maintenance loan) so that would leave 9203-4289=£4914 for accommodation. Looking at the costs of halls in Bristol, DS would have to get the cheapest rooms to come in on budget. But he can't guarantee to get the cheapest rooms, in which case, he'd have less than the minimum maintenance grant to live on.

Can anyone with a student at Bristol (or a uni in a comparable city) tell me:

1. Does your student manage on less than the minimum maintenance grant for living expenses?
2. Is it realistic to expect to do it all for £9203? Uni website talks about £9000-£14,500!
3. Are there many student jobs that will still exist in these days of C-19?

Thanks.

I fear jobs for students will dry up. So many out of work hospitality staff are going for supermarket jobs. What time DS will have is also a moot point. My DD found she needed time to settle into course requirements and get used to everything and didn’t want to go looking for work. None of her friends worked either.

Transport costs are minimal unless you go home all the time. Student halls are either close to the university or have transport included if at Stoke Bishop (they used to anyway). So choose be in Clifton if transport is an issue. However Stoke Bishop has quite a variety of halls. I think Wills still has a few shared rooms. It’s catered but I think it’s around £6000 with food. DD has one. That makes it cheaper than the £6000 you are quoting for self catering. You need to look at the very cheapest options on your budget and I don’t think he can rely on work. Wills doesn’t provide lunches or a Saturday evening meal but it is a great hall for making friends.

Second year - rents are not cheap and this is because a lot of students choose to live within walking distance of the university in Clifton or similar areas. You will have to pay up front and yes, rental starts from 1 July. I believe bills are not included so that is an extra to budget for. Most students allow the person with the smallest room to pay a bit less so if funds remain tight, then get DS to opt for the smallest room.

I think your DH is a bit unrealistic. He should know some universities cost more than others. Bristol university is in a very desirable area. Oxbridge is cheaper but is subsidised. Also the university web site is up to date and realistic. DDs min grant paid for Wills back in the day. As the min grant hasn’t gone up there’s now quite a gap. When it did cover it, we topped up by £450 per month, paid phone and bought expensive items such as printer and laptop.

Bristol just seems such a difficult place to be a student! We are localish but the drugs reputation has put dd off applying. I was going to encourage her to apply anyway as its good for her course, but reading this is just seems so expensive and difficult!

If you think any university is drugs free, dream on! Honestly nowhere is. Your DC just have to not participate and of course the majority don’t. Do you not trust your DC? I trusted mine to be sensible. You have to.

I fail to see why it’s difficult. What’s difficult about it over, say, London? It’s cheaper than London and if you are local then travelling home costs are less.

You don’t really get cheap accommodation in expensive cities. Even Liverpool has expensive accommodation for students. Never choose a university on cost though. It matters where you go and there are plenty of students with less deep pockets at Bristol.

Do you not trust your DC? I trusted mine to be sensible. You have to.

But Bubbles it is over a decade since your DD was a fresher.

Bristol does have a party reputation. No it not everyone. However the reputation is at least partly deserved.

Perhaps time your DD made a trip.back to Stoke Bishop to update the information she gives you.

Dd gets minimum loan. I don't have a spare £6k even though on paper we clearly look loaded to the government. I account taken of mortgage, debt, other kids.

Genuinely don't know how dd has managed. We can afford to give her £1500 max each year.

Bristol are not just doing things online. They are doing what every other Uni is doing with small group work and practicals face to face and large lectures on line. They have written to all students telling them this and sent a lovely video. And all Unis have drugs if you want them. But fine if you don't.
Bristol seems more expensive than Nottingham (where eldest is) but we knew that when she applied. London was even worse !

Bristol seem to be very ahead of the pack on setting out what will happen - term date, introduction week going ahead, activites, seminars, accommodation etc etc. As now at Bristol lectures have just about always been recorded on my sons' courses anyway and the difference will be you watch those rather than go go them but it sounds like everything else will be face to face etc.

www.bristol.ac.uk/students/coronavirus/applicants/

Same as Nottingham @Xenia. It's been so lovely of the Unis to give students nice clear guidance. It won't be normal in Sept but they will be at Uni.

My understanding is that all Universities will have to set out clearly what students can expect next year by some deadline in June. Some sort of consumer protection.

Nothing to do with the relative merits of Bristol or Nottingham or indeed anyway.

Do you think there were no drugs 10 years ago?? If anything there were more clubs and more drug taking. It doesn’t matter whether you went to university 30 years ago or now, there were drugs. In my local larger town there was a drug problem 50 years ago. It really isn’t new. In many city offices employees take cocaine. None of this is a surprise - surely? However it really does come down to knowing your DC and trusting them, wherever they go.

I agree - it was their regulator i think or some other body which said students are committing to very expensive contracts for £9250 fees plus in some cases £7500 a year rent and other costs and they need to know sooner rather than later (a) if they will be physically at university and allowed into halls and (b) what kind of teaching will be provided once they are there.

My daughter is going to London School of Economics. She has been awarded the Max loan of £12k. Her accommodation will cost £11k (I can't remember if she chose halls with meals now or not) (I hope so)
She will be entitled to a bursary from the uni hopefully and I can give her £110 per month and pay her phone bill. I think her dad is planning to give her similar. Then she'll have to get a job, if there are any......

I don’t live too far from LSE and students pop up in all sorts of places. I met one foodie KCL student, working on a gourmet food stall in borough market. Another in John Lewis in Oxford Street, and a third just working Saturday nights as a waiter in a high end restaurant. Hopefully in September, all three will be open. Life guarding also seems popular, and for those with qualifications, swim teaching. Depending on what interests you it ought to be possible to pick up work beyond the standard supermarket/pub stuff. DD is studying in London next year, and our very sociable neighbours have a small baby, so DD is promoting her babysitting skills. And indeed they are showing interest in her, ski chalet honed, catering skills.

A popular job is casual work at events, mainly Christmas and summer, should life ever become normal again, though DS failed the interview when he was at LSE through his inability to carry three plates at a time. He instead got some tutoring work. Even first years when he was in third year. He also picked up a steady amount of summer research assistant work, whilst still an UG. I hope your DD enjoys it.

Just to say I live in Bristol and the drugs reputation is not true these days. In the 90's rave era, yes it was, but our city is no longer a hedonistic drug paradise (sadly.) Spice is much more prevalent in other cities, and shockingly in more rural locations.

Though Bristol does boast very large amounts of ket and coke in its sewers, apparently a stand was of measuring drug use by a population.

London kids we know, who thought they were streetwise, have been surprised at the drugs.

The kids get it from the dark web these days. It's a different world out there. Young people can buy their own drugs to be delivered straight to their house and don't have to encounter a dealer or go to a dodgy part of town. If your dc's want drugs, they'll find them, no matter what town they're in.

My dd has just finished her first year at Nottingham Uni. She gets minimum maintenance loan. Her accommodation was £6.4k so we paid the difference plus £30 per week for food. She had a job waitressing in the holidays back at home but not in term time. To help with cash flow for the termly accommodation fee she has a free overdraft facility up to £1k. She knows this is only for the accommodation difference which means our monthly accommodation contribution can be lower and spread over the year. It has worked really well for us.

@Needmoresleep this all sounds very promising indeed. I’m so glad your dc have had wonderful experiences. Fills me with hope

DS was very happy at LSE. He enjoyed his course and worked hard. He was also active in several societies. LSE suited him more than, say Bristol would have. But he was not interested in the more traditional clubbing student scene. There were clubbers though and a popular Friday night disco, and the Athletics Union had a reputation for heavy drinking (pre’s starting at 9.00am on the annual big night out.) I guess the trick is to make that bit of extra effort to find your people, and expect to do things on campus, rather than in hall.. In particular it is worth reaching out to international students, who initially tend to be more shell shocked than most as they get to grips with being on their own on the other side of the world, but contribute to a really cosmopolitan experience. Plus the cheapest food is in Chinatown. When I was there I loved being at the centre of a world city, with the time to explore and to make the most of the free things available.

(Though goodness knows what the experience will be like for this year’s students.)

Will your DD be in an LSE hall or an intercollegiate one? The former are easier.

DS2 isn’t at Bristol - although he’s close by. He gets the maximum student loan including the bursary of £2000.

His grandmother paid for his first 2 terms in halls. There is no way he would have afforded life without getting a PT job otherwise.

From September he’s going into a house share with his flat mates from halls. It’s cheaper per week but he’ll still need help.

In all universities, there are students who use drugs sometimes (or often) and those who don't (or rarely).

One of my sons was saying the other day Bristol is so lovely he could see himself living there or somewhere like it one day.

On the sewers point it is a fascinating issue. They are considering studying sewage to check real levels of covid 19 in the population. One judge said there were 1.5m not 1m illegal immigrants in the UK ascertained from the quantities of sewage waste even - I think there is a lot more data within sewage than we imagine.

On drugs they will be in most schools and universities. My son has mentioned certain places some students might go if they were into drugs and he and his friends would not. I remember at Manchester University in my halls in about 1980 there was one girl who hardly left her room in our shared university flat for a term as she and her boyfriend must have been doing drugs in there. She had to leave half way through the year as they were so affected by it. None of the rest of us were tempted.

Just to say I live in Bristol and the drugs reputation is not true these days

I also don't live a million miles away and I beg to differ.

putting aside rent - DS has minimum maintenance grant but we don't give him the full amount. I think that is too much to live on. It is 'easier' to go 'well you live on the loan, we'll pay the rent' but I don't think its an efficient balance - which can be important if things are tight.

Personally we're giving DS £300pm for the 10 months of the year - we stop that payment during Summer as he can get a job :)

So from the £4100 min maintenance loan, that leaves about £1100-1200 that can go towards accommodation. We pay for accommodation but that extra helps to keep what we pay manageable

Summary : I reckon £3k would be enough for living expenses. That'd leave you about £6k for accommodation. Anything above that you can help top up, or your DC can get a job - eg if they want catered or ensuite etc.

@Needmoresleep she’s booked into an LSE hall but it wasn’t her first choice, although I think she’s happy with it.
We just sat down and worked out all the finances and it looks like she’ll have £150/week after accommodation. So as long as she doesn’t blow it all on clothes in the first three weeks I think she’ll be fine.

What course did your DS do there?