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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

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Original poster

Is anyone else having this problem?

16 replies

MarchingFrogs · 20/07/2020 14:00

Just curious - the How much do you top up you DC's loan' thread apparently contains two posts, but when I try to open it, I see the Whoops, something went wrong... page, not the contents of the thread.

Have I just been barred from posting on student loan top up threads...?Hmm

OP posts:
SeasonFinale · 20/07/2020 14:07

I can't open it either.

Xenia · 20/07/2020 14:28

Same here

Original poster
MarchingFrogs · 20/07/2020 15:09

Which begs the question (apart from, Why?), who.has managed to post a response...?

OP posts:
aibutohavethisusername · 20/07/2020 15:51

Same issue here...

titchy · 20/07/2020 16:13

I can see it (haven't posted a reply) Confused I'm on the app if that helps?

Appuskidu · 20/07/2020 16:15

Yes, me too!

leafeater · 20/07/2020 16:21

I just posted Grin

On the app

MNHQ
YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet · 20/07/2020 16:39

Hello everyone - thanks for alerting us. We're looking into it now.

sammyjoanne · 20/07/2020 17:11

Same I cant open it either. But to answer above post what we have done is saw her reward she got on maintanence loan, then took away her accommodation. so thats what left to play with .

Then we worked out how much it would cost for food, phone, printing societies, going out, etc per week
Then we got her balance of maintainence and split it over the weeks shes at uni ie 40 weeks.

Minus the maintainence weekly rate she has from the 'outgoings' weekly rate and thats how much she needs to top up per week . You can just times that result by 4.3 to get a rough idea of a monthly top up.

Only thing i would say is freshers you would need a separate pot for that.
For us were going to have to top up about £300 per month

Appuskidu · 20/07/2020 17:24

Same I cant open it either. But to answer above post what we have done is saw her reward she got on maintanence loan, then took away her accommodation. so thats what left to play with

Can you explain what you mean by reward?

So, are you saying that if the maintenance loan they get is £4289, then you’ve taken away accommodation? My DC’s accommodation is a fair amount more than the loan Confused.

sammyjoanne · 20/07/2020 21:19

@Appuskidu

Same I cant open it either. But to answer above post what we have done is saw her reward she got on maintanence loan, then took away her accommodation. so thats what left to play with

Can you explain what you mean by reward?

So, are you saying that if the maintenance loan they get is £4289, then you’ve taken away accommodation? My DC’s accommodation is a fair amount more than the loan Confused.

Hi by the reward sorry i meant she got with the letter from student finance telling her her total maintenance loan payment for 2020/2021 . If student studies in London they can have about a maximum of £12k maintenance loan if you earn less than £25k between you, or £8900 outside of London if you earn less than 25k.

The more you earn between the two of you, the less maintenance loan as you are meant to stump up of the difference.

That's why middle of the road earning parents find it harder; because if you earn a lot, you can afford to pay for your child easily; or if you earn too little, the government gives the full loan amount.

From what we earn, were left with about £1k after accommodation is taken away so we have to divide that over 40 weeks which is £25 per week so we have to stump up the rest.

Moominmammacat · 21/07/2020 09:50

I paid for catered accommodation and they lived off the loan.

sammyjoanne · 21/07/2020 11:26

Thats a good idea.
Best way is to work out the outgoings in total including accommodation and the incomings, and the balance you are out by is what you have to fork out.

Appuskidu · 21/07/2020 11:48

I’m still clueless!

DC gets £4289. The s/c accommodation is £5500, so we will need to pay out the balance on that.

How much do people give their DC weekly to live on?

SeasonFinale · 21/07/2020 12:17

We paid for the accommodation and then let them live off their maintenance loans. Any more than that they needed to earn which they did by way of working in the holidays rather than while at uni. Youngest is working for Deliveroo and intends to carry on when they go to uni as it is very flexible and they can just logon to say they are available.

sammyjoanne · 21/07/2020 16:21

You could do it a few ways:
So if you have £5500 then minus the £4289 that leaves you £1211 to find for accommodation. As its paid in 3 installments you will need to find about £400 roughly for each time its due.

In addition, you will have to pay for thier weekly/monthly bits and bobs, such as phone, food, printing, going out, clothes etc. The student room forum said self catering student would be about £60-£100 per week (depending on how much student spends and if they are good at being frugal or not) so if you work that monthly its £258-£430 per month + the £400 for each accomodation bill thats due when it comes.

Or

You can do what SeasonFinale suggests :)

By paying the accommodation either completely upfront or in the three installments, and have DD budget the £4289 maintenance loan for the whole year. Now if student is not good at budgeting, she can give you have the award, and you and give her a weekly/monthly direct debit so she learns how to budget with a smaller amount. Now £4289 over a 40 week term is £107 per week which should be sufficient for her to live off.

If things dont work and she does need more money, she can either get a job, or see if there are any student bursaries or hardship funds, or on her student bank account get one with an overdraft (although she would have to pay that back eventually)

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