Can I ask how you are managing to afford student accommodation?

[coldchipsfortea]

Hi all

Just looking for people's experiences on this as it can be a bit awkward asking friends what they do without sounding like I'm nosing into their finances...

DD will be going to uni in Autumn - Hall fees look to be around £6.5k for the year. If she got a room in a flat it would be around £600 a month. We have money that we saved for her from when she was tiny which would cover some (but not all) of this. I'd prefer to leave that money if possible - but perhaps I'm being naive on that front? I don't casually have 6 grand lying around - nor can we shell out £600 a month for the next few years without really struggling. We do have savings but the hall fees would wipe them out if we paid upfront, and we are also saving for some fairly necessary house maintenance, so they're not really available.

We've also got a younger DD who might be heading to uni too in a couple of years (providing she actually passes some exams...), so I can't even think about paying for two sets of rent!

What do other folk do generally? Do you use the student loan for accommodation plus top up a bit yourself and expect students to get jobs? I'm keen for my DD to get a part time job as even a little bit extra could really help I think.

I know there's no right or wrong way to do this - it just depends on circumstance, but it would be good to hear from folk just to get a sense of what others do. I'm aware that thousands of families do manage this every year so I am probably freaking out over nothing. I used to think I was good at financial planning, but clearly I'm not!

It sounds like as it is Scotland and no 9250 a year fees to pay is in a sense better than in England! It also might be that the minimum loan at 5100 above quoted is more than the English one of about 4300 and lower rents in Scotland too. not that any of that is any comfort at all to scottish parents.

I don't think there are right or wrong answers. My children went to university with some people here in England who were much worse off and some a lot better off. Parents do what they can and their means vary and not all children get £10k+ minimum loan that the children of those with the lowest incomes get. It is a weird system that even though your parents are not obliged to top up a single penny , if they have no money you get a massive loan but if the parents have even quads at university at once but choose not to pay a penny and have a higher income the child gets 4300 a year only minimum loan. Mind you similar in my day in the80s - tiny tiny minimum grant I got and parents not obliged to make up to much bigger maximum grant (although mine did even when 3 of us were studying at same time just about)

I wish to god we put money away from her being little but we didn’t have it, it was only when she was about 14/15 seeing Martin Lewis did I realise we’d need to give her 4/5k a year so I started to put away every month and by the time we went on the first open day I’d saved about 6k but then shit myself on the open day when I realised how expensive halls are now and that 9k a year she’d get from us& min maintenance loan wasn’t going to be enough so I’ve more than doubled my monthly saving as we can afford to do that right now and you never know what future will hold to I’m aiming to save 25/30k so we’ll pay her accommodation every year she’ll keep the minimum maintenance for living and if she finds that a struggle she’ll have to get a job

I assume most parents do make up at least to the amount of the maximum loan as that is what the government expects

They often don't Mother. even back in 1979 when I went my local authority had to include the following -

I had to apply for a hardship grant from my uni in my second year - parents weren't paying anything, and even with a job I was struggling. Parents coughed up in third year, luckily, with £50/week, which was just enough to get me through.

Parent of twins here - like a similar poster, whilst we had in mind that we'd pay something when they went to uni, it wasn't until 2 or 3 years ago that we realised the true extent of what our contribution was likley to be for twins.

They're getting the minimum loan, so to "top up" to what the maximum loan would be, we have to find a minimum of £10,650 a year. In reality, we're working on the basis of £1k a month (so £6k per twin per year).

We've saved some of that, so we don't have to find a full £1,000 each month out of income, but it will still be a big chunk and not exactly easy with the cost of everything rising at the moment.

We're not expecting them to get a job in the first year (certainly for one of them, it will be tricky anyway due to the course/uni) but they've worked throughout Yrs 12 and 13 so have a small amount of savings, and we'll expect them to work over the summers, and then maybe later on during term time at uni.

Perhaps the answer if for your daughter to use private sector housing, a private landlord, as they are often cheaper.
You get a room in a shared house with shared facilities. Often quieter as there are only 3 / 4 others not the hundreds in halls. Often better facilities, free use of washing machine and drier. And sometimes a better quality of accommodation.
And usually a helpful landlord not a corporate functionary.
good luck

Bear in mind most student bank accounts come with an overdraft of £1500-£2000. I know it’s not ideal to teach these kids to get into “debt” but this resource can really make a difference esp in the first couple of terms when costs are very much front loaded - club memberships, bus pass, freshers week etc etc and even deposits for second year accommodation sometimes need to be paid in the spring term

If not all residents are students there may be council tax liability so there’s that to factor in

We give Dc the parental contribution amount- ie top up their minimal loan to the full student loan amount (£9706 outside London)
There is lots of info on Martin Lewis website about parental contributions- worth a read.
Dc then pays their accommodation (inc bills) out of this . We give our parental contribution to them once per term coinciding with when the loan comes in. Their accommodation and bills were £7000 this year.
dc manages to live off the £ 2700 left. So that’s about £50 a week( over 52 weeks) . They keep track and manage to save some in some weeks which helps other times when they goes over with big money items like train tickets etc . They are pretty frugal ( cooks x4 and freezes etc) . They work in the summer to have a buffer.
We pay phone and Insurance and one big shop at the beginning of each year.
Its easier I think because bills are included allowing budgeting to be a bit more straightforward. Also - although the costs have risen quite a bit in the city they chose , there are much more expensive student cities they could have chosen

Most landlords are cognisant of the problem with mixing students and non students, for the council tax liability.
Consequently it is difficult to find mixed houses

@ihatethecold has your dc applied for student finance? It closes in may I think for guaranteed receipt of funds for the start of the autumn term. It opened a couple of weeks ago I think.

I also have twins and am divorced so will be solely responsible for topping them up as their dad won't. Luckily he earns a lot less than me and they live with him half the time so are using his address for finance meaning they'll get a bit under the max loan. I've remarried but DH doesn't pay towards things like their uni.

DD's firm choice sent an email last week saying to expect to need £11-16k in year 1! DS is looking like he might end up in clearing based off his mocks and I'm terrified he'll get stiffed with the £12k accomm no one else wants!

No she hasn’t. I had no idea she needed to tbh.
she hasn’t accepted the place yet but she’s withdrawn her other offers due to being rushed by college to put anything down. 🙄

Thank you so much to everybody who has replied. There is much food for thought here, and I can see there are quite a few folk in the same boat as me. I think some degree of loan is inevitable, or we'll have to get DD to go into the money we saved for her.

@Acinonyx2 just like you once the money we saved is gone, then its gone so I think the loan is probably a better option. DD is going to study a creative subject so she'll probably never earn enough to pay it off anyhow!

@coldchipsfortea

student maintenance loan plus job and some family top up - that’s how we’ve done it.
They only pay loan back when earning a certain amount.
also helps to teach them financial management and spending sensibly ie not spending it all on Uber and going out- which too many students do sadly!
if they want to party, get a job!
we told ours we’d help with all essentials but social stuff had to come from their own money so get a job. Working well for us

Honestly get your DD to defer and work full time for a couple of years. Studying for a career that is low paid is very much a luxury and she'll enjoy it a whole lot more with money behind her and having worked for a couple of years.

I am a student, I was nowhere near able to afford halls near my uni- even with all the loan. The cheapest way to find housing nearby might be studentpad, there should be one for her city. They mostly do rooms in shared houses- lots of them are bills included, which is mostly easier when sharing with strangers. The houses are full of students- its been a good and cheap way of living so far

We pay DC1s accomodation phone and gym and give an allowance of £500pcm. We didn't want them to have a loan - they have a virtually full scholarship so fees are ngligible. Just a warning to parents with DC wanting to go to London unis - the only way we were able to get half decent private rented accomodation was for all rent to be paid upfront 6 months in advance - if you don't do that you lose out to the international students who have to offer that as their parents aren't acceptable guarantors.

Will do the same for DD2 as its only fair although we will also have fees for them.

Both do a bit of adhoc work - babysitting/tuition etc which pulls in another £200-300 pcam.

Your DC have £800 pcm spending money??

This is bonkers. Most working adults don’t have that amount of disposable income.

Op you probably need to ignore about half the responses on this thread. It’s normal for students to be poor and live a frugal existence, it’s the way things have always been. I’m wondering how much expectations have been skewed in some areas by the high volume of rich internationals.

We paid accommodation for both and left them to it with their maintenance loans. Recently though we've had legitimate cause to have to comb through DD's accounts (with her permission!) and have Ben shocked at how precarious her finances were. She is now happily working, and is starting to replace literal rags in her wardrobe!

Oh and she did work during holidays!

We topped up the maintenance loan to the full amount, DS has to 'physically budget' his money himself to pay the accommodation bill which we felt was more appropriate than us just paying it direct (probably works out the same), he also had a part time job (very do-able on his course) and works vacations to save up. He is quite frugal and manages fine
@ihatethecold my DS is at Nottingham Trent and loves it, he had private halls the first year and then rented through Mega Close which seemed a very professional agency.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks @Ragwort ill message you. I do have a couple of questions

Dss is having 2 gap years to save up.

Was meant to have 1 but he messed about for the first half of the year after finishing his exams so is now deferring.

His mum has refused to contribute anything so it's all falling to DH (and me). It's a bit of a shock!

He is working full time in a cafe and earning about £420 a week. He saves £200 for uni and has the other £220 as spends which I think is too high but he is paying for driving lessons and going on holiday.

He should have nearly £18k saved up by the time he goes which will give £6k a year on top of the minimum loan.

He is going to have to get a job at uni and we have said we will load money onto a Tesco or similar gift card thing so he can buy food probably £50 a week (or more likely booze) but he will need to get a job in the holidays or whilst there for extra spends