Spending money once they've gone to uni

[PeaceLoveAndCandy]

Are we as parents supposed to put a regular amount of money into their accounts for food, etc once they've gone to Uni and if so, how much do you give them if they do not have a job at all?

Which goes back to the "How long is a piece of string" question.
Along with the posters giving their dc £1000pm.

For balance, as I think threads like this can give a really skewed idea of what is necessary, and I hope no-one reading them gets put off but some of the amounts being given......... My dd gets £40 pw. Is in self catered and anything she needs she buys herself (phone, driving lessons, sports kit, Netflix etc etc). We do give her the difference between her minimum loan and her accommodation each term, and we do take her at start of term and sometimes fetch her at the end.

I have no issues at all with people getting loads more, but I don't want people reading the thread to think those huge amounts are needed, and potentially then discouraging their dc from going to University.

Hugely varied experiences here! I generally like the guidance that £10k per year should be enough, made up of maintenance loan and parental contribution. Higher in London (I think Government guidance is £12k, which might be OK for outer London but not the centre).

I was shocked (shocked!) to find that some of the luxury student accommodation actually costs more than that guideline per year. WTF?

From my experience, the kids that had a part time job during uni got worse grades, and a lower-paying job after graduation (few exceptions but general trend).

Would recommend you provide enough to allow your child to focus on studies without having to work.

DS gets the minimum loan & I give him £500 a month top up, plus we pay for his phone and for his travel at the beginning and end of every term.

He also has a part-time job.

We do £100 a week each. That’s fine for ds1 who is outside of London and has subsidised catering if he chooses but ds2 in central London might need a bit more. Ds1’s loan covers his accommodation but ds2’s will not cover rent of his small room with shared facilities so we will subsidise that too. Only positive is Ds2 is in an incredible location and I’m sure it will be an awesome experience.

Same here.

My DS has just moved into halls in London for his 2nd year. He lived at home for the first year (an hour commute) and pissed away his maintenance loan without bothering to go most of the time! He was told to get a job this summer to save for this year if he wanted to move to halls but he only lasted a week in the job he finally got. It was a good job - £400+ a week and he wouldn’t have paid tax only working for 6 weeks.

His maintenance loan pays for his room (£9k for 50 weeks) with about £1k left over after each instalment. So leaves him with around £250 a month.

I paid for everything he needed including mattress topper, crockery and pans, laundry baskets, rug, bedding and towels, iron and ironing board (won’t get used!), a years worth of toiletries, cleaning stuff, loo rolls, laundry tabs, and a box full of beans, pasta, sauce soup, tea, coffee, sugar and peanut butter! I also gave him an additional £250 to move in with and said after than he’s on his own and needs to get a weekend job within the next two months or at least a job over the Christmas period to keep him going for January.

Sounds harsh but DD had a part time job from leaving school and all through Uni. He’s 20 now and needs to grow up fast. He hasn’t even bothered to get a his student Oyster card yet and he’s been there for 2 weeks!

I will certainly not see him starve and will sub him as needed but he’s rubbish with money and needs to learn. Hopefully he’ll surprise me!

I give DS1 £140 pw term time only. His basic loan covers rent. Expect him to pay for everything out of that except his phone (which is on a family deal) and he has access to family Netflix and Disney plus.
He won't get anything in any of the holidays.

@TheSmallAssassin all very well saying a family should top up to £10,000 but the calculation doesn’t take into account a families outgoings. Sometimes it’s just not possible to do this and a student can always work part time to top up money.

I have no issues at all with people getting loads more, but I don't want people reading the thread to think those huge amounts are needed, and potentially then discouraging their dc from going to University.

I agree. In fact, I wanted to give him less but my husband is more of a soft touch. We're fortunate in being well-off so not really limited on his allowance on that front but you can definitely be savvy with money as a student and have a fun time on a lot less than that.

Mine did their last exams this year but before I paid them £150 a week, paid their rent and paid their university fees and provide a shared car. The twins cost me about £50,000 a year which is not too different from 2 sets of school fees but still painful.

The reason I pay the £150 weekly and did for all 5 children is so they would never be able to say they have run out of money. I can see the other side however that if you provide it once a term they might learn to budget.

The student loan letter explains that they will need "£x" from somewhere but doesn't go as far as to say that the parents need to provide it.

My own DD is going to get a part-time job once she has settled in. We won't reduce our weekly payment because I'd like there to be an incentive, but that's only because we can afford it.

The 'household income' calculation used for student loans is a very blunt instrument. It doesn't include other DC at uni, and it doesn't include income of non-resident parent...!

@120go thats a pretty crazy assumption to make based on what I’m assuming is very little evidence (unless you have spent a few years researching the matter!) in Ireland it is very common for uni students to have weekend jobs! Everyone I know/knew has achieved 2:2s or mostly above so and they walk straight into well paid roles. I work in QC Micro and we take on students who have work experience and internships as they are the best workers! In our sept they start on 40k. Not bad for 22 and straight out of university.

Dept

@PhotoDad I understand what your saying and agree but a previous poster said if your child doesn’t get the full amount based on your income you should make up the difference. Not all families are in a financial position to do this.
My son is in his 4th year now, we’ve always helped him out with money but he’s worked too.

DD is in London. She gets a loan of about £7k which covers her rent, a £2k bursary from the uni covers other bills. I give her £75/month and she earns some money every holiday, which covers food. The rest is paid for out of savings that I and DD put by over the years.

ours (third year) gets the minimum loan (4.5k iirc) plus 325/month from us year round. That's just enough to live off when rent is taken out. She works in holidays & gets another 7k ish from that which leave her reasonably comfortable.

Last year we paid dd's accommodation and she lived off her minimum loan. She ended up spending v v little (doesn't drink, came home most weekends, lived on pasta). This year she's paying her accommodation with her loan (slight shortfall) and we're giving her £250 per month.

We just pay DS's college bill, which includes any meals he eats in hall, and works out at about 5.5k a year. Might be a bit more this year as he has a slightly nicer room. He then lives off the min loan. We don't give him any other cash but we do pay for some other stuff - spotify, phone, netflix and contact lenses, as these were all either on existing or family contracts when he started. He works in the holidays and does a bit of online tutoring and a few shifts in the college bar to make extra money in term time. We've had a very easy ride as he's at a Cambridge college which guarantees three years accommodation, so he's never had to pay a bill or buy so much as a loo roll, and has no transport costs as everything is walkable or cyclable. I think we'll get a bit of a shock when our next dc goes, unless they land a similarly cushy set up.

Supposed to? I worked through uni and I think it did me good. I had experience and walked into a job, but my degree was academic, not vocational.

Are they doing vocational degrees or academic?

I’m giving my son £100 a month but he has savings and his dad has paid his accomodation (no loan). He’s also planning to get a job. I pay his phone and will pay other costs too (had to transfer £80 for new trainers on day 2 due to a hole). I think parents are expected to fund the difference between the loan they get, and what they’d get as max loan. If they can afford it. Some cannot and the student then has to fund it themselves through work. My son has 3 whole days off per week (including weekend) but 4 afternoons so can work part time and study.

My Daughter has just started at uni. She gets the minimum maintenance loan. We pay the following:-

• Difference between cost of halls and loan amount shortfall (£2300)

• Mobile phone, Spotify, Netflix and Disney Plus (Family accounts)

• £200 per month

• An initial “big” shop (Aldi £70)

• Bought everything she needed to go away with for her accommodation

• We will cover books and any society fees or course related fees.

• I intend on sending her monthly Costa/Aldi/Just Eat £20 vouchers in the post once every couple of months if I can afford it (I still have two younger kids at home)

She has moved £500 of her savings for a car from a previous part time job into her current account as a “overdraft” should she need it. She starts a Saturday job in a couple of weeks and will work more hours in the holidays. I estimate over a year she will earn £3k plus from this and will be expected to use that to fund any holidays etc.

Shes a decent cook and I’ve tried really hard to teach her to cook from scratch.

I hope this helps!

My DS receives the min maintenance loan.
His accommodation is £500 per month. I pay this for him.
He lives on his maintenance loan. But also has a part time job in a restaurant for any extras he needs

Appreciate it is a sensitive topic for some but at the end of the day we are both merely sharing our opinions/beliefs, backed up from our life experiences. Your anecdotal evidence is no stronger than mine or anyone else's.

Nevertheless, upon reflection perhaps I should have fleshed out my answer more.

Avoiding work experience is not a good thing. Quite the contrary, I believe a year-long internship or industrial placement as part of a degree is probably the most valuable part of the course in terms of getting a well-paid graduate job afterwards.

Similarly for those who don't do that, relevant summer internships between uni years is worthwhile and valuable.

Finally for those who don't do the above, even doing basic retail/hospitality in the summer holidays is worthwhile, but not quite so useful as the above.

What I definitely do not recommend doing is an irrelevant job during term time. You will get a worse grade than you could have and in the long run will generally underperform post-grad compared to if you didn't do that irrelevant job during term time.

Obviously for some students they don't have a choice and that's fair enough. But my advice for parents is - provide enough so that the child does not need to work during term time.

My experience is completely different, my son graduated this summer, shared a house with 5 others, he was the only one not working a part time job. (Mainly bar and waitressing jobs) He did however work the summer holidays to top up his money. They all gained either firsts or 2:1’s.
It’s about the student and their drive and desire to do well, needing a part time job to support themselves doesn’t necessarily mean a lower grade.
I know students who didn’t need to work, had everything and either dropped out or under performed. It’s about the person not their circumstances.