Will student finance tell me (parent) how much I’m expected to contribute?

[CrapBucket]

DS starts uni in September, I’m new to the process and it’s definitely not designed for first timers… student finance website tells me I have done everything needed. DS updated his application yesterday as he has changed from his original uni. So now his account says wait for it to be processed, might be 48 hours or six weeks or anything in between.

But at what point does anyone inform me how much I’m expected to top up?

I’m finding the whole process very stressful!

Another question… accommodation contract is for 42 weeks and the trimesters (terms right?) are only for 33 weeks - and I think he only has to attend for 2 of them - do students generally stay for the extra trimester (I’m thinking good chance for him to do some paid work)?

He is CRAP at organising himself so it would help if we even knew how it usually all works… tia

No need to feel 'other'. Lots and lots of kids come from single parent homes. My ds does as do lots of his friends, through divorce or, in a couple of cases, widowhood. He has received a mixture of full grant and just off full grant - I'm self employed so my figures change each year and I don't earn a huge amount - but he worked for a year before going to uni so had a cushion of money behind him and hasn't asked me for top ups, which I wouldn't really be able to do in a large way, though I pay for his phone and do a big Sainsbury delivery for him about twice a term plus pay for other bits and pieces if needed suddenly. I also paid for books etc at the start of each year.

You mean semesters, by the way, not trimesters which are quite different!

My DC1 will be heading off in September.

She gets minimum loan. due to our earnings which I think is approx 4.6k. We will be topping her up by £500 a month, which takes her to about £600 a year above the full loan.

I did a quick calculation, and after she's paid accommodation (halls, not catered), that will leave her with approx £75 per week year round. For food, laundry, incidentals, books, social life, clothes etc that seems tight, but OK. On top of this we'll continue to pay her phone contract, her gym membership (she can transfer from existing town to uni town), and probably will send her money for travel home if she wants to come back in term time (we'll drop off and collect at beginning/end of term). I imagine we'll do the odd "bonus" transfer over of £50 here and there too, plus an occasional online shop for her. She will definitely be working in the holidays (has agreed with job at home), and possibly in term time too, if she can find a job in her Uni town that fits in with her studies.

DC2 will be following in September 24, and they will get the same.

I think most parents top up to the maximum loan amount, so a child who has loan plus parental top up will have the same as everyone else. The split between amount that comes from "loan" and the amount that comes from "parent" is what differs, not the total amount the student has to support themselves on.

My sons halls (self catering) are 210 a week! He gets minimum loan, 4700 a year, he is very sensible so will get a job as soon as he can, but when you have 10s of 1000s of students all rock up looking for jobs in the same city it will probably be very hard initially to find one. Worrying about how I will be able to pay the 1200 a month rent (it is paid every month for the first few months, then not paid for the last 3)

There are many students who will live with one parent. And there are many who will live with both but parental income may be peanuts.

The expectation is that on minimum loan of £4600 ish (assuming outside London) that parents top up to the full loan amount, so that would be approx £5350 per year as a parental top up, which would be just over £100 per week, all year round, (or more if you only split it during term time weeks). £50 a week is far too little IMO, and will leave him with much less disposable income than his peers.

https://www.savethestudent.org/parentcontribution/.

@mrsm43s it may well be less than peers but then I would expect him to get part time work to supplement what we give.
He is fortunate in that he already has a part time job with John Lewis and is able to transfer.

OP, your DS should receive a letter setting out all the details. Or maybe he has already received one!

As @WombatChocolate says, students generally have to find deposit for their 2nd year accommodation sometime around Christmas of Yr1

They then usually also have to pay rent for their Yr2 accommodation during July, August and September (between Yrs 1 and 2) before they get their loan in Yr 2.

So I wouldn't "divide the amount they have, after rent, by the number of weeks of term" and let the student think they have that much just for spending week in and week out, or there will be a big problem when they need to pay the deposit and then the rent.

But why not give the minimum expected (means tested, and therefore affordable as long as it has been reasonably prioritised) parental contribution so that your son isn't disadvantaged compared to his peers? Why deliberately withhold essential funds and keep him short?

To combat this, we will, each year, calculate the total loan amount, our parental contribution and then the total rent cost for the year. We will then make a weekly calculation of how much is left,spread evenly. DC will send us the loan money, we will pay accommodation directly and send her a weekly DD (on Monday, so not all spent at the weekend on social life!) for her spends for the week. This was decided in discussion with DC. Over time, we intend to change the direct debit from weekly to fortnightly to monthly, so that by the time she leaves, she's used to a monthly "pay cheque" as per the real world.

She'll have her own savings account with holiday earnings in that she can dip in to as needed too.

So essentially, I guess we're doing the budgeting for her. But, in year 1 at least, I don't think that's unreasonable. Especially given that the full loan amount or part loan topped up to full by parents is actually a very tight budget for them to live on.

I received an email from student finance. It said something along the lines of your child’s finances have now been assessed. “For security reasons we can’t tell you how much they’re going to get paid. If you want to know this, you’ll have to ask the student.”

To be honest I thought that was a bloody cheek considering it’s based on my income! They want to treat them like adults but in reality still need parents to find the time!

@mrsm43s to be honest, we don't top up to the minimum loan amount because that would give a hell of a lot of fun money, a lot more than we (parent and step parent) give ourselves each month, and provides absolutely no incentive to get part time work. It's pretty bloody hard to hear that you are at work all week, can't afford to do anything fun, yet your university age child has enough money to go out 4 times a week and has no inclination to get a part time job.

Our decision was to work out how much job seekers allowance would be each week, which is more than ample considering they have no household bills to pay, and to work towards them having that amount every week after housing. They found in term 2 it meant they needed to get a bar job for 1-2 nights a week to supplement, which is not a problem with the times and intensity of their course.

This year they have signed up to live in an expensive area in year 2. On doing the sums (properly, instead of the rushed way they did it at the time) a lot of months after signing up, she's figured out that at the very least she is going to have to ease up on takeaways this year. I'm not going to fund extra money so she can have more regular takeaways, what exactly is she learning there?

Thanks - it’s really helpful to know this - I don’t want to nag my DC/create stress and anxiety over this, but now I know when I get an email so will they. Totally agree it’s a piss take, parents are expected to pay but it’s a secret amount…

And thanks for all the help and support, I’m really glad I asked on here.

I'm quite shocked that you think that the full loan amount allows for 4 nights out a week, multiple takeaways or more money than JSA.

We've calculated that slightly over the full loan amount will give our DC £75 per week (for 52 weeks per year) after (uncatered, mid-low range halls accommodation). A conservative £35 for food a week will give £40 per week to cover laundry, books, stationary, clothes, transport, haircuts, toiletries, club memberships/subscriptions, prescriptions, sanitary wear, dentist, social life and entertainment etc and is below the JSA weekly amount of £84.80.

Full loan (or lower loan topped up to full) doesn't give money for frivolous spends, it just about covers basic living costs. It's really not "a hell of a lot of fun money", it's the bare minimum required.

@mrsm43s genuine question. Why are you giving an allowance for 52 weeks?

Simply - because there's 52 weeks in the year, and they'll need money for all of them!

More complicatedly -as I said in an earlier post, we're going to do a lot of the budgeting for them (collecting all the money, paying accommodation fees, and giving them a weekly spending amount). Paying all year round gives them the chance to save and budget over the holidays, and understand the discipline of that, whilst always having the safety net of enough for food/essentials coming in each week. So I guess a bit of a halfway house in terms of managing their own money. They should start each term with some savings that they can dip in to as needed, from their holiday job, and from any of their "allowance" that they don't spend (predominantly the portion for food).

It was basically the result of a discussion between DC and DH & I. Happy to change it to a different method if DC finds it doesn't work for them. This is our eldest, so we're working out what works best as we go along.

Mine learnt to budget themselves. Their grant and loan is paid termly, they work out how much they have to spend after their rent is paid and live accordingly. This approach has worked fine for both of them so far.

The student gets a letter emailed with the amount of the loan they will receive you just deduct this from the max loan to work out top-up. The loan is based on earned taxable income not benefits (ie amount on p60 after pension deductions).a small amount is deducted for other dependents. Many unis automatically offer bursaries to those with larger loans / lower family income especially where rents are high - they get the info from student finance. Check the uni website and if your dc has to do anything to get this if eligible. This is usually a sliding scale up to more middling incomes. I’m a single parent and dc got hefty loans plus bursary. While they have bigger loan to pay back they were financially better off than those who just got topped up to max loan. I saved quite a bit of money on food and bills during termtime so was also able to help out more than I thought. The bursaries seem to be calculated so students have £3000 pa a year after rent. So for a 30 week term uni expects a student to need £100 a week.

Totally agree with your logic @anon2022anon

Simply - because there's 52 weeks in the year, and they'll need money for all of them!
I think, @mrsm43s many parents presume their dc will work through the holidays and earn their own money. Even those who think their students ought not be encouraged to work during term time. Oh, and £35 a week for food is not 'conservative'. None of mine have spent anything like that, is you are excluding takeaways / meals out.

@mrsm43s we're a year in, I can assure you that in the first term at least, it did fund that.

DD is at Newcastle. A night out during the week at a student night can be done for £15-20. The halls are on campus so no travel, and very close to the student nightlife. Books have been used from the library, not purchased, so no cost there. Her halls have a washing machine in the flat. We did an essential food/stationery/ house stuff shop before moving in, so no big expenses to lay out.

Quite simply, we were/are giving her roughly £250 a month, £50 roughly was going on a food shop, the rest was going on alcohol and junk food. She's gained an ear piercing and a tattoo in that time too.

Ask your son/ daughter if you can see their bank statements at the end of year one, I bet it surprises you how much they can live frugally to spend on fun stuff 😂

She's in a flat of 6 too, and they were all the same at spending- did a joint Aldi run once a moment, joint Asda top up shop 2 weeks in to share delivery costs, and went out on those nights out together.

Ok. I'm not happy giving my child less than the minimum recommended amount of parental top up, in exactly the same way as I wouldn't try to shirk out of paying the minimum amount of child maintenance, indeed in both cases, I'd aim to give more.

There's no way anyone can feed themselves healthily for £50 a month btw,as I'm sure you're aware.

We also split the "top-up to full loan" evenly over 12 month. We offered DD the choice of that, or of getting slightly higher amounts for 9 months, and that's what she chose. In Year 2, rent runs all year and so it made sense to her.

My son gets the minimum student loan and the nhs bursary. We are paying his accommodation, he will need to live off his loan and bursary. Any extra will have to come from him getting a job.