Student loan surplus

[Butterworth99]

Hi,

Has anyone who got the U.K. student maintenance loan ended up with some leftover and invested it - for example, I know one girl who had £6000 leftover and she used it towards a housing deposit.

My daughter is entitled to the minimum maintenence loan of £4422 and her rent costs £5187 for this coming year (self catering and one of the cheapest halls rent for her university). We're paying her rent and she's living on the rest. I doubt there'll be much left over to invest at the end of the year.

Never heard of anyone having anything left over! Like pp DD gets minimum and it doesn't even cover rent so she works through holidays and we also subsidise her.
I can't imagine how students have anything left over from maintenance loan unless perhaps they live for free with parents.

@Butterworth99

Hi,

Has anyone who got the U.K. student maintenance loan ended up with some leftover and invested it - for example, I know one girl who had £6000 leftover and she used it towards a housing deposit.

What I suspect happened here is that her parents actually funded her uni but encouraged her to take the loan to put I an ISA to save towards a house deposit on the basis she won't need to pay it back until her earnings reach £27k and she may end up having it written off after 30 years rather than her maintenance loan covered her living costs with £6k over.

A lot of students got rent refunds last year, my friends DD bought a car and a years tax as she was living at home rather than paying rent in student halls.
If that had been DD she would have had nothing as her loan doesn’t even cover the rent.

DS1 has that much and will end up with more due to having a placement year. It’s not a surplus of the maintenance loan but him working alongside his studying and we probably top his maintenance loan more than the full loan. Not sure many will have a saving for a house deposit on the maintenance loan alone unless living free/ being financial supported somehow. DD has a grand total of £437 pound left after her accommodation for the whole year, any savings she makes will be from the money we send or PT work.

How does you feel about the “parental contribution” factored into the maintenance loan? I know it’s not a legal obligation but is this an unnecessary pressure on parents?

My DS gets maximum loan and a bursary. He chose the cheapest accommodation, not knowing how much money he'd need, and after a year in lockdown with very little chance to spend any, he did end up with money over. Not £6k though. Not invested it, just paying for slightly nicer accommodation this year.

@Butterworth99

How does you feel about the “parental contribution” factored into the maintenance loan? I know it’s not a legal obligation but is this an unnecessary pressure on parents?

Parents have been expected to contribute for at least the last 50 years - it's not exactly new or something that only came in when grants were swapped for loans!