If you're helping out your uni student kids financially, how much is it costing you per month?

[ToofFairy]

Trying to get a rough idea of how much it will cost to put the kids through uni. I don't expect they will get much more than the basic student loan. Not London prices.

Well it depends how much you can afford. Our dd gets the maximum loans / grants and a bursary as we are a fairly low income family. We give her £40 a month, pay for her phone and contact lenses and travel home. Occasionally I’ll send her a Just Eat voucher or something but she’s in catered halls so her food etc is included. She’s managed so far without needing to get a job which has surprised me as I thought she’d need to work part time (and actually thought it would be good if she did)!!

Does it depend on how much you can afford @Bagelsandbrie? Don’t you have to pay if you don’t qualify for the maximum loans/grants etc else who else makes up the shortfall?

@DistrictCommissioner

Does it depend on how much you can afford *@Bagelsandbrie*? Don’t you have to pay if you don’t qualify for the maximum loans/grants etc else who else makes up the shortfall?

Well yes I guess so but then the loans are assessed for exactly that reason- to make sure people can afford to top up the difference. If you really can’t then the student will need to work more I suppose to bridge the gap. Lots of my dds friends work part time.

How long is a piece of string?

Basically you're expected to make up the difference, so if they get the basic loan of around 4K, you're expected to make it up to what the full loan would be (around 9k)

Some students only have a couple of days contact time on their course so can fit in a p/t job, others (medics, lab based courses) are in every day so more difficult to fit in.

Accommodation costs vary, if they are happy with a single room/ sharing a bathroom it can be much cheaper than a double en suite.

Our DS gets the minimum loan and we give him £300 per month, he also has a part time job and saves during the holidays. We can afford it (we are topping up to the the 'full' loan) and have no other DC. But if we couldn't he would just have to work more part time hours.

It really is a case of how long is a piece of sting and depends on a many factors. I.E. how much maintenance loan will they be entitled to, how much is the rent, is the uni area a tourist area with a higher cost of living, how much could you afford to help them out and how would doing so impact on your life now and in the future, how academically able are they (do they have dyslexia or a disability) and would they really struggle if working part time alongside their studies, what are their expectations currently do they spend a fortune frittering away money on beauty products, tech, clothing, socialising or have they more realistic expectations that the world doesn’t owe them a living etc etc etc.

The best things you can do for your DC before Uni in my opinion unless you are extremely wealthy and money is no object is learn them to cook, how to shop, meal plan, budget, the value of money and how to keep a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom area tidy and hygienic etc etc.

DS is going to Uni in Sept he is fairly academic and looking at high end uni’s that have a tradition for attracting the wealthy etc. He will only receive the minimum Maintenance Loan but we have told him we will help out but he will still have to get a summer job and live quite frugally whilst at Uni and also work whilst he is there and in the holidays which he is fine about. We will work out a budget of what we can afford, make sure his rent is paid and we will make a sizeable contribution (as is expected) but he will still have to budget and work part time when he is there and in the holidays. But he is looking forward to the experience, having fun and working hard.

Mine get the minimum maintenance loan and we pay their monthly rent, approx £150 per week.

We pay his accommodation - 5.5k and they live on their minimum loan. We also pay for all costs associated with their car.
When he comes home he ends up raiding the store cupboard too and I buy healthy meat and veg to take back because I know that he doesn’t “waste” valuable drinking money on healthy food…

We did encourage him to apply for uni in the north, purely because it’s cheaper to live up there.

We just pay DD's rent £411 a month.

In Newcastle.

We pay each of them £1100 a month

Mine get the minimum, but are both at different unis with wildly different rent. So we pay the rent, they use the loan to pay food, books, entertainment, phone .. everything else really. So we pay £400 a month DD(Swansea) and £670 DD(Bath)

So around £1100 a month.

It is a lot, but we have been saving for them ever since we realised that they wouldn't get the maximum and we'd have to top up. They both took a year out and earned during covid so that they'd have some "personal" money too, for nights out and trips.

We paid their rent, plus the odd £50 when we saw them. Quite a lot with 3 over the years, one year all at the same time.

@ToofFairy
Work on the assumption you pay the difference between the minimum maintenance loan and the highest maintenance loan. So it might be £4500 a year. The highest maintenance loan doesn’t lead to a flamboyant lifestyle. It’s enough for rent, food and some socialising.

Talk to your DC about working in term time or in the holidays. How does that sit with their expectations and yours? Term time work is difficult on a full on degree at somewhere like Oxford. Or an engineering degree. You will be expected to work pretty much full time on your degree.

Parents really should try and save for this expense if they can. Can grandparents help financially? Also look at all accommodation options. Private halls with en suite bathrooms cost a lot more. Some unis have cheaper halls. Some, eg Liverpool, seem to have expensive halls. So look at the range of costs. Self catering is probably cheaper.

I think that making up the minimum loan to the maximum loan is reasonable though. It’s always an odd position that the DC from the poorest families at university are often not the poorest when they get there. They get bursaries too and often don’t need to work. It’s the DC of middle income families who are most likely to have less money because of the parental contribution - or lack of it.

Mine can manage in full loan.

If they are eligible for full loan they will likely get a bursary from the Uni, too. Maybe £1,500!

Mine get casual jobs too.

If they are not eligible for the full loan, top up their money to that level. The level of loan is based on household income.

We cover rent and then they live off their minimum level loan. We also pay for phones and an annual bus pass. At the start of the academic year we do a big shop and include things like a box of soap powder big enough to see them through the year.

I will need to top up ds's maintenance loan by about £2k a year i think. I might suggest to him that I pay it in termtime only as I want him to work in the vacations. So that would be £66 a week in the terms. But we'll see - i don't want him to struggle, and I don't want him to be in luxury. He's reasonably frugal in fact, I think he'll be OK.

“The best things you can do for your DC before Uni in my opinion unless you are extremely wealthy and money is no object is learn them to cook, how to shop, meal plan, budget, the value of money and how to keep a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom area tidy and hygienic etc etc.”

Absolutely this.

And explain about debt / interest rates. So many of dds friends have gone straight into their huge student overdrafts without really understanding how any of it works.

We paid their accommodation and they had their maintenance loans to live off, plus they both had part time jobs at various times. We bought them both laptops and also paid their phone contracts.

We don’t pay anything monthly ( apart from continuing to pay their £10 a month phone ) because we give them the parental contribution ( the difference between the student loan they qualify for and what the govt says the max student loan is) termly. They then work out their budget themselves.
They manage ok
This explains parental contribution well..
blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/09/martin-lewis--how-much-the-govt-expects-parents-to-give-their-ch/?_ga=2.155522107.1210858736.1614716935-519021623.1614716935

Thank you everyone. I agree completely that it's important they learn to budget and respect money. Also agree that they should know how to clean and cook.

I find these threads terrifying. I'm gently steering mine into modern day apprenticeships

Bagelsandbrie
“The best things you can do for your DC before Uni in my opinion unless you are extremely wealthy and money is no object is learn them to cook, how to shop, meal plan, budget, the value of money and how to keep a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom area tidy and hygienic etc etc.”

Absolutely this.

And explain about debt / interest rates. So many of dds friends have gone straight into their huge student overdrafts without really understanding how any of it works"

Agree with these PP - Absolutely.

Making up to Maximum Loan would be the best indicator of minimum contribution. And then any extras that you can afford depending on your personal circumstances.

Yes, Martin Lewis site is very informative.