What allowance to give DD when starting her degree in September

[Londonmummy66]

I'm not really sure what to give DD when she starts in September. She has a scholarship so her course fees are only £300 a term. As she is in London her rent is nearly £200 a week. DH and I had originally planned to pay her fees so have decided we should pay her rent instead. Would £500 pcm be about right on top she is sensible so would save any extra cash she had at the end of the month - it feels as if she wouldn't have to decide between a new pair of tights and food and give her enough to do some socialising etc as well. Should mention that she is going to study music so there are instrument costs etc like strings and bow rehairs etc that are not cheap either.

@Longtimenewsee

Allowance? Do you mean parental contribution ? Full student maintenance loan ( not course fees-that’s separate) for London is £11672. That’s for accommodation, food , transport etc etc. If your Dd only gets the min ( about £5800) due to your income , then you are expected to stump up the rest ( the other £5800) . Or have I completely got the wrong end of the stick here? If your Dd does not intend to apply for the loan and you want to pay instead, then I guess using the normal student loan amount that they are expected to live on ( £11672) for a london student is a good place to start?

This. Which would usually cover rent as well.

In thiscase, I'd say give her £1000 per month (which will cover rent plus a bit extra) and ask her to take out the loan to top it up. I also wouldn't pay the rent directly - I'd give the £1000 as a monthly standing order and help her to learn about budgeting and planning out spending for the month.

If this, along with the loan, is for any reason not enough (it should be), you can revisit it after the first few months.

We are pleased our children have no student loans as are they. Also in our case most of the children do or will earn quite a lot so they are better off without loans give the high incomes. I accept however that unless the rules change currently you repay 9% only of income over about £26k so if they never earn over that they do not pay it back and tax payers pay for them instead - ie the rest of us.

That’s true but it’s also the system in the same way we pay the true cost of medical degrees etc. The students don’t. If we didn’t pay, arts students would be the preserve of the rich so we even out opportunity. I’m delighted to support musicians and artists.

That is true and the same as UK ho,me students or the loans pay £9250 a year in England but foreign students paying £15k for same degree or whateverit is. I suppose I am like those few people who pay into the national debt fund when they don't have to in a sense by ensuring they don't take student loans. Psychological too for us - not having the risk of the extra 9%. Anyway most people have no problem with it. I just felt as the mount was similar to school fees I might as well carry on paying that for the university years too and it crept up on us - my daughters paid Tony Blair's £1k tuition fees, their brother £3k and then twins the £9250 and I want to treat all the children the same just as my parents chose to make up our very very small minimum grant in the 10980s up to the amount of the full grant (and many parents today make up the minimum maintenance loan amount to the full maintenance loan amount the less well off get). However I will be glad when it is over. 2021/22 will be the last year I pay fees. I first paid my older daughter's nursery school fees in 1987 and I have not had a year in between when not paying something of that kind - school or university.

There are 2 different “loans” , one for fees and one for subsistence. The fees one isn’t based on parental income, subsistence one is.
My Dds both had fees loans. DD1 also had full subsistence loan as our income was low. She managed to live off that without us paying more. DD 2 got the minimum as our income was greater, this loan paid for her rent. We gave her £200 a month for living expenses.
Both worked part time.

I just love it when people don’t read the thread and take the OP’s situation into account! Living off the full London loan if your hall fees are £200 a week isn’t that easy.

Take the loan and save the money you were going to give her, to use a deposit on a house.

Makes much more financial sense!

Percy,

If we didn’t pay, arts students would be the preserve of the rich so we even out opportunity. I’m delighted to support musicians and artists.

There are other ways. My old University has a bursary fund which genuinely helps provide opportunity and is far more targeted. And they invite donors for the occasional, and slightly rough, glass of wine.

@Needmoresleep

Percy,

If we didn’t pay, arts students would be the preserve of the rich so we even out opportunity. I’m delighted to support musicians and artists.

There are other ways. My old University has a bursary fund which genuinely helps provide opportunity and is far more targeted. And they invite donors for the occasional, and slightly rough, glass of wine.

I had such a bursary. It was £1250 a year. I also had a £4-6k yearly scholarship. I’ve lost count of all the receptions I attended or played for, where we met the donors.

Now please explain to me how to live on £6-7k a year in London? My cheap houseshare for the area I was in was £600 a month. There is food. There are clothes. There is a slightly higher energy bill in winter. There is transport. Books, specific music software (unless you manage to book a 30 min slot at the university library which will give you enough time to complete 2% of your assessment), accompanists, instrument maintenance, sheet music, insurances, occasional travel home for holidays.

My bursaries and scholarships didn’t even cover my rent. I worked 3 part time jobs on top of conservatoire, practice and concerts, as many people do, loan or no loan.

I’ll be eternally grateful to both my private donors and my Student Finance England tuition fee loan (aka the taxpayer) for helping me attend university. My parents had £0 to contribute towards my higher education. I was encouraged to study if I wanted, but I had to sort it out. Without student loans, which I will be paying when I start earning the minimum amount, I wouldn’t have been able to become a professional musician. So yeah, music would remain a preserve of the rich if we didn’t help those from a poorer background to access it.

Well the government max loan is £11,600 so no, you cannot survive on £6000 pa in London! If halls is 44 weeks x £200, that wipes out most of it. If it’s 50 weeks, as Prince Consort Village can be, that’s £10,000 just on rent. Therefore the calculations need to be done and parental contribution worked out based on need and expectations of students life.

It’s very clear that if there were not loans, then only rich students would do art degrees. LSE might have generous bursaries but not everywhere does and not enough to live on!

The LSE doesn’t really do “art” degrees though. Indeed despite being a social sciences college at inception it’s now a lot more mathematical because that’s where the City money is. It can also afford to have bursaries because of having so many international students who pay much more than U.K. ones, which is why the LSE takes so many of the former...

Places at art/music/drama schools & colleges are a different beast and yes very much the reserve of wealthy or at least middle class students. Which is why there is so much industry outcry about it and organisations like Arts Emergency. Comparing the LSE to that whole situation is insulting.

When I asked around other parents, 2 years ago, they mostly said amounts of £250-£500/month in term time. That was additional to tuition & rent.

DD is in 2/3 catered halls in London now. I send her £45/week for living costs. Idea is that would cover within-London transport, lunches, toiletries, misc. I reckon it's way more than she actually needs; she could probably get by on £25/week.

'Living away' loan rates for those studying in London from September are £12,38 maximum, £6,166 minimum (non means tested element).

Thanks everyone I am going to have a serious talk with her about loans vs maintenance when she is back home for half term and see if we can reach a consensus. In fact DGPs will probably pay her allowance so out issue is likely to be rent vs a contribition to her savings whilst she takes out a maintenance loan.

We have her younger sister to think about the following year although her current ambition is a magic circle law firm so very different situation!

In normal times I cannot imagine how a student can get by on £25 a week even in catered accommodation. That really assumes they never buy clothes, have a hair cut, or go out for a meal. That’s just existing. It’s not really budgeting either because £25 goes nowhere so few choices can be made. So not really an adult experience. Catered halls rarely cater for all meals so you need other food too.

DD is supposed to buy own clothes; god knows she doesn't need any clothes.

Definitely absolutely she is supposed to pay for any "meals out"

She is working now & could pick up a huge lot of supply hours to make a lot of money in term time evenings or holiday periods if she wanted.

Most days DD doesn't leave the Halls (complete social life inside), so barely burns any calories (doesn't really need lunch).

Agree these are not normal times.

Dd used to live on £35 per week when she was in catered accommodation. I’d probably up that a bit now.

Essentially, the student loan is money that she can only borrow because she is a student, but she can borrow it, at least the £6 166 whatever your own financial circumstances are. She can't access that money once she leaves university, whereas any other income or savings she or you have both can be and have to be used for anything, iyswim? So, say you use your money, or she uses savings, to finance her through university, but then after she graduates, she or you have a desperate need for that amount of money, she no longer has access to the student loan.

@PresentingPercy

In normal times I cannot imagine how a student can get by on £25 a week even in catered accommodation. That really assumes they never buy clothes, have a hair cut, or go out for a meal. That’s just existing. It’s not really budgeting either because £25 goes nowhere so few choices can be made. So not really an adult experience. Catered halls rarely cater for all meals so you need other food too.

The thing is Percy, that’s the reality of what many students can afford. You’d be surprised to see the number of students, even in London, who don’t have much more than that at the end of the week. I buy clothes and cut my hair every 6 months at most, unless I need to replace a particular item, so your assumption would be correct. Why do I need to be constantly buying clothes or cutting my hair every 6 weeks?

Meals out when I was a student were a spoons weekend deal, or we’d pick up some pizza or McDonald’s and go to the park. In London there is also so much street food and markets where you can get amazing food for less than £5. Cheap beer once a week as opposed to clubbing every three nights was also very normal in my circle. Spoons is a lifesaver for the skint student.

It really isn’t that unimaginable that some students don’t have money to live the fun university life they all dream of. They might be in the minority but to assume their uni experience is miserable is also a bit unfair. Each person is different and has different expectations about lifestyle and going out habits. They mostly match their upbringing - my parents could only afford a takeaway 3-4 times a year, so I didn’t miss not having weekly takeaways when I got to uni. It’s all relative.

This should be irrelevant if students get to go back to 'normal' style education in 2021-22.

I wish in retrospect we had steered DD (currently finishing first yr) towards halls far out in the London suburbs (much cheaper). Due to covid She almost never needed to go into central London to lessons & social life would have been plenty good there, too. In suburbs she still would have met people to share a house with for 2nd year which was reason I thought it important for her to be in London itself.

Crystal balls and all that.

I completely agree with you. My niece is at St Martins and has managed fine on the loan. We are ordinary people and can only buy her groceries and give her the odd £20 a couple of times a month. Yes, there are really wealthy students on her course but there are plenty from normal working class backgrounds. Food in London is cheap and plentiful. She woukdnt thank you for a restaurant meal with fine wine she lives a perfectly happy student life going to Weatherspoons or drinking in one of the many parks. They cut and dye each others hair, clothes are Christmas and Birthday presents and i buy her toiletries from Savers and give them to her when I take her out for lunch once a month. Usually there will be a bottle of vodka amongst the shampoo. I would hate for a child to be put off studying in London because of finances. You can walk or get two buses for £1.50 which will take you all the way accross London. Students make their own entertainment. Theyve had to this year anyway and will probably carry on this way I imagine.

That was for CMeredithC

Well said CMeredithC
I am amazed sometime at what some posters seem to think is 'essential'
If my dc want to spend on treats and luxuries beyond what they can budget out of the loan - and indeed, why wouldn't they - they they can earn a living just like everyone else.
All of mine have worked whilst at University. (mostly in the holidays)

It is how long is a piece of string. I can afford to ensure mine have no student loans and that works fine for us as a family. That is quite rare as even those who can afford to avoid the student finance tend to take it out for all the reasons mentioned above.

As for what they need at university it is hugely variable. My son made loans / gifts of money to people worse off in a few cases which I did find a bit annoying as I work full time and those other mothers seem to sit around at home doing nothing so I am funding their child's going out but I did not give money to my son with any conditions attached and I think in most cases it has been paid back to him so it's his business.

Lots of student work has disappeared in case no one noticed. One persons luxury is another persons standard lifestyle. London tends to have its own lifestyle and I guess at CSM you didn’t have £9-10,000 hall fees. I know - DD was at LCF and definitely got hair dyed for free!

Who said anything about meals with wine? To be fair, part of the fun of London is going out. Otherwise why bother to be there? It’s the opportunities that make it fun.

Op- your DD might also find students get amazing discounts at top class venues. I know the ROH has student tickets. When life gets back to normal it’s a huge shame if music students cannot take advantage of this by staying on a campus and not venturing out trying to manage on £25 a week. As you are no doubt aware, this really is cutting down to basics. Your DD will have a wonderful time and I do urge you to make the opportunities happen for her.