Probably a dumb question - but where do you find the money from to support your student DC?

[Wowzers71]

Hi

Eldest DD is 17 and will likely be heading to uni in Autumn 2023 (assuming she doesn't stuff up her exams). I'm only now starting to get my head round how the finances of this might work. DH and I earn over £65k a year so DD would only get the minimum loan, and having had a wee look on several threads about money on here it sounds like many of you are paying around £600 a month on accommodation for your DC. That seems like a lot of money!
So how do you afford it? Are we just rubbish with money? I just can't think that we will be able to drop £600 a month without really tightening our belts. And we've got a younger DD too, so there's no way I'd be able to support them both. Am I missing something? Or should I brace myself for "the porridge years...."?

I agree completely. We started saving for our kids uni costs when they were toddlers. Both will graduate debt free.

Ouch!
I didn't plan to be a single Mum on disability benefits but life happens and you can't always predict it.
As it happens Dd and her Bf of 5 years have chosen degrees that will lead to high paying careers so Uni debt isn't an issue for them.

Yes, @ISpyCobraKai it makes sense as students estranged from their families and living independently may not be able (or it may be safe to) obtain that signature

*may NOT be safe to, that should say

That is the sort of Mis information that parents are reading that exacerbates the problem.

You absolutely CANNOT do this. If you do & don’t fill in your income details then your child will only get the absolute minimum of £4,500. In order for them to get the full loan they will have to be one of the following:

over the age of 25
Have their own baby/child
Married
Parents are dead
In local authority care
Have been totally self supporting for the last 3 years
Have had NO contact at all with their parents for at least a year. (Not even a letter or phone call)

Ah apologies. The person was over 25 so that may have made the difference

@ISpyCobraKai
It is inevitable they will repay their loans with interest. Unless as grads they suddenly have £50,000 spare. I’m not sure you know how the loans work. You need to be earning an extremely high salary to pay off the loans quickly and they are usually ultra competitive jobs.

As a single mum on benefits your DD would get the full loan plus a bursary. Why leave us at 17?

Yes, Dd has been self supporting for the last three years.

I got lucky - I have savings from two inheritances but am also a single parent on just over £30k so my kids get almost the max maintenance loan. I do still top them up. I can't imagine how we would have coped had I not ended up single as between us my late husband and I were on about £60k - DCs would have had to get part time jobs, though we would have been able to afford some top ups.

To be fair DD1 was only in halls for 1 year, her accommodation in years 2 and 3 was a lot less, about £450/month. DD2 is staying in halls but has become disabled so is entitled to an accessible flat, which is priced at uni average, less than she is paying now.

Being able to afford the savings is a big part of being able to afford parenthood in the first place.
If one is scraping from day to day it's probably not a good idea to procreate.

How damned rude.
Are you a Government minister perchance ?
There are millions of families in this country that have to watch every penny.
Are you actually, genuinely saying that the only people who should be allowed to have children are people on higher incomes ?

@Kite22
i think it was crassly put but we cannot have millions assuming the state pays for everything. Most people are not rich but earn enough to look after their Dc. It’s long been the case that the state cannot always be responsible. So of course people should think about finances. University might seem a long way off but DC don’t get cheaper! I think it’s assuming a lot to think others will pay for your DC. We need a balance, don’t we?

I'm not talking about "assuming state pays for everything". I'm reminding the poster that many millions of families don't have spare money to be putting in savings accounts for their dc from when they are born. That is very different from "assuming state pays for everything".

If your income is £65k then it's far more than ours was when we had 2 at uni.
We gave them an allowance to make their loan up to the recommended maximum.
Don't forget your costs at home will go down a lot when they go. Food, electricity, transport, clothing, phones etc.

My second son did 4 years as an undergraduate with his third year in industry (in Germany.) For the three years that he was in England we paid between £500 and £600 monthly towards his rent/hall fees. He was self-supporting during his industry year. Then he did an MA year - another £5/600 a month!

At the time we were both working (teachers) and joint gross annual income of around £80,000.

Similar to a PP, we were able to afford, comfortably, our contributions because we have fairly modest spending patterns; no expensive holidays, no upsizing of house etc...

Very glad that his PHD years have been salaried!

Wow I'm beginning to feel a bit anxious here. 65k /80k are huge household salaries compared to us. But we aren't on benefits ...

We may not be able to do this 😳.

I was in days of free uni or I don't think I would have gone. Certainly wasn't able to do the further study I wanted to as I couldn't afford to and hoped I could once I started work. Such a huge life divide.

£60k gross wage for one person is £3600 a month after tax. £30k after tax is £1987 a month.

In my day 80s university was not free for everyone, although there were no fees. It has never been entirely free. 1. Only 15% of people went so 85% had no chance to go ie most people. 2. My parents had to make a very veyr small minimum grant up to the full maximum for my rent etc. The lower paid did indeed have a full grant so some of that 15% who went to university but not most people by any means. There were no loans either.

Don't forget that in the days of grants, if you lived somewhere expensive, rent rebate (from the local council) was a thing too.

And there was some type of tax saving set-up for parents (a covenant?) that doesn't currently exist for more affluent parents.

It’s a sliding scale. This will give you a rough idea

www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/maintenance-loans.html

Ds1 is 18 and he got the CTF which was very heavily marketed as “saving for university” so it was definitely a “thing” as far back as that

Exactly this. DS1 is almost 18 and DS2 almost 16 and the CTF was heavily pushed and marketed as for university/ travel abroad/ house deposit.

We've put in every month since they were 1 (returned to work). It's been a struggle at times, especially when I became a single parent working part-time, but always important. I've been lucky to have an ExH who made maintenance payments and is equally as invested in saving that little bit.

It must be really, really difficult for those who couldn't do that/ who weren't told of the real benefits.

Back when I went (1988-92) I stayed home as we couldn't have afforded it.

The CTF payment came into being in September 2002 and apparently was a thing until 2011 (didn't realise it was so long). Set up by the Blair Govt as part of their campaign to encourage wider participation in higher education. There is a whole cohort of students just about to graduate who didn't benefit from it.

Dd who is 20 didn’t get it, Ds who is 18 did. Ds’s is worth just over £500. Just enough to pay accommodation deposits/up front costs.

Most people I know didn’t pay into it because they either didn’t have the spare cash or thought their 18 year olds might spend it on alcohol or worse. Quite a few friends talked about them being able to use the CTF for driving lessons or towards a car.

The smaller your household income the higher the loan they get, up to a maximum of £9700 plus a loan for all the fees. It's reduced on a sliding scale for incomes over a certain amount.
Explanation here

The CTF payment came into being in September 2002 and apparently was a thing until 2011 (didn't realise it was so long). Set up by the Blair Govt as part of their campaign to encourage wider participation in higher education. There is a whole cohort of students just about to graduate who didn't benefit from it.

Quite.
My youngest is coming up to the end of her 2nd year, and didn't get one. Obviously neither of her older siblings did.

We are downsizing our home now and I am putting away a lump sum for my ds1 for Uni.

He's 14 now and has a medical disability and poor (but fabulous!) parents.

He has a very good brain and work ethic and I want him to to be able to reach his potential.