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!

Meant to say ds’s top choice was £4k (that’s v cheap op) ie £100 pw and it has been fine.

Ds's was cheap too as it was furthest from the campus but easy walking distance ( well, a big hill but he's more than capable of that) really nice first year accommodation,it's the second year and third which was a shocker with big deposits and rent plus bills too.

At my son's uni, its a 'take it or don't' situation. You don't get the opportunity to swap.

She gets her loan for her fees paid directly, living cost loans and sliding scale - current thresholds are online. Everyone can borrow circa £4K and those with households with lower incomes can borrow more. Most students work during summer holidays and many work part time during term time. There's bursaries available too sometimes.

My DD's get £5k a year from us (minimum loan)

DD got minimum loan, we had to top up the rent (approx £800 a year). Grandparents gave her £50 a week which she managed to live on very well. We also gave her money here and there, and sent a shopping delivery occasionally. She'd also give us her table number in Wetherspoons so I could send a round

We could never have afforded £8K a year!! That's ridiculous.

Yes, my dd got her place through clearing, after the 2020 A level disaster, so obviously very late applying for accommodation in a year when the Universities took in more students than ever before, and had a spacious room in a nice flat for 6, with kitchen diner, 2x showers, 2 x toilets, and each room had it's own washbasin for £99pw.

There are plenty of universities in locations where that would be more than enough but not all. One of mine is at a London university and the university's recommended budget is £17k per year, based on a student survey of actual costs. The average rent paid by their students for a room in a shared house was £200 per week (52 weeks)

Which takes us back to looking at where you choose to apply to in the first place. The cost of living factor meant that all of mine made their own decisions not to apply for any London Universities.

OP there are plenty of Primary Education Courses all over the country where you won't have to pay London or Bristol prices for accommodation. Asking about accommodation in 2nd and 3rd years is ALWAYS wise when on open days.

It is a crazy system. Parental income is taken into account and then you are expected to make up difference. If on minimum this is around 5500 per child, per year. It really depends on accommodation costs for the area and hall allocation policies for the uni.

I suggest your DD applies for available grants from uni as well getting a job in sixth form. Some grandparents are willing to help out as well.

Also factor in uni start up costs, which can hit around £1000 mark (including accommodation deposits).

With the cost of living crisis and inflation the suggested figures are soon going to become out of date.

Student loans were never particularly future proof - the govt has considerable scope to alter T&Cs (such as threshold for repayment, and of course %age above RPi (or is it CPI?) that is charged.

Given that we are heading in to an inflationary period, the value of the maintenance element of the loan might struggle against actual living costs

Parental contribution has been expected right back to the days when it was grants, not loans. When generations of your family have been going to university, that's one of the things you Just Know. But it clearly should be better publicised, for it's obvious there are loads of people who don't know, and i
of course it's better to know early and so have longer planning time.

Part time job is probably the best solution - one thing running in favour of the current crop is that there seem to be plenty of bar/coffee shop jobs around

@TeeBee for sure, I wasn't saying that every uni does that. In fact DS2's uni (which is Loughborough btw) only allocates accommodation after results and it was a mad scramble where he missed out due to the portal not working...hence being allocated a room that was too expensive. I think that's why they operate the swapping system, as I imagine others were allocated the cheaper room and did not want it (no en suite you see).

But I agree, the system varies from one uni to the next. If I were you OP I would suggest to your DS that he factors accommodation in to his search. Some unis have a lot more basic (=cheap) accom than others so you are more likely to get a space. Also how and when is it allocated? Newcastl fwiw had a lovely-looking block of flats which were not ensuite and about £100 pw a couple of years ago. No idea how they are allocated but as others say, if you put a non-ensuite room top of the list, it is much more likely that you will get it.

Lots of the accomm at Lboro is actually catered which is astonishingly expensive so worth being aware of, just as an example.

So sorry, OP, your DD not your DS - thinking of another thread I think

Our girls are both at uni. Both get around the minimum. We pay their rent. The loan pays for everything else... food/books/travel/entertainment/clothes etc.

Both no longer in halls... Dd21 Swansea £400pm. Dd19 Bath £690pm, Both same standard of house of multiple occupancy accomodation with bills inc. Seemed the fairest.

accommodation costs - just taking university halls - do vary immensely.

Exeter was mentioned up-thread. To be fair to them they are pretty transparent on hall costs summarising them all on a single pdf, and showing the (potentially quite misleading if the absolute number of rooms is overlooked) ratio of applications per accommodation place as well.

www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/campusservices/accommodation/images/2022CS105_UG_Accommodation_Rates_2223_FINAL.pdf

Just taking self-catered on the main Exeter Campus

No options give change from the minimum maintenance loan.

15% of rooms in the £4.8k to £5.2k range

20% in the £5.9k to 6.3k range

Just over a third of rooms covered so far

61% in the £6.7k to £7.1k range

Leaving a small percentage - 3.1% - at £7.7k and a tiny 0.4% at £8.9k

In contrast DS3's uni will have 57% of rooms priced at less than the minimum maintenance grant for 22/23

Back to Exeter, and only having looked at Birks Grange, prices look to be around 5.5% up on 21/22.

My kids are 6 and 3 and after listening to my older cousins and friends I stash all their child benefit now and save it every month to cover this!! I feel it's the only way how else do people manage it's a huge ask

I also saved child benefit for years, and stashed any other money gifts that we could afford to. My mum also gave us £5k each child towards Uni.

we have one completed Uni, and now one about to go. We pay their rent and they use the minimum loan for everything else, it was enough for the basics!

I’m always really surprised by friends who have no idea how much they will need to contribute until their child applies for finance 😂, so please all spread the word! It’s so helpful to have a heads up.

That's exactly what we did! DS got the minimum loan, we paid the rent for his accommodation and he lived off the loan plus the money he earned by working every holiday

We're feeling a bit calmer about it all now, so thank you everyone for your advice! The recommended Facebook page is so helpful, and really interesting actually. Half of me is so excited for her and I want her to move on for a new adventure, the other half is already dreading it and wanting to cry at the very prospect 😂.

Just a warning re WIWIKAU - remember that people complain only when there is something wrong.
Please don't read WIWIKAU and think it reflects all student experiences anymore than you would read the Relationships board on here and think that there are no functional relationships in the world.

It is a really helpful group for finding out things "that you wish you'd known about University" but don't think the posts about an individual having a difficult time reflects the experience of the overwhelming majority of students

It's just crap. Instead of being excited about it I'm just panicking thinking how to find £5k a year. Any time I think I might pay into a pension or save some money something crops up. Now uni fees.

Only if your household income is high.

Only if your household income is high.

Yes if you get the max loan I guess it's fine

What is the alternative to the current system
Surely parents should be expected to support their DC unless on a very low income
It has pretty much always been the case

I'm happy to support my dc, but I don't think the current system is very fair. Those with parents on lower incomes come out with even more massive loans than everyone else while those with parents on higher incomes often have to work more because their parents can't actually afford the parental contribution, which is based on income but doesn't take other outgoings into consideration.

And as the parent of a prospective medical student who won't be entitled to any means tested support, I'm looking at an extra 2 years of having to fund dd's living costs on top of the normal degree with even less than the minimum maintenance loan in the final year of study. I didn't plan for that, and although we'll manage to support dd through it, I imagine it must put an awful lot of prospective medics off because it just wouldn't be manageable for a lot of families. And as this country desperately needs more doctors to go into the profession, it would be helpful if the government would stump up and pay for those additional years of study, instead of expecting parents to subsidise the training of the next generation of NHS doctors.

Don't they make an allowance for other children? They did when mine were at uni, admittedly ten years ago. It wasn't massive but still useful.