Uni fees and expenses

[Bugsy73]

My daughter is going into yr 13 in September so is currently looking at uni's and planning the next stage. She would like to do a degree in primary education and currently wants to leave our home town to do so.
Clearly this is going to cost us 😂
How do people manage? The fees are covered by a student loan? How about accommodation and general living expenses? Do we just need to cut back on our outgoings? Take a loan out ourselves? We have a small amount of savings but don't think it will go too far.
My DH in particular has gone into a bit of a tailspin about it today.
Any advice/tips very welcome!

Assuming that you're in the UK, she will get a maintenance loan to help with her living costs. However, the amount that she can borrow will be determined by your income - if you earn above a certain threshold, she will be able to borrow a bit less and you will be expected to top it up.

Thank you. Yes, we're in the UK.

She'll get a loan for the tuition fees and a maintenance grant for living costs which depends on your (parents) income. The maintenance loan is on a sliding scale, and they'll gets less the more the parents earns. For instance, my son is only entitled to the minimum maintenance loan which is about £4700 (or near enough that. It's about £9000 at the top). He's got a part time job at the moment and is saving to top it up before September and will probably also get a part time job at uni. We'll also help out as much as we can.

@Bugsy73 , maybe join the WIWIKAU facebook page, it's has reams of info and is very active.

Maintenance loan level is higher for London.

Might be worth looking into see if it's worth dropping your income so he gets max loan .

She will get a loan for her fees and then a separate maintenance loan for her accommodation and living costs. The most she can get for her maintenance loan is £9706 outside London (but more if going to a London uni). This £9706 is what a student whose parents are on a lower income can borrow. So it depends on your household income ( sliding scale) . If you are high earners, she can only get about £4500 and you then are supposed to give her your parental contribution on top ( ie to top it up to £9706) to make her on equal pegging as a student whose parents cannot afford to contribute at all.
Hope that makes sense
This is a v good guide-
www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loan-parental-contribution-tool/guide/
and there is a calculator here:
www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loan-parental-contribution-tool/

OP, do you live in England? Important to specify which part of the UK you're in for the purposes of getting accurate information on student finance, as I know there are differences between England, Scotland and Wales (-no idea how it works in Northern Ireland!)

Thank you all so much. That's really helpful. She will, I would imagine, be on the minimum end of the maintenance loan. We are in the North of England and I think she will want to stay North. Just sadly not in her own bedroom in her own house 😂.

I'm having to top up my son's maintenance loan as he gets the minimum. In reality, this will barely cover his rent so I'm also having to pay a monthly allowance to him to cover living expenses.

I had a panic attack earlier today looking at the MSE calculator which says we need to top up by £15,000 over three years.
2023 entry.
We have too high an income for more than the minimum loan but no allowance for massive mortgage and other kids. I come is reduced by tax on car so take home is not as high as it looks.
Nothing spare, we live in a box in the SE, no pension contributions etc.
Not a clue - will have to somehow find the cash.

She gets a job and works all holidays, to begin with.
‘We paid the accommodation for ours. They lived in the loan and what they earned.

Tuition fees are covered by a loan, irrespective of income.
Rent and living are partly covered by a maintenance loan, income dependent.

Realistically we’ve been told that if you get the minimum maintenance loan the top up needed will end up being about £25k over a three year course. This is from various sets of friends whose dc aren’t living extravagantly.

So just over £8k per year?

25k over 3 years ? That sounds like scaremongering. Who has that lying around even on 70k.

www.savethestudent.org/money/asking-parents-for-money-university.html#1

More like £18k over 3 years if that

just reporting bank what we’ve been told by families who currently have dc at university and are only getting the minimum maintenance loans. It’s costing them about £8k a year once everything is totted up

Obviously it depends on lots of things like choice of university, choice of accommodation, catered or self catering, amount of travel etc

Well, lucky for them they have a spare £8k net. It's ridiculous that on eg £70k gross families are expected to suddenly find £5k net a year minimum.

The maintenance loan if she gets the full amount will likely cover her rent + little spare. You'll probably have to top up with cash for food, nights out etc unless she has savings/ a job. Plus paying for things to furnish her student home e.g. cooking supplies, bedding, etc.

I think you are supposed to save it up over a number of years, but nobody tells you about it in time.

I cottoned onto this quite by chance when DD was 12 years old. I opened an account and started saving religiously. She will have 22k when she (hopefully) goes to university next year - that can top up her minimal maintenance loan at £7,300 per year. I expect we will need to add something to it, or carry on paying certain things like her phone contract.

I started saving for DD2 when she hit 12, too. I will have had two years of saving for both of them, which has been hard.

I only found out because I bumped into somebody who warned me.

£8k a year is ridiculous imho. Op we are medium earners (perhaps not in MN terms!) and our Dc get a loan around £7k. Both dd and ds2 were in low-cost uni accom for first year, no en suite bathroom and fairly basic, cost about £4-5k, so covered by loan. I have topped up with a weekly dd of £30 each which seems to have worked ok.

It sounds a lot but when I factored in reduced other costs (for dd, ballet class, music lessons, Guides, various school trips, shows she was in, all of which she no longer does) I came out better off tbh. Ds2 eats LOADS and I can really notice I buy less food when he is not here, so there are savings for you.

some students seem to demand the most £££ accom (at ds2’s uni there are halls where the annual fee is £8k plus, catered but still!) but I said to them that that wasn’t an option.

She will need to get a part time job too....

I didn't know anyone unless from a well off family who didn't work and study.

My loan was for rent. My basic bills (phone bill and £30 weekly shop) was covered by £35 a week from my parents.

My job paid for my social life and clothes.

I would suggest a similar set up for your daughter :)

Well it doesn't have to that's their choice. Top up the difference between the maximum and what they get - £5k a year, £6k if London. Perfectly ok for a student.