My DC (in Scotland) gets the minimum loan of £5,100 a year and the bill for their catered accommodation is £6,700. That means they are short by approx. £180 a month (based on 9 months Sept-May). So we give them £180 a month that goes into the account that their maintenance loan gets paid into, and their accommodation gets taken out of. We then put £150 a month into another 'living expenses' account for weekend meals, toiletries/laundry, misc costs etc... we're also paying their PAYG phone each month (£10) and will probably help them out with buying a good coat and possibly a few society membership fees.
So our monthly cash outlay from Sept-May is £330. I'm not sure what's going to happen during the months of June/July/August. We thought they'd just come home and expenses would be minimal but we're realising that they might have to put down deposits and advance rent on properties from June/July onwards even if they don't want to live in their Uni City over Summer. Accommodation is scarce and very expensive so we can't risk leaving it till the last minute. They might be lucky and not have to start paying till August but we can't rely on that.
Our DC has just got themselves a part-time hospitality job and does two shifts totalling about 15/16 hours a week. The midweek shift has them working till 2/3am which I'm not happy about but they say it's fine because their first class/lecture is at 11am the next day. I wish they didn't have to work but they will need to save some funds to see them over the Summer months and to put down a deposit and advanced rent. They think they'll be able to save £300/400 a month. They have no travel expenses - we're lucky to have free bus travel up here in Scotland for young people up to 22.
I wish they didn't have to work but they do. I'm hoping this won't interfere with their studies too much but they never worked at all during their school years and were a straight A student. It will be interesting to see if they can sustain this academic level with the working and the additional partying that's going on at Uni (which they are also throwing themselves into very enthusiastically after the social deprivation of the Covid years!) Unfortunately they were unable to work and save over the Summer as planned because they were ill.
On paper we are therefore paying out 9 x £180 and 9 x £150 (£2,970 in total) over the academic year which, on top of their £5,100 loan, means they're getting a total of just under £8,100 per academic year. This happens to be the maximum loan/bursary amount you can claim up here in Scotland. This starts reducing down as soon as your household income hits the heady heights of £21,000 and reduces to the minimum loan payment of £5,100 as soon as your household income exceeds £35k.
Of course we could save loads of money by having our student live at home and go to a local Uni. This is very common in Scotland. We, however, are prepared, and just about able, to scrape together the above mentioned funds as we earn well over the £35k threshold. But we still really struggle as we've no savings, have large debts of our own to service and increasing costs. I really feel for families who are right on the £35k threshold. We would certainly have to have our DC living at home if that were the case. I'd even question whether Uni would be the best path for them. I think I'd advise them to look into apprenticeships or working a year or two and saving before going off to Uni. For both my DP and I, Uni was about independence and breaking away from parental supervision as much as doing the academics. I wouldn't want to deprive my DC of that unless we didn't have a choice in the matter.
It will be interesting to see if the numbers of UK- based students attending University will start to fall in the coming years. Surely Universities will target ever-increasing numbers of overseas students. With the strong dollar, it must make UK Universities even more attractive to American students in particular. The American parents at my DC's University are eagerly trying to pay next year's tuition fees of approx £26k now because it's going to save them $8,000+ because of the plumetting pound! It will also mean they will find the local rentals cheaper which will no doubt encourage landlords in the area to charge even higher rents.
I will hold my hands up to totally burying my head in the sand when it came to my children's University costs. I thought we'd just be able to get student loans that would adequately cover the costs of living and accommodation. I really hadn't appreciated that we would need to have excess disposable income to plug such an enormous shortfall. I am so glad that we will only have 1 year of potential overlap with our 2nd DC. And I've already planted the suggestion that they might need to take a year out to earn some money because I can't see us being able to cope paying both of their accommodation and living expenses shortfalls. Ignoring that for now though.
Apologies for the long and detailed post but I hope someone finds it useful (especially any Scottish parents!)