Paying for university living expenses

[Inamuddle36]

Hi — I assumed there would be a thread in this topic but I can’t find one.
All going well, our son will start university in the autumn. We are debating between applying for a loan and self-funding his living costs (room, food, books, social life.) We have no idea what is a reasonable amount of money per month (or per term). Excluding housing (which can vary a lot from city to city), can anyone tell me what is a normal amount for a University student to spend on food, social life, etc? If you self-find, do you give your child a fixed amount per month or a lump sum at the start of term or do you top-up as needed (as long as expenses are reasonable)? I would be grateful for guidance!
(Obviously, I know many people don’t have the option to self-find — but I hope everyone with children at university could offer some insight into typical costs.)

And also .. that even on the full amount ( full London amount ) students may struggle in London where rents are so high

I'm just learning about all this and looking forward (not in the enjoyable sense) to this/planning for two years time. I'm shocked to see the parental contribution levels to be honest.

DD is sure that she wants to go to uni. She has been under the care of CAHMS for a few years and I'm not sure how she will cope with uni, let alone a job on top of uni so I'll need to pay for most (if not all) of it!!

I've got about £9k saved so far but can see that won't be enough. I've got a reasonable salary but like a lot of people, my housing costs are high, just normal bills/living costs are about 65% of take home pay.

Here is the 1979/80 extract from my grant form - it the attachment works. That year I got £335 for the year (minimum grant) (which is £1803 after allowing for inflation today) less than the 4300 minimum maintenance loan but I think rents have gone up by more than the rate of inflation and of course today if you ever earn over the loan repayment threshold (not everyone ever does) then it is a loan not a grant.

That attachment does not show parents what the maximum grant was however so perhaps it was just as unhelpful as today.

I remember those forms Xenia!!

My award in 1993 did specify the parental contribution amount. It didn’t stop dh’s parents not giving his to him though despite allowing his full time working sister to live at home without paying any board he was expected to keep himself at Uni with no help.

Yes, it was a weird system then and now - that parents are not forced to make up the difference and their child gets less money from the state based on the parents' income and yet the parent could give not a single penny. It has never felt particularly fair. In my day only 15% of people got to go to university so I suppose that unfairness did not affect most people and some had the maximum grant anyway so did not affect them either.

@TheTeenageYears

DS gets minimum maintenance loan which he uses for living expenses but not rent. We pay his rent which is a good few thousand more than the government expected contribution. He sends me the loan when he receives it each term, I pay the accommodation directly and send him £150 per week which is the maintenance loan divided by the number of term time weeks. I didn't think it was reasonable to expect someone to receive a termly payment and be able to manage it - many adults struggle to budget for a month never mind longer. He has just started working too to prop up his expensive social life. He is never going to live on baked beans and pot noodles in order to be able to spend more on going out and I wouldn't want him to. I didn't spend 18 years feeding him and educating him about food to have him eat poorly at a time when his body and brain really need the fuel. We could have self funded but I thought it was important that the DC understood there was a cost attached to going to uni and that they would make good choices as a result and it also means they can't then take out a maintenance loan as well without you knowing when in your mind you are paying for uni. I have thought about paying off the loans once they finish but it might actually be better to invest the money and know it can cover the loans at any point as there's no point in paying back more than is required.

Wow! This sounds so controlling! We paid our daughters’ accommodation throughout Uni and they had their maintenance loans to live on. They can only learn to manage their finances by themselves if they’re allowed to!

One other interesting snippet is in 1979 before the law changed parents could make a "covenant" ( a deed/promise) to pay an adult child money and then paid it and that could be deducted from your tax on your tax return each year, same with non resident parents paying child maintenance etc too. That was later changed but it did help middle class parents.

I just found this which confirms my recollection that the minimum grant was about a third of the full grant. So today the 4300 v 9500 is slightly different - minimum loan is higher today (not least because it is a loan not a grant) and is more than a third of the full loan.

"Mr. Walden

The full rate of grant in 1985–86 for a student living away from home outside London is £1,830. This is equivalent to £973 at 1978–79 prices. The corresponding full rate of grant in 1978–79 was£1,100, but students at that time could also claim excess travel expenses, which were worth, on average, an extra £3 per student. 

Mr. Foulkes

Will the Minister confirm that the paltry 2 per cent. increase in student grants is a reduction in real terms, bringing the total reduction in real terms since 1979 to 20 per cent.? Does he accept that this will be exacerbated by the change in social security provision which will make the student ineligible? What is the rationale behind making students suffer in this way, particularly students from working-class backgrounds? "

api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/feb/04/student-grants

We have 2 at uni and give them both £60 a week for food etc, also pay their phones. One manages v well, one regularly asks for extras for hair cuts/laundry/misc. And we pay them weekly not monthly.

Very interesting topic. We pay for fees/accom for DD + give her €240 per month to live on (food, socialising, toiletries, phone credit). She supplements this with a Saturday job. (Not in UK and no student loan system where we live).
I feel it's v important for students to be a bit broke so they appreciate the value of money - takeaways etc should be a treat not standard!

I find the whole uni funding thing really bizarre tbh. The government rely on parental support for adults to make it through university/fund them.

In every other sense of the word these kids going to uni are adults.

It is like the system didn't change from when only wealthy kids went to uni, only they don't.

DS got minimum loan so we paid his rent which, like other have said far exceeded the loan.

We also bought a huge amount of non perishables/toiletries/cleaning supplies at the start of each term so all he needed to buy was fresh produce. We continued to pay for his phone and his contact lenses/prescription glasses. He lived off the loan.

He’s now doing his Masters and has his rent covered due to a position he holds at Uni (payment in kind) so we support him as above (phone/food etc.) but now give him £300 to top up his loan.

I was totally broke at Uni and it is the last thing I want for mine

My eldest DS is in his first year. He has taken out the full grant & loan combination (we are in Wales) which is just over £10k a year. He also won 2 bursaries which total £3k.

He hasn't needed to find a part time job yet during term time, but will work over the summer to put some money away for next year.

He is living in self catered halls, which cost £5500 a year. Not sure how much he spends a week on food, but he certainly isn't starving.

DD at uni in London. She gets £7kIsh in student loan. Her rent and bills are around £10k per year. She spends £25/week in food. Her entertainment is mostly uni sports clubs plus meeting up at home with friendS. I don't know what she spends on all this.

She gets £2k/year bursary from the uni.
She earned about £2.5k last summer.
I give her £75/month =£900/year (I think I should increase it)
She has savings from her part time job when she was at school and money I put away for her when she was a baby.
DP pays her mobile phone bill and bought her a bicycle.

In practical terms - we contribute something like £12k per year. We also pay for their phones. We pay fees directly, paid rent directly in first year of halls and transfer the rest in termly amounts. We talked lots with them about costs/budgets and encouraged use of bank account which allows them to split pots within the app so they can easily monitor their weekly budget. The annual value is similar to maximum loan values would provide.

They seem to be able to live without scrimping too much but do have to consider priorities and sacrifices with this amount. It’s been a great money-management experience so far and is helping them understand the value of money in a way that is influencing their future plans.

We have taken the view that we can self fund with minimal impact on our lifestyle so we won’t get dc to take out the loans with high and soon to be rising interest rates. If it meant us sacrificing holidays/our pensions/whatever etc, I wouldn’t. I have made them absolutely aware how lucky they are and that they should redirect the repayments they would be making straight into pensions. It is a risk, they may take low paid career paths and then never get near salary levels to make significant repayments, but I plan my life hoping for asuccessful happy life for them so I’m comfortable that this is the right decision for us.

DD 1 gets the basic maintenance loan and that covers her food and booze. We cover her accommodation costs. Having said this, she's a tight arse (technical term) and is planning on giving us the change from the maintenance loan when she gets back in June! Good times.

NOT expecting this with DD2

@TheTeenageYears

DS gets minimum maintenance loan which he uses for living expenses but not rent. We pay his rent which is a good few thousand more than the government expected contribution. He sends me the loan when he receives it each term, I pay the accommodation directly and send him £150 per week which is the maintenance loan divided by the number of term time weeks. I didn't think it was reasonable to expect someone to receive a termly payment and be able to manage it - many adults struggle to budget for a month never mind longer. He has just started working too to prop up his expensive social life. He is never going to live on baked beans and pot noodles in order to be able to spend more on going out and I wouldn't want him to. I didn't spend 18 years feeding him and educating him about food to have him eat poorly at a time when his body and brain really need the fuel. We could have self funded but I thought it was important that the DC understood there was a cost attached to going to uni and that they would make good choices as a result and it also means they can't then take out a maintenance loan as well without you knowing when in your mind you are paying for uni. I have thought about paying off the loans once they finish but it might actually be better to invest the money and know it can cover the loans at any point as there's no point in paying back more than is required.

My daughter is off to university in September and yes, I'm worried she's just going to blow her money in one go - but how will she learn to manage money if she doesn't have the chance?

Is your DS happy with this arrangement?

Eldest is going this year. London so £££ but the loan will cover the rent in halls (so long as he isn’t offered a studio instead of the “small room shared bathroom” he’s hoping for). I was intending on giving him around £150 a month which looks incredibly tight compared to some posters (£150 a week! Fml. Who has £150 a week to spend on themselves?). He works, and has done for 3 years and saves quite a bit as he is not a natural spender. He will work during term time too. I can’t imagine many London students are getting away with not working. I know it’s difficult for medics but this idea that anyone who does a lab based course (like I did - 45 contact hours a week in one notable semester) or nursing/AHP etc can’t do 8 hours a week in McDs or Aldi or a bar needs to die.
Ds knows how to cook well and cheaply and there isn’t anything wrong with beans or noodles (not together) but laundry is going to be a shock for him. He doesn’t buy many clothes and has got through GCSEs and a-levels with Wilco refil pads, biros a solitary highlighter and his y7 calculator so I’m not increasing the budget for stationary spending.
I could afford a bit more but dc2 is in y12, dc 3 in y10 and dc4 in y8 so I have to futureproof a bit.

We paid their fees and their rent up front. They then had the equivalent of the min loan each term paid in one lump at the start of term. That was to teach them how to budget. They both saved up!

Additionally I paid for their mobile phones, didn't cancel their monthly allowance of £100 and paid for the odd flight. May also have bought coats, etc.

Simple it's even worse (I am the £150 a week mother) as they are now studying from home and still get the same £150 a week each (and rent from a house they each own due to my help). They know they are incredibly lucky and that in a couple of years the mother provided gravy train ends (other than that they have the small house each) and they will be self supporting for the rest of their lives, however. 2024 will be my child freedom year although if they want to live at home but buying own food after that for a few years I could accept that although looking forward to having an empty nest.....

My daughter is off to university in September and yes, I'm worried she's just going to blow her money in one go - but how will she learn to manage money if she doesn't have the chance?

You can do it in bits, first term or 2 give them their 'allowance' weekly (because some students literally need to learn not to spend it all on the first day they get it). Then move to monthly (don't tell DC this is about their money management skills, just frame it as it's easier for you to only have to think about it monthly rather than weekly). Then once they've done that for a while you can decide whether to keep it monthly (as this is how most adults have to budget their lives with most people being paid monthly) or leave them to keep their loan and budget for themselves termly.

On a practical level, if your DD does blow her money in one go there are ways you can support her. Encourage her to get a job (although this can be area/course/MH dependant). You obviously don't want to let her starve but rather than send money for her to blow send food (supermarket delivery or similar), basic boring but fairly healthy food. That way you can relax knowing they're healthy and fed but they don't get exciting food or have more money to waste on fun stuff and still learn to budget if they ever want to have a social life again.

The amount they would receive if they qualified for the full loan is a good starting point, just over £9k (excl London) my youngest has managed fine on this (made up of money from me, loan and a bursary plus working pt) dd1 is managing on under £7k this year (long story) but her location is cheaper

Should add dd1 has £30 a week to live on and manages ok

We paid for accommodation, and DCs used their loans for living expenses. Some of them had jobs too.