How much money in total does your student in halls receive?

[WombatChocolate]

I’ve read a number of similar threads. People often talk about ‘paying accommodation’ and then the student living on their minimum maintenance loan, but these don’t give total figures of how much it is costing to live.

Please could people say how much the total to cover everything is. I’m not so interested in whether it comes from parents or loans or grandparents, but the total given and the city/area they study in.

I think this would be really useful info for myself and others with teens setting off in the autumn. We can then work out how much we might need to give them, knowing how much maintenance loan our individual circumstances will mean they get.

I guess I’m interested to know if people are topping up, to the full maintenance loan or significantly beyond this.

£60 pw (after non catered halls) is a figure I've picked from the air to be honest.

We'll continue to pay for contact lens, gym, Spotify because we've already got direct debit for them.

I'm going to give her a credit card (joint in my name) for Uber and trains home and emergencies

She has savings from her part time job for extras but I'm willing to revise the £60 if needed as I want her to have a great time at uni - she deserves it.

I've upped my hours at work to finance it.

We didn't save for student years but paid the mortgage off a couple of years before eldest got to that age, so that freed up about £15k a year.

Dd gets just over £8000 loan, her rent is about £4500. She’s a second year so not in halls this year but her total annual cost is similar to last year in halls. She looked at accommodation costs when she was choosing a uni. She’s left with about £90/ week for food, clothes, socialising, transport etc in term time. I don’t routinely send her money whilst she’s at uni but everything is paid for at home so she only spreads her loan across the term rather than all year.

Per week

Food £35
Phone £2.50
Travel £10
Hot chocolates from cafe next door £5
Socialising £5 (it’s low but that’s a couple of J20 or apple juice from Spoons maybe once a month he will go somewhere he has to pay entry fee

i only started when mine was 15 and realised what was expected of us and started to put away £200/month working to have £15/16k which was what I thought 3 years of parental contribution would be or at least the bulk of it . Then as I said above, for the unis she was applying for when we visited them I realised the number didn’t add up, how could see have a total budget of £9k ish with min loan and our contribution if I’m walking around a halls that costs low £8k self catered!!

Yes I expect her to earn a bit of money she’s got brilliant experience in hospitality but I can’t guarantee she’ll get a job the second she arrives so since visiting in October I’ve upped the saving to £500/month so we’ve reached £8k only another £20k to save over the next 3 years (needed if she ends up in York which is the most expensive of where she has offers for we may get away with less elsewhere)

Yes that’s a lot but it’ll be also paying for the initial cheap laptop buying all her stuff for halls etc etc as I bet that stuff all adds up

I’m on a good salary and if I spent £30 feeding myself, I wouldn’t spend £70 every week on socialising. It seems a lot to me, for a student who is supposed to be a bit financially constrained.

I completely agree. I have been reading these types of threads for about 10 years (since dc1 started looking around) and am always amazed how skewed MN is compared with the population as a whole, in the amounts of "spending money" / luxuries / treats / whatever you want to call it so many people think their dc need.
Mind, I think the same on the pocket money threads, or 'how much should I pay my teen babysitter?' threads, or the 'how much do you spend on a haircut?' threads.

Can I ask too, how do parents arrive at the figure they give their DC, if it’s not just topping up to the full maintenance loan or paying the rent and letting them live on the minimum maintenance loan.

I asked students who were already at University, what they actually spent. Nieces, nephews, Godchildren, friends children, etc., and I asked colleagues to ask their children and got myself some actual figures...... then I rounded it up a little bit for inflation each year / with each subsequent child. Over the years, I have chats with them about how they are managing / if it is enough.

I forgot laundry about £8 once per fortnight

Glasgow
Minimum loan £4.5k - they use this for living costs inc travel, food, going out, toiletries etc
Accommodation ( inc bills) £7.5k - we pay. Also pay for one trip home each term as it’s a long way.

The minimum loan of £4.5k they pay to us and we add some grandparents money both sets gave when he started uni (£2k each) - we divided the GP money by 4 years and then 9 monthly payments, and the min loan by 9 monthly payments, added together and pay this to them monthly.

It ensures they have the money when at Uni and need to work in the long summer break if they have no savings.

Mine has to pay for the following:
gym membership
sports clubs membership
all clothes
laundry (v expensive in his halls)
food
drinking/socialising
toiletries
travel

DS will live on his minimum loan of about £4500, plus DSA for the extras he needs to support him.
Uni course costs £9000 per year (currently), so slightly less than most places, but every little saving helps!
Accommodation £5500 per year, en-suite, non-catered is paid by us.

Thanks! Yes I think budgeting for worst case is the way to go (in as much as you can afford to). We’ve started saving a little as DH will be retired by time DS1 goes. But I think we will up the goal now that I’ve read this thread!

Oh and I don’t understand people saying they’ll never have to pay part of/all of their loan back. It’s almost certain that they will and that the interest rate will get gradually more aggressive.

Mine has to pay for the following:
gym membership
sports clubs membership
all clothes
laundry (v expensive in his halls)
food
drinking/socialising
toiletries
travel

I think there is a difference between "has to" and "chooses to" though.
Not criticising your ds's spending at all - my dc who is currently at University also chooses to pay for sports clubs and for gym membership - but, like all of us in adult life they all have a choice as to if this is how they want to spend their money or not, and, if it is how they want to spend their money, then they need to decide if they are going to have enough for that by either cutting down somewhere else, or by increasing their income by increasing the hours of paid work they are prepared to do.

For me, a large part of living away at University is about learning how to be an adult, which includes budgeting. That usually includes making choices about how they live their lives.
That includes things like - when they find out how expensive laundry is, realising it is a lot cheaper to go to Primark or the local market and buying another 10 pairs of pants and socks, and then being able to do your laundry load a lot less frequently. It includes learning that you can get a lot of enjoyment socialising in different ways from going clubbing or to the bars in town. It includes learning when the best time is to pick up yellow sticker items at the supermarkets, and to freeze food and to plan a little bit so you aren't throwing out food you've bought. Plus many more things that students don't learn if they have so much more money than they need. All sorts of things that will stand them in good stead when they are adults too and on a limited budget.

That includes things like - when they find out how expensive laundry is, realising it is a lot cheaper to go to Primark or the local market and buying another 10 pairs of pants and socks, and then being able to do your laundry load a lot less frequently.

that’s a dreadful lesson. Buy more clothes instead of washing?!!!

anyway, everyone will do their own thing and I’m sure will think they have the best solution. Personally I think it’s really sad that so many kids are going to university and struggling to have enough money to go out and actually enjoy the experience. Lots can’t afford to socialise. I appreciate that not everyone has the funds to give their kids a lot but in that case they should IMO be encouraging their kids to work for a year first.

Or stay at home I’m probably going to regret telling you all this but in researching unis for her subject last year I discovered that the best uni for her subject that was a level down grade wise making it a good insurance choice(the others were all similar entry requirements) was a v local Uni

i knew her heart was set on going away but i thought about it then sat her down and explained that if she works to her ability and got her predicted grades then she’s going away for Uni no question but if she doesn’t put the work in bearing in mind she’s at home with nothing else to worry about cleaning shopping cooking all done for her then she should do the course at the local uni

as you can imagine it went down like a lead balloon but it didn’t take long for her to get it now she’s done a complete 180 and is glad it’s her insurance she loves her current job she would able to keep it the Uni seems great and we can always discuss her living out in y2 or 3 but she agrees that the pot of money we’ll have saved is the pot of money there’s no more would it be best spent on rent to have freedom independence and a good time or will it be better spent on a placement year, a car etc we’ll cross that bridge

that’s a dreadful lesson. Buy more clothes instead of washing?!!!

How so ?

It is much better for the environment to wait until you have a full machine to do a wash, as well as for the student's (or anyone, come to that) bank balance. Having to go and do a wash because you've run out of pants or socks, when other bigger stuff might not need a wash yet, is madness.

Mine were all keen to go away and we were happy to facilitate that to let them have the full Uni experience

There are a range of parental fundings aren’t there, from not supporting them at all, to adding to whatever loan they get and bumping it up to the max loan, to paying their accommodation and asking them to live off their maintenance loan, to funding them for whatever they would like.

I agree that learning to budget is part of the experience. Learning that you can have a great time with your friends without spending £50 each night out.

I absolutely want my DC to be able to participate and join-in. That means they need enough money for food and for essentials and some for socialising. I don’t view ‘participating’ as being able to afford to go out clubbing and drinking 4 or 5 nights a week, or living on takeaways or restaurant meals.

We have the money in savings and could fund them with high amounts if we chose to. However, that’s not what we are planning to do. We want to ensure their accommodation and food is covered and they have money to socialise. From what people have said on here, and with catered halls looking like being around £8-8.5k for 30 weeks, I’m thinking the total we will want them to have via the minimum maintenance loan and our top-up will be in the region of £11k.

I do want my DC to consider different opportunities and sometimes to decide they won’t do things because of price. I want them to learn in their 2nd year when living out if halls, that if they spend less in the supermarket, there’s more for something else, or booking train tickets in advance reduces the price greatly. I want them to realise that if they choose more expensive accommodation, there is less available for other spends, and vice versa. If I gave them so much money that they could supermarket shop without looking at the prices, or never consider whether they could afford something, I wouldn’t have actually helped them.

There’s a big range between not funding your DC and pushing them into poverty, with them having a horrible and struggling student experience, and being given whatever they want, or an ‘open cheque’.

Yes, learning that having 20 pairs of pants means less need to do laundry so frequently, compared to having 7 pairs…good lesson. The poster suggesting this wasn’t saying they should buy multiple extra items of other clothes…just underwear! Most of them have mountains of clothes!

100% agree @WombatChocolate
that is our philosophy too.

It’s really expensive to do laundry in halls.

So, OP, you're giving your DC £2.5-£3k over 30 weeks? That's £83-£100.

You could make the “chooses” argument about going out and drinking as well - the point I’m making is that I don’t pay for it separately and that it comes out of his monthly amount

Rude question but how can you afford that??

DS is on minimum loan. I've lost track of what that is ?£4000/year. We pay his rent which is £450/month for 11 months of the year & his phone (£18/month) plus his car insurance (£500) & servicing. He pays his electricity, gas & internet as he has a job. So about £6000/year from us plus his minimum loan.

That is a big top up for catered halls.

I am very firmly in the ‘top up the full loan’ camp (if you can). Then it is up to the DC to decide whether the en-suite is worth it etc. DS is catered (5days per week) en-suite and that leaves him £180pm over 9 months (nothing in Jun/Jul/Aug. Almost all of that is spent on alcohol tbh so I am glad I don’t do more! I also pay £20pm DD for his phone and Spotify and we drive him to/from Uni.