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?

Fast Food jobs employ all different kinds of people with all different abilities!! We have a few people with Autism work for us. Not glam but it does pay!!

My DD just got her halls accommodation offer and it is £8000 for the year (37 weeks)! Her student loan is £6000.

Before she even starts she is already £2000 short before she even thinks of food/travel etc.

She has a job and will hopefully have about £3000 in savings but we will still have to top her up every month for her to afford it.

My son had just graduated……. great experience for him socially. In all honesty, even though he went to a Russell group uni, the education aspect was pretty dire. My other son dropped out….Covid related and MH issues. All in all, I won’t be going overboard encouraging my DD to go. We will explore other options. Problem is so far, there’s not too much choice with apprenticeships. The financial ones often seem to go to teens with parents working in the City.
Good luck with it all. Really we have to start offering our school leavers much more, atm they are badly let down.

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread OP, and can't right now, but in case nobody else has said this - try to look at universities where she can get a decent computer science course alongside reasonably priced accommodation. (Martin Lewis was suggesting this approach.) Dundee comes to mind - Abertay if she can get in. Nice friendly city, and they have student accommodation that doesn't cost the earth. But obvioiusly there are other universities in England with good CS courses. Also, and perhaps more to the point, wherever she goes, there will be a number of part time jobs for competent computer science undergrads that don't necessarily involve hospitality. For example, data entry, video game 'quality assurance' (often part time, and pays reasonably.) Some dedicated tech universities do go out of their way to find part time tech jobs for their students. My advice would be to encourage her, first and foremost, to find the course she would like to do, go with her to Open Days if you can - although I know this can be expensive - and also enquire about bursaries, because as people have said above, there is definitely some availability.

It’s tough. I started saving when each child was 2, increased a little whenever there was a pay rise. Lived frugally. Child allowance went into child savings accounts. But many don’t or can’t do that. Kids worked full time uni holidays. I worked 3 jobs the 2 years they were both at uni; income grew quite suddenly due to promotion so paid accommodation, bills and a small allowance. Grandparents pitched in with a little money occasionally. The kids didn’t take loans and graduated without debt. My advice now would be work a gap year, save hard, prioritise study close to home, live at home, work inside or outside uni for money - work experience is important and she’ll make new friends. Take as small a loan as possible. Too many young parents struggle paying mortgages, loans and childcare.

Son has just finished his degree (in the midlands, not anywhere expensive i.e. London). We only paid about £100/month for food. he worked for social money. First year we paid some towards rent because he was in halls which can be a bit more expensive; most was paid via student loan though.

My son has Autism and is starting uni this year, but is no where nowhere near ready to live independently and thankfully our home city offered great options in his chosen field, so he is staying home.

He does receive PIP, if your daughter doesn’t already receive it, you should apply. This is not taken into account for loans etc, but as he’s staying home, we have not applied for more than the standard none means tested loans. On top of this he should get a disabled student’s allowance (waiting to find out), which he would not need to pay back, but I believe can be spent on limited things (equipment and specific travel, etc) related to the disability.

My Mum used to joke that her salary went entirely on keeping me at Uni... Look into bursaries, charities that help fund students with certain backgrounds or disabilities and apply for DLA if you haven't already for ASD unless I've misunderstood about that. DSA is also a must.

My daughter has a job to supplement it, she earns around £100 a week it’s enough for her, depending on where she goes to uni the wages in some cities are really good… although going out would be more
expensive in those areas, most of her friends are earning £12-16 an hour in hospitality

Remember you are paying term time so she won’t pay over summer she will come
home, you can get full year tenancy’s but they are more expensive, there are different levels of accommodation so you could try the cheaper ones they won’t be as new or have say their own bathroom but they would be more reasonable

My daughter gets minimum loan and we give her the difference between that and maximum loan which works out at about £350 a month. Her accommodation was £5,700 over the year in halls - but we are in the North so it could be more elsewhere. She works in a bar to cover the extra she needs and she really enjoys it so it is more like social life for her. But we were like many parents - having seen all the publicity around loans we had assumed it would cover the costs but then discovered with a year to go that we’d need to find quite a substantial amount every month on earnings similar to yours. It isn’t easy but we can just about do it. She is managing to earn enough to have a brilliant social life with several foreign trips. Hopefully your two will be able to have a brilliant time and it will be manageable for you. Good luck

A compromise may be that she has to live at home and work part time but then she can go. It would be utterly heart breaking if she can't go because of money, such a waste. Just make sure she does a worthwhile course though where she can earn well afterwards (at least in theory!!!) My friend's parents told her they would help her pay her uni if she did maths. She did and is now a maths teacher, very much sought after and at 40 she now says it was the best advice ever. Good luck.

If she is autistic and socially awkward how will she manage moving away and living in busy student accommodation?

I went to uni 17 years ago gulp! My loan/grant just covered everything for the first year when I was in halls catered but then I had to get a job in my second year - almost all students end up with jobs to cover living costs and social life. It might be worth her trying to get a job locally that may transfer to another branch near the uni she wants to go to or even just give her the experience/confidence now while she is still at home.

Does your daughter get PIP, my son is autistic and is going away to uni this year. He will get his PIP which is £514 per month. This provides him with money that he isn’t able to earn because of finding working extremely anxiety provoking as well as the fact he is extremely socially awkward. There are other support’s available for students with disabilities like autism. There is a disability support fund that you can apply for when you apply to SAAS. We live in Scotland and get access to funds for getting a free laptop if you are receiving PIP. There may be other services and funds available in England that I don’t know about.

My DS has just started secondary school but I hope he'll want to go to Uni some day. I'd given no thought to financing it though. This has made me consider thinking about options where he could live at home, a shorter course and maybe apprenticeships. We live within commuting distance of London, so colleges there are an option at least. In my day, fees were all paid and I got a very small grant. I'll also do all I can to pay down the mortgage over the next few years before he leaves school.

My son's loan covered his accommodation (he did pick a uni with cheap accommodation though and deliberately chose the cheaper version - en suite and double bed was a lot more than single bed and shared bathroom), he also gets a small bursary this year coming which helps (I think it covers about half his accommodation)

My dc has a physical disability and have been visiting disability services on all the uni tours and been very impressed by what’s in offer. Lots of support and assistance. Things like only paying shared bathroom rate but getting an en-suite if it’s a disability need.

my student loan covered my tuition and maintenance was around 4k because I lived at home. Only thing my parents paid for was my car insurance which was £50 a month and my nanny gave me £100 a month and then I worked every weekend both days for the whole duration, I worked all throughout college too 3 nights a week and a Saturday. So that’s £150 extra a month on top of maintenance loan and I studied photography so all the supplies reallyyyyyyy added up! I paid for my food, always have done since I got my first job except for the basics like milk, sugar, eggs, bread. Your daughter sounds very frugal and it’s a bonus she’s not interested in drinking or smoking because socialising is what can really drive the cost up. At the end of the day you’ll find a way, people’s costs vary greatly depending on their course, what part of the country they choose, whether they live away from home ect so all those things considered there will be a way to make it possible. I never begrudged not getting more help because it made me so much more independent, I didn’t take petrol ect for granted and I learnt how to properly budget my money so I wouldn’t of changed a thing.

Wow that is good many. What kind of job is that please?

I paid for myself at university, my parents earned just enough for me not to get any kind of maintenance grant, but couldn’t afford to give me any money. I worked menial jobs every holiday, used an over draft and lived very frugally! Loved university! My parents did help by saving all their nectar vouchers for me and bulk buying me pasta each term!
Data entry might be a job your daughter could do? I never begrudged my parents not having the money to help me out more. It was just the way it was.

Definitely look at applying for Disability student Allowance and Disability Living Allowance. It is a significant contribution and you will just need a letter from the Autism Assessment Service or from your GP. She doesn’t even need to be officially diagnosed- a letter stating Autistic traits and demonstrating long term symptoms is sufficient. My daughter has Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and we had her DSA assessment today. My daughter is on the VERY long waiting list for autism assessment and they informed us we should have added this to her application. Although you won’t get a monthly payment for DSA you will get the costs paid for all of the hidden university costs such as laptops and software etc. especially if your daughter is planning on studying Computing!

Remember they finish yr 13 very early. Provisional exam timetables are out. My dc is due to finish mid June. So that’s 3 months before any uni starts lots of time to build a good financial cushion.

Are there any University’s local enough your daughter could commute to?

Are there any bursaries available?

Would a room share in a student house work? Uni’s sometimes have letting offices for student houses.

My mum paid for my accommodation, she was a single parent. I’ve no idea how she did it!