How much does maintenance cost each year (assuming your child is not living at home)?

[FrydayFish]

I'm trying to get a feel for how much it will cost when the first of our two kids goes to uni in a couple of years.
Obviously the fees will probably be 9k per year but how much per year does it cost for accommodation,food, travel, socializing etc.
I would like to think that my kids will get part time jobs while they are in uni so what is a ballpark figure for how much I will have to subsidise them per year?
6k, 8k, 10k, 12k?

I know loans for maintenance are also available but for now I'd just like to get a rough feel for the numbers.
Thanks

@crossstitchingnana

titchy parents didn't used to pay to the extent they do now. I went in the 80s and had my fees paid by my LEA and a full grant. She wants to do a very specialist course so there are few options. With energy bills and mortgage, loans etc it's going to be tough to "squirrel anything away."

They did - in fact there was no minimum grant back in the day so many parents had to pay the whole lot. At least these days all students get the minimum of £4.5k.

I got £2k a year in the late 80s - that was the maximum parents would have to pay (and they could claim the tax back so effectively pay less). The most parents are expected to pay now is 2.5 times that - which is far less in real terms.

@Xenia

cross, parents did have to make it up from minimum to full in the old days - it was just that yours must have had very low incomes. I got a very very tiny minimum grant and my parents had to (or rather chose to) top it up - see this image - I went in 1979. In those days and now parents in England are not obliged to top it is up it remains a very unfair system with some parents cash in hand vast amounts of money officially very little money with children getting huge maximum loans and other parents not paying the child a penny of top up.

Can't believe you've kept that Xenia - impressive!

I was scanning old papers in the last year or so and that was one of them so it is now all easy to find. I also have my uncle's details of fees for Durham university to read medicine in 1936 and his fees (not maintenance) were almost exactly what they are today after allowing for inflation - in today's money £9000. My grandfather paid but by the time my father went to university he could not afford fees for a full medical course for my father, the youngest (as my father was born when his father was 49 so retired by the time my father went. ) My father read for a BSc first at Durham, then post WWII grants came out so he was able (after those 3 years) to start again with medicine and was going exams until he was 30.

@xenia you are making some of us feel very old I can remember my DF signing deeds of covenant (?) at around the same time.

The grant figure shown in your document is almost identical to my first term’s hall cost. Fully catered except for Saturday and Sunday evenings. No en-suites back then. 18 of us sharing 1 shower, 2 bathrooms, and 2 loos.

Yes, when I started my parents could covenant money to an adult child at university and set that against tax although that then changed after a few years so was no longer possible between parents although grandparents could covenant money to grandchildren until that too was abolished.

My Manchester University owned self catered hall is still available and now costs THREE times after allowing for inflation what it cost in 1979 for the same same facilities.

The amount of financial support needed now for Ds1 shocked me. I was beginning 90's, the last year of no fees, my parents were bog average teachers, contributed nothing. I got a grant, with which I immediately paid my accommodation, had a tiny bit left over, chose to take no student loan, and then I got 2 part time jobs, for my living expenses.

All this en-suite and Netflix bollocks. Like kite everyone I knew lived in a dive, with at least a bit of mould!

This is really useful since we’ve just started looking at actual figures for DS. Hall accommodation costs of approx

I didn’t go to university when I was 17/18 because my parents couldn’t afford it. Not just couldn’t afford to send me, they/we couldn’t afford for me not to be earning. I don’t want that for DD who is currently doing GCSEs but I’m wondering how we are going to manage - i have been putting as much as I can into an account for her for years but it’s still not much, I can squeeze a max of £40 a month into it.

I was figuring that maybe she could live at home but also work before and alongside university if uni is what she wants.

@HorribleHerstory

I didn’t go to university when I was 17/18 because my parents couldn’t afford it. Not just couldn’t afford to send me, they/we couldn’t afford for me not to be earning. I don’t want that for DD who is currently doing GCSEs but I’m wondering how we are going to manage - i have been putting as much as I can into an account for her for years but it’s still not much, I can squeeze a max of £40 a month into it.

I was figuring that maybe she could live at home but also work before and alongside university if uni is what she wants.

Given that she is only going to get the one full 'go' at student finance for a first degree (with some exceptions for certain healthcate related courses, and there is a safety net of a one year 'false start' in the system), unless she is very keen on the courses available at your local university - and you are talking about one within sensible commuting distance, not 'two hours each way on the train, but the fares are still less than halls' kind of living at home? - she would be better of being allowed to live at home for minimum contributions and work for a year or two to save up to give herself a bit more choice.

@Kite22

I went in the 80s and had my fees paid by my LEA and a full grant

I did too, but I still worked alongside my course, and yes, it was a course with some placements and long working weeks, and, at that time, I was in all day every day, unlike most courses at the moment.

parents didn't used to pay to the extent they do now

No, but students in the 80s didn't expect heating, let alone en-suites. They certainly didn't spend on take away coffees, Netflix, huge mobile phone contracts, and all the other things our dc take for granted. I don't recall any of the many, many student houses I visited not having condensation, a bit of mould, and usually in poor repair generally. I couldn't believe the 'poshness' of university accommodation when we first started looking round for my dc.

Some of the amounts you read about parents giving their dc on MN, and on WIWIKAU are vast, often 2 - 3 times what my dc have from us.
Don't forget once they leave home, you do find your own grocery bills come down considerably, as well as less washing, fewer showers etc etc, which will impact on your utility bills (and water if on a meter), and your petrol if you give them lifts at the moment.

I was going to say this. The much vaulted grant was crap in reality. Students were scruffy and took washing home because they were dirt poor not because they couldn’t cope away from home..

In the long spring term , I nearly starved.I had enough money to each once a day and chose between a single baked potato or a couple of sardines. Luckily mum sent me back with the left over Christmas cake. Despite hating fruit cake and marzipan that thing keep me going until March.

DD is at Lancaster second year.
Her accommodation at the moment is £105 per week over 51 weeks as is private landlord. Last year in halls it was £133 per week for 44 weeks.

We give her £300 per month to live off, and her maintanance loan covers the rent side of things. Her £300 covers phone, food, eating out, societies, printing, clothes, trips out.
Second DD starts next year so will have DD1in year 4 and DD2 in year 1.
When I work it out, if on average Im spending £170 per month per DC on food/clothes/phone when they live at home, Im having to find £130 extra per month to fund the difference per dc to make up that £300 limit.

Was talking to Dh about supporting ds1 last night.

We paid our DCs rent (was around £600 a month outside London) and they lived on the maintenance loan - about £4K IIRC, plus what they earned working part-time.

It really depends on how much your DC like to party/do expensive hobbies, etc as to how much they will need/spend. Also any extra travel costs.

It’s variable as others have said depending on location & what their lifestyle is like.

our daughter has the yearly £9k fees on the loan - not something we could afford to cover.

She receives £6k maintenance loan. Her first year accommodation fees where over £7.5k. We offered to cover this. She works part time during term time (around £300 a month) & tries to up her hours over reading weeks/term breaks. Going into her second year her rent will be around £5k. Again we will cover that but she will need to cover her share of bills etc she has savings from working and will no doubt need to use this.

so roughly we pay around £500 a month. We also cover contact lenses and for the first year of her car insurance- she’s taking her car for the second year we hoping she can afford to take the insurance on but will see what the second year cost is. We also do one big shop each term time.

Shes not a big party animal but does go out usually at weekend and they mainly drink at the halls before going out to save money.

i know a friend whose daughter was a big party person and has got into a little bit more money trouble and needed some extra support financially. But I also have a friend who doesn’t pay much at all towards his sons uni - he chose a cheaper uni area and worked a lot before going to save up.

it’s very difficult to give you an exact figure as there are so many variables, from location to rent to how much maintenance loan is. Whether they will work or if they are party person.

Well DD accommodation is 6.5k. Plus we give her £500 per month. So if she didn't have the loan, we would be giving her £12.5k per year. This is Exeter which is quite expensive.

My DD left Uni 6 years ago. She minimum maintenance loan which all went on rent, and we subsidised her by topping it up around £2k towards her rent. She also had £200 a month paid into her bank from us. She got this all year, and it was up to her if she worked in the holidays or term time to top up her income. (which she did)
in her 3rd year she had an industry placement where she was paid a decent amount, so we didn’t give her anything.

For those parents who’s kids are little, we started saving up when ours were very little, giving us a pot of around £15k by the time each one started Uni, so we didn’t really feel the pinch. Also our DDs are 10 years apart in age so we weren’t paying for more than 1 at a time!!!

I only got a £3000 loan in 2013-2017 so my parents paid my rent which was £5-6k (up North). Other than that I was on my own, got a job, was fine.

Jesús. Starting to think I was ripped off 😂 £500 a month?? I'd have been the richest kid in my uni

I'm assuming you can afford and are happy to fund a good lifestyle - my Exeter dc didn't need anything like that much...

My DS is at uni in Bath. We paid his accommodation outright for the year and he gets the lowest maintenance loan amount. I pay his mobile phone bill and give him about £100 a month. He has a part time job to earn extra pocket money. If he comes home for a weekend I pay his travel costs and give him a bit extra every now and then for clothes.

@crossstitchingnana we may not have paid but by the time your DC was born (I presume post 2002) student loans and tuition fees were a thing. So you actually would have bad 18 years to think about how you can facilitate her university education.

However if you were relying on the loan and now you are not eligible because you are over the bracket - it is unfortunate. However, again it is more unfortunate for your DC you had your head buried in the sands and didn't think of this.

It also depends if you think your responsibility ends when DC are of legal age. I see university education also as our responsibility.

"Head buried in the sand"?? When my dc were born, yes the loans were in and I assumed that meant they would borrow what they needed. Yes, seeing that once 18 they are responsible for their own finances. BUT and this is important, we only had one income for 8 years because we thought it best for our family to look after our kids in their early years ourselves. It's only the last year or two that we finally have spare cash (after pension etc) in order to start saving. I can remember only buying clothes with birthday money and not having a holiday. We were happy. No money to save for the kids futures.

Yes, we are very lucky that we can afford it. It is actually much less than the private school fees, so we are better off than we were last year, and DD1 is six years older, in a good job, and completely self sufficient. DD2 is working at a cafe this Easter, and will work over the summer. TBF to her, she completely self funds. She pays for all her expenses, food, gym and train fares home, clothes. Everything. So I never have to give her anything extra.

@TheWayoftheLeaf Actually, the ones with the most cash seem to be students from Wales and those on full maintenance. DD has two friends who have so much spare cash they just spend it all on clothes and partying!

@crossstitchingnana I am addressing this to you but this question is for all parents in your situation really?

Whose responsibility do you think it was to think of your children's future? Many parents who would love to stay home and look after kids themselves choose not to do this based on so many factors including the ability to save.

Did you not take an interest in the kids education and look into their future prospects and plan accordingly? For example if you can't afford to fund them it perhaps should have been made clear if they were to go to university they need to work and fund themselves........

Perhaps it is because I am a child of immigrants I thought of this even before we had kids. And we limited the number to three so we can afford to give them all we would want. Went as far as having them spaced out in a way we wouldn't be paying for more than two for a year. I appreciate this level of planning is anal but ........