How much allowance do you give your student dc to live on per week

[FlamingHot]

Or per month? Dd’s halls of residence and course fees will be covered by us and student loads.

We’re not sure how much she’ll need for food/nights out etc. Her halls will be self catered only.

Thanks!

I was at uni from 87 to 90 and I don’t remember hardly anyone working at university but we all had holiday jobs.
In 1987 to 1990 there were no tuition fees and full maintenance grants.

I was at Uni in the late 70s early 80s and lots of had term time jobs ... I had the 'full' grant, no tuition fees plus my part time earnings so it was a really good time financially ! Many of us worked in night clubs so it meant you had a night out, got paid and free drinks ... would be a lot different these days .

Although Use many of us did not get full maintenance grants - hence my post above, so had to hope parents would make it up and so many did not they had to issue the big nudge and advice to parents to do so. My £320 a year minimum grant did not get very far just like the £4300 minimum today (compared with a full loan of about £8400). In a sense it is a similar system - hope most parents will choose to make up to full grant/loan and plenty find that hard to do or choose not to do. My flat made in year 1 had the minimum too and she worked in a night club in Manchester with some kind of bunny girl costume - she looked amazing in it with all her make up on but I bet there was a fair amount of groping by the male customers going on.

My dh was never given his parental contribution. He had lived with his grandparents since the age of about 7 but it was never done legally so he was still registered as living at home (the cynic in me says for child benefit) so his grant was based on his parents income.

After a year in halls my parents decided that a better way to support me would be to buy a student house for me to live in and rent out to other students and I lived off their rent. So dh managed by moving in with me and we pooled resources.

If you remind the dc that this is their budget, and they can share a shower and share a toilet with two other people and have and extra £40+ in their pocket every week, or have an en-suite, many of them look at it differently. Some might still choose en-suite, but that is then an informed decision rather than something they just "fancy".

This is such a good point @BackforGood. I think that penny may have dropped with DS3 today, when he had a tour at his first choice and realised that the difference between the plushest ensuite rooms and the still well equipped and recently refurbished shared facility offering was around the £3k mark.

I give my daughter nothing. Single parent, 3 other kids, work part time. My daughter gets maximum loan and nhs bursary. She also works part time as a carer. She is very comfortable on her money

The majority of students did not get the the full grant in my LA. Far from it. Most parents with an average salary would be expected to make a contribution. You had to submit evidence of earnings and outgoings and it had to be pretty low to get a full grant. Sadly time and spin have blurred this fact.

I helped my kids as much as I wanted to. I wanted them to be able to fully enjoy their uni experience without stressing about money too much and without taking crappy underpaid jobs. I has been saving a little every month for them since they were very young. Anyone with children who can afford to put even a little bit away should be doing that. I cannot understand why uni costs come as such a surprise to parents - student finance has been cut and cut again for decades.

I was happy to support mine through uni - there is plenty of time for them to be weighed down by work and money worries when they are older.

I was lucky enough to go to unit from 87 to 91. I was on a full grant and had never had so much money and freedom, coming from a home where my family got by on benefits. I was able to sign on during all of my summer breaks, though I did mange to get some very short term summer work twice.

Those students who have full student support today due to low parental income are often better off than those students who have a reduced student loan because of what their parents earn. I feel so sorry for students who do not have parents who are prepared to make up the money they have. It is not the student's fault that their parents earn more.

Also as to the past, only 15% of people got to go to university and the other 85% were paying in a sense so those could go. it has been very interesting scanning my old papers including the 1979-82 letters from the local authority about what was the minimum grant which I received. (My parents did make it up to the full grant amount).

Then and now weirdly the poor were quids in with a full grant or today a huge full maintenance loan whilst those with slightly better off parents but with commitments to other children etc do not find the parent in some cases can pay the extra £4k+ to make them be in the same position of those with the full maintenance loan.

Ours is lucky in that he’ll be living at home and won’t be paying rent or food bills. (He has said he would like to pay something but atm I’m inclined to put it in a separate account to help out after graduation). All other personal expenses, travel, clothing, socialising etc. should be covered by his student maintenance loan.
If he isn’t able to find reliable part-time work we will pay for driving lessons/test though because it’s a skill that will improve his chances of employment in his chosen field.

I disagree that people who didn't work were paying for those who went to uni. Without my degree I could not have got into the job I do - teaching. I am paie well compared to most people who live in this area, and I have paid far more in taxes over the past 30 years. In addition to my taxes I have also provided an important service to thousands of students. I feel I have more than put back into the system what I was given as a uni student.

I don't think it is weird that those who come from low income households are 'better off' in uni either. they are only better off than those students whose parents who are are expected to contribute but refuse to do so. If you come from a low income/ no income household then you already had a disadvantaged start in life. Uni could well be they way out of this - helping those young people to take a step on the ladder to a better paid career. If full grants had not been available in the 1980s I would never have gone to uni, never got into a profession and never been able to contribute in the ways that I did.

May be I typed the wrong thing - I meant those who work and pay taxes but never got the chance of university in the days when I went when 15% got to go only - paid (obviously those who went such as I did - I have worked full time since 1983 without a single break even for babies - also paid for the 15% of us who went in 1979)

Now 50% get to go and most do not pay loans back I suppose 100% of workers pay for the 50% rather than 85% of workers paying for the lucky 15%

But the majority of that 15% will presumably have paid higher taxes due to higher earnings for the whole of their working lives? So they were not paid for by the 85%....

Most don’t pay their loans back because their salary isn’t high enough.

My friend’s daughter is a newly qualified nurse. She doesn’t pay any of her loan back through her salary as she doesn’t earn enough. She wants to take some further qualifications but this will mean working part time. She also in the future wants some time out to have a family but return to work on a part time basis. She is giving a huge amount back by being a nurse but may never repay her loans.

I worked it out once, under the newer loans system I would need to earn over 62k a year every year for roughly the next 29 years to be able to pay off my student loan. A lower salary than that and the interest rate would mean the loan never gets small enough before being written off.

The interest rate is currently 5.6%, the whole systems a bit broken really. I know we should view it at a tax, but that’s only because they’ve made it almost impossible to pay off - obviously there are lots of people who earn over 62k but rarely every year from when they graduate.

I actually disagree that a part time nurse is putting a lot back. Not as much as a full time nurse in my view.

Most young people work full time and have to in order to pay rent etc. It is sheer luxury to work part time as a newly qualified nurse. Their pay scales do very quickly get above the threshold for paying black the loan but until recently nurses had bursaries so they were better off than most and guaranteed a job. Many others are not so lucky.

The system is pretty much the same as is was in some respects. Everyone contributes via taxes. Either as a grad tax or a tax that supports the loans given. Before the loans though, you did have those who had not benefitted from higher wages that a university education conferred at the time, paying for those who would do very much better than themselves. They did of course benefit from some state employees such as doctors but not everyone was a doctor!

We do know there is a time bomb when the outstanding loans are too great for country to manage. There should be fewer degrees and far more work with training leading to qualifications. That is what happened when 15% went to university. I do not think we should go back to 15% but 50% is not sustainable when 33% do not get grad level jobs.

I am discussing, on another thread, why apprenticeships, ,go to adults for retraining. Second degrees for people who already have a MSc. Lord Baker has written about the issue in the Times today. Nearly 50% of apprenticeships go to those over the age of 25. We need a whole rethink about higher education and jobs.

I agree that a full time nurse contributes more but she can only work part time whilst studying to gain the additional qualifications she needs for the specialist role she wants to aim for. The additional course is three days a week.

I totally agree that there are too many degrees. Many roles could be undertaken with in-employment training rather than needing a degree to get the job.

Years ago, you did extra training whilst working. Full time. Several relatives are nurses and did this. We now have masters for nursing. It is all going too far. Whoever thought nurses in pre degree days were incompetent.?

We pay accommodation and my DC live off the minimum loan. I think it's roughly £87 a week during term time or £67 a week spread over the year.

Hostess, the Labour party when setting up the loans system certainly made the point that hte 85% used to pay for the 15% who went to university and it had validity particularly as so many people rose to good jobs and high tax who didn't go and plenty who did go never earned too much. i graduated in 1982 which had the worst unemployment (then and even compared with now - at 3m then) for fifty years and many of those 1982 graduates never got a graduate job. However I agree that plenty over the years since the second world war did. My father got some kind of grant after the war to study medicine immediately after his BSc from the state and he paid tax right through until he died at 79 (when he was still paying 40% income tax including on his NHS pension and other earnings and pensions). Anyway it is interesting to think about who today subsidises whose university. We can probably all agree that the young man who used his whole annual loan to pay his flights and costs to go to ISIS was probably not a great investment for the UK tax payer.

@Xenia, loans for living costs were first introduced in 1990-1, not under Labour. I had one. They were 'top up' loans to start with, about £1000 I think, as grants were frozen and then gradually decreased. It was tuition fees that were first introduced by Labour. The loans that cover tuition fees go directly to the university, not via the student's bank account, so the young man you're referring to was presumably using his maintenance loan.

Loon, good point. Thanks. My daughters had £1000 a year tuition fees I think the first daughter in 2003. Yes indeed the ISIS man used the maintenance loan ( I know the fees loan goes straight to the university so they cannot get their hands on that bit).

I think it was the overall scheme of loans Labour felt was very helpful - which indeed it was and has meant more of the less well off can go as the full maintenance loan is enough to live off (as was the "full maintenance grant" in its day)

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread. Loads of interesting discussion and great ideas (DEFINITELY going to give dd her allowance weekly ) BUT...I really just want to know the figure your dc lives on per week or per month for food/nights out/books/toiletries etc.

Loans/loan amounts/minimum loan top ups are all a bit confusing and obviously vary.

So, in really simple terms and no matter where the funding comes from, how much money does your dc get per week/month for every day expenses?

Thanks so much!

All DC will have varying amounts depending on circumstances. For Instance my DD will have her the student loan, NHS grant and ninety earned over the summer. I won't know so how much she will have per week until accommodation is confirmed.

From experience they need more in the first week for freshers. Also their loan is not paid to them until the second week, so they need to earn or be given that via family. My DS has approximately £300 per month to live on. He topped this up by working in the holidays I have-never asked what he earns, so cannot provide an exact amount.

My DD is currently working almost full time this summer earning around £275 per week. With no holidays planned, she will have saved a reasonable amount to add to her funds.

• ninety = money

My DS is going into his third year this summer. He is also working full time at the moment. He earns more than my DD. I would imagine both my DC will save around £2500 this summer. That is taking into account money spent socialising and on clothes etc. So that gives them approx another £45 per week. Both will work a few hours over Christmas and easter, to top up accounts.