So, how the hell do you afford uni for your kids?

[F0XCUB88]

Just been looking at prices for accommodation, £200 per week!

So looked at Money Saving Expert to see how much we need to contribute on top of loans. It says we need to save £358 per month.

We earn £50,000 between us, mortgage payment just went up by £££ and now can't actually get to the end of the month so how do we save £358?

Do we just say no she can't go? What do other people do?

I know it's a first world problem but she's really bright. Neither of us went to uni and finding it all a bit confusing. I just can't see that everyone else can afford it?

I know this doesn’t help OP, but in answer to the thread title of how parents afford it, the answer is that if they don’t have massive savings or big incomes, they afford it by gradually saving up over a number of years. They don’t only look at the issue when their child is 17 but start saving when they are little or early teens.

Parents know uni is expensive. I’m sorry but I find it surprising how many only look into it really late on. Saving wills till be hard but it’s a damn sight easier to save perhaps £15k to top up the maintenance loan over 5 or 10 years than when the student is about to apply.

Here, here, HERE @Maglin , well said. These threads always have people posting about they survived on a dock leaf and a piece of string so why can’t kids today, without any understanding of how the system has changed.

If you are low income or very high income, the current system works fine for you. Particularly those PP on a low income, don’t be put off, within reason it’s totally do-able, your DC will be able to access the full loan which at many unis will work fine. It’s the ones in the middle- like the OP- who have it tougher, and I agree the system isn’t widely understood by parents. You only have to look at all of the posts on the WIWIKAU Facebook asking the exact same questions time and again.

Lots of banks have degree apprenticeships in technology. She would have an apprentice job (paid in IT) while being supported through a degree at the same time. An excellent option affordability-wise if she wants to work with computers.

She's Autistic..at 16 she can claim PIP.. you might have to help fill in the forms.
It's a huge help.

Mine is a nanny.. earns £150'a week .. pick up at 3:30'and gets home at 7pm ..kids are 10 and 14 ... driving licence is a money maker !!

Op so sorry, not read whole thread, but just to say, if she is in yr 12 then you and she have time to consider accommodation costs.

I always mention this and obvs for some people it’s neither here nor there (“we pay ds’s hall fees” ppl say, but we don’t have that money) but we looked closely at how much halls cost. Ds2 last year (so this is up to date info) was in a hall that cost £100 pw (x 40 weeks). Covered and more by his £7k loan. His uni has at least one other hall at a similar rate.

Yes, some are £££. Nottingham for example, if you want to live on campus, is all catered so upwards of £7-8k. But others have cheaper options. DD’s hall on a clearing place (so no choice at all) was only £120pw. Four years ago but still.

Aaargh I meant if she’s yr 12, then she is yet to apply, and she can apply to unis with cheaper accommodation.

OP
Use the Student Finance calculator tool to get a better picture of how much you will get.

Each uni posts their accommodation costs on their website. Costs vary.
Each university also has info about bursaries.

If she is interested in cyber, have a look at the CyberFirst site.
Finally - there ARE apprenticeships out there. Start your research on the Rate my Apprenticeship site. Remember that vacancies come and go, and there are more apprenticeships each year.

She will need to get a job if she wants to move away. I lived at home and went to a local university. Depending where you are that could be an option. Some people simply can’t afford to move away.

Sorry haven't had time to RTFT but just wanted to say, accommodation costs vary massively, especially between university -owned accommodation and those owned by eg. Unite students.
My son is in a city where the uni has approximately 6 halls/residences that it owns, the cheapest being about £150 a week and the dearest about £220.
He chose instead to move into one of the many residences owned by private companies like Unite students. He pays £110 a week and it's basically the same as the uni owned ones - a few flats on each floor and approx 5 students per flat.
So there are cheaper options out there.

I had to work full time whilst at uni (evenings and weekends). My parents didn’t (couldn’t to some extent) help but they earned over the threshold for me to qualify for a thing.. it wasn’t easy, but I actually bought my first house in my second year and commuted as it worked out a hell of a lot cheaper - we bought an absolute dump and did it up ourselves and then sold it when I graduated and made a fair profit. It’s not easy, but it taught me a lot and wouldn’t be where I am without those lessons. I don’t hold it against my parents in any way and I’m grateful for the fact that I’m the first person in my family to go to university

Have a good long hard thing, what is more important, the degree or the "experience". Yes, living away from home would be fabulous, but at the end of the day you take the opportunities you can afford to.

My DS was initially thinking of an interstate Uni. I pointed out that I could not afford to fund accomodation costs, those sort of loans aren't as common here in Australia, but what I could do was have him live at no cost with me, so he only needed a part time job for books etc and socialising money, so not massive hours. Uni fees are automatically under a government loan scheme linked to tax payments. If he wanted to go interstate he would have to work long hours to pay for the accommodation, and that would likely detract from his studies.

He is in secondary school and has 1 1/2 years before he heads to uni, has a part time job (night fill - shelf stacking) already and is learning to drive.

At Oxbridge, certainly Cambridge you only pay for 30 weeks accommodation, sometimes slightly more and this is in all years. Also when my 2 dds were there the rents were cheaper than other universities though this depends on college.

University student in her 20s living at home? Bizarre.

That's just an extension of high school.

Lots of students live at home these days. As do lots of adult children full stop. It's cheaper, for one thing. And they can save for a deposit to buy their own place which they wouldn't be able to do if they were spaffing £1000pm up the wall every month on rent and bills. DD still lives at home and plans to move out next year, with about £15k saved, to buy her first flat. Her peers won't be able to buy for years.

How is it an extension of high school, just because she's living at home? I'd say that having your mum and dad pay your way into your mid 20s is far more infantilising.

We received the minimum maintenance loan of about 4,500 and had to top this up to £7k plus provide help towards living costs. DD also works to help with this. It is really difficult especially with rising costs.

What is infuriating is that the student halls rental periods run from Sep to July in some cases even though students are usually not there for quite a chunk of this. We won't mention the fact that some universities have been on strike for lengthy periods meaning DD was at home and we were paying for an empty room. Also the maintenance loan comes in 3 payments so it takes a bit of juggling to make it work spread throughout the year to cover monthly payments.

University student in her 20s living at home? Bizarre.

Perfectly normal in lots of countries, it is seen as bizarre and wasteful to spend lots of money going to university far away if there is one located nearby where you can study the same thing. The whole 'going away to university for the experience' is something that is unique to this country. The only people winning here are landlords. It is something that parents need to consider with the terms of student loans changing and costs of living rising.

Are there unis where she can stay at home. That's what is standard in Australia.

Well God knows how I'll ever afford it. Dd doing Alevels next year and showing an interest in going to university but I bring home around £1,500 a month after tax (which includes child benefit for her which will obviously end next year) and literally have no more than about £60 left after all bills etc. How in hell am I meant to pay for uni?!

Perhaps a uni where you live so she can continue to live at home with you?

It's a long time since I went to university but when I went (1999) my mum was on about £12k a year and divorced from my dad who didn't have much spare cash either.
I always found it weird that, even as an adult of 18, society still expects your parents to support you through uni (my landlord for my PGCE year wanted post-dated cheques from my parents which i assured him would bounce. The amount of people who assumed student = well-off family was astounding). I got my fees paid and the full loan; which at the time was about £3.5k a year. Unbelievably I lived off that and worked in the holidays and all through my second year.
I was paid during my year abroad.
OP - I saw you asked someone if they resented the lack of help from their parents. I didn't resent my mum at all. Why would I? She didn't have it. I used to have to cover her petrol costs when she gave me a lift back to uni. I even once bailed her out with the bailiffs whilst I was at home in the hols.
It's super tough, I sometimes wonder if I'd have gone at all had I been about 15 years younger as it's A LOT of debt. I was lucky to go into teaching at the right time (if you call that lucky) and they paid off my loans.

I think having to support yourself to some degree and an awareness that there isn't always a safety net are important life lessons.

Also, one of the most successful IT people I know doesn't have a degree so there are other options for that career path.

Not sure if this has been said but my parents hosted foreign exchange students while I was at university to support me with these costs. They didn't have any extra money so this was the easiest way for them to support me and I got a job at the student untion shop to make up the rest!

Part time jobs are great I worked two jobs through uni in a restaurant and at a theatre and still managed to have lots of fun started working when I was 16 too and saved up my own fun money.

Also there are bursaries available at some university so maybe worth looking into that.

I would also say as someone bright does she need to go to uni I went did a 3 year degree racked up loads of debt then went to do my chartered accountancy which was fully funded by my employer with study leave and I also got a wage too. I mean I had a lot of fun but I went to uni in the days when it was only £3k p.a and and I'm still paying off a massive chunk of student debt out of my wage each month!

I highly suggest to look at more specific degrees or with clear routes loads of my friends did degrees that were of no use and they then moved to something totally different and had to retrain. I know it's hard to know what you want to do at 17. I also know a friend who did a gap year at before uni and worked like crazy and saved up some good money to cover her living costs which was pretty amazing for someone that age. But there are potential options but yeah I get it you can just say no she can't go! But going to Uni I believe doesn't mean as much nowadays as lots of people have been and I feel sometimes people just see it as 'something' to do.

Good luck hope everything goes well for you all.

Please can we stop with the "it's been a long time since I went to university but.." threads.

Perhaps someone needs to start an old gimmers reminiscing thread. I include myself happily among the old gimmers, but I also actually have two, about to be three, at university and a lot of the posts on here are just NOT RELEVANT to today.

The government expects parents to top up the amount of maintenance loan to just under 10k a year, per student. Yes, students can get jobs to help. But PARENTS are expected to help. It's not controlling/helicoptery/creating a race of snowflakes to top up your kids loans, and it's also extremely hard financially for the vast majority of families.