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.

My DS took out maximum loan for first year (DH barely worked in 2020 therefore our income was low)
approximately £9500 loan plus £3500(not needing to be paid back) payment from university.
£215.00 direct debit to cover his food from DP

Costs.
£180 pw accommodation (30weeks per year)
(£5,400.00 per year)
£50 weekly budget for food from shop
(£1500 per year)

Other normal living costs ie hair cuts, new clothes, formal meal costs and college balls etc maybe £500 per term

So year total £8,400

He has a massive amount of money building up however next year he will be eligible for a much smaller amount of loan and the following year he will only qualify for a non means tested loan.

DD is first year at Leeds Uni. She gets £4.5k maintenance loan to live on (£100/week ish if you exclude the hols when she's home and we are feeding her). She buys her own food/clothes/books/nights out / train fare home etc. She works in the holidays.

We pay her rent which is £6.5k for halls (next year goes down to £5200 plus utilities which she will pay herself as she knows she can manage and budget.

Are people tending to expect the money given to cover non term-time expenditure too? Students are often at home for over 20 weeks.

So I know they won’t have food and accommodation costs, but presumably they will want to go out and possibly travel to see uni friends etc.

I would hope DC will have a job over the summer and earn for a few weeks, but it might not be likely over Christmas and Easter.

So when I’m looking at the money they have beyond their catered hall, should I be factoring in 52 weeks or just term-time. If I give £2.5 beyond catered accommodation, they have £83 per week if that’s just for term time, but about £50 per week across the year. Are people generally expecting to fund their holiday lesisure too?

I guess it can be part of the budgeting…if they spend it all during term time, they won’t have anything left for non-term time and have to stay in….ir be more motivated to get a job……

Term time only here. DCs have had / will still have for DS3 holiday jobs.

which does mean they need to remember that their employers are not cash in advance. DS3 did not quite grasp that last summer. Useful lesson to learn though.

Unfortunately they do usually have accommodation costs. We have to cover about £2k over the summer months. They can live there of course, instead of at home. Possibly air bnb the room (probably not actually allowed).
Contracts run July to July.

Dd gets the maximum loan. Only works when she’s back home (Christmas, Easter, summer).
we do not help out at all.
she’s careful with money, apart from picking the most expensive accommodation as she wanted an en suit, so has actually managed to save money too.
So 9.5k totally doable

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

Absolutely.
I did try to do my best to not be criticising his spending. I completely agree with you that it is the student who needs to learn to make decisions about how important any of the things they spend their money on are to them, and then, how they can finance it when they want more.
One of my dc bought a car when in the 6th form (incl running costs, incl insurance) out of her PT job and then took it to University and worked to pay for it's 'keep' throughout their time there. It wasn't "necessary" - it was a luxury, but for her the extra freedom and opportunities it gave her, were worth the hours that she worked both term time and during the holidays. It wouldn't be what I advised, but I am not them.
Exactly my point - learning to adult includes things like learning how many early morning shifts it takes to pay for one driving lesson, or one year's Gym membership, or to go on an expensive night out or whatever and them deciding if it is worth it or not.

So when I’m looking at the money they have beyond their catered hall, should I be factoring in 52 weeks or just term-time. If I give £2.5 beyond catered accommodation, they have £83 per week if that’s just for term time, but about £50 per week across the year. Are people generally expecting to fund their holiday lesisure too?

Only you will know what your finances are like.
Personally our current student gets £40 per week from us, mid Sept to end of June. We could stop it for the 3 weeks over each of Christmas and Easter, and share that £240 across the other weeks, but it balances out the same over the year. We tend to take and fetch at the start / end of each term, and we pay the difference between the cost of rent per term and what she gets in from her (min) student loan. We also provided the deposit for the next accommodation She chooses to work so she can have more luxuries.

To me £83 pw on top of being catered sounds very generous.
If you are thinking annually though, remember to factor in they will almost certainly be paying rent on their 2nd year accommodation during July, August and September before getting their 2nd year loan. They will also need deposits around Christmas in Yr 1 to secure their 2nd yr accomm. (You will need to find deposit after results day to secure Yr1 accomm). All the money isn't for the students to just spend on themselves every week.

Yes Wombat, we expect it to cover non term time too. I think I said upthread we gave Ds the choice of receiving a slightly higher top up term time only or a lower one over 52 weeks. But totalling the same amount.

For what it's worth, and it's only what we do, we topped DD up to max loan from min (that had to cover her rent), split over 52 weeks during her first year. She saved in the breaks. Admittedly I will raise her contribution next year so that she will get the same real-money grant as this one (which the loan system isn't doing).

Now she'll be going into second year and her accommodation contract is for 51 weeks, so we're continuing the regular payments. She is planning on staying in her accommodation while she's paying for it apart from occasional trips home, mainly so that she can use the university facilities and be with her friends. We'll see.

She is in the fortunate position of having a safety-net of savings. Like OP, we could pay more, but learning the value of money is important (and we did pay more in the past, i.e. the savings!)

To me £83 pw on top of being catered sounds very generous

surely though @UsingChangeofName the £83/wk, term time, is nothing more than a product of the maths? The OP is anticipating c. 8.5k catered accommodation, £2.5k on top of that - the £83 x 30 wks - gives £11k. Pretty much where the expected maximum maintenance loan outside London should be.

As per the IFS https://ifs.org.uk/news/cost-living-crisis-hit-students-harder-expected

We just give Dc the money termly . They know that the yearly amount means that it works out as about £53 left per week after accommodation and bills for the whole year. ( ie calculated over 52 weeks) .
It’s up to them as to whether they want to spread it over just 30 term weeks (thus having more to spend) . They can then choose to get a job in the holidays or just be fed at home and be skint.
Dc generally keeps to the £53 per week (sometimes goes over) and then works in the summer.

I agree about the amount being the same @boys3 - I tried to say that in my last post, but I think the full maintenance loan is still under £10k, not at £11K (In my mind it is £9250, but happy for a link to show it has gone up - I tried a quick google and it is harder to find than you'd think.... Gov.uk say £9978 from this coming Sept ?).

9,250 was what Ds gets in total (Loan and us). £12k is London.

I guess it can be part of the budgeting…if they spend it all during term time, they won’t have anything left for non-term time and have to stay in….ir be more motivated to get a job

Yes, this. We know he needs nothing for food / bills / laundry when home, fun money only.

I’m working on £11k because the maintenance loan is only increasing by 2.5% whilst inflation is over 10%. Students with the full maintenance loan will be worse off in real terms next year than this year. Halls and other costs will be rising with inflation.