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

Ds will get minimum maintenance loan. He’s going to a northern university (Lancaster) where accommodation is reasonably cheap but it’s still £6700 ish. His university operates three full terms so he’ll be there right through to the second week in July (they all stay because there’s a big week of college festivals at the very end of the summer term)

We will use the minimum maintenance loan to pay the rent (obviously we will have to add the other £2k ish). We will also pay his college fee but I think that’s only about £50.

we are then giving him £500 a month to live on. So in total it will cost us about £8k ish a year plus buying any bits he needs to take (mattress toppers etc are compulsory and he needs a laptop). I’m largely kitting him out with spare stuff from home.

Didn’t she have a choice of accommodation?

My DD will be getting the nhs bursary and I expect the minimum loan amount due to our income of around 100k (although I can’t find any details on the sliding scale so no real idea and no email yet!) but she’s living at home so no accommodation costs and we’ll continue to cover her food costs.

She’d have liked to live out but more sensible for her to live here.

I feel the same way especially given DS's track record with spending 🙄

DH and I have debated whether it would be better for us to pay his rent (same as minimum loan), leaving him to budget his loan but I suspect that would be a recipe for disaster.

Maybe for Year 2, we will review. Will see how he gets on this year.

@mrsm43s I'm aware that there no way she can eat healthily for £50 a month. However, things you are not considering is that the person you are going to be paying for is an adult, and that once the money leaves your account and reaches theirs, you have no control of it. The narrative of students living on pizza and pot noodles is there for a reason. She receives more than enough money to spend 25-40 a week a food shopping, batch cook and still have some money left over, but I can't make her do that when she's living 3 hours away and an adult. And neither can you. Because they are an adult out of your supervision.

What I could do is figure out the amount that I believed she could live comfortably on, and how many nights out a week I would fund without feeling like I was being taken advantage of, and send that over. Which I do. Beyond that, I can't control an adults behaviour.

And that's a shitty dig about child maintenance. There's a difference between a parent leaving another parent to completely fund a child's upbringing, and refusing to pay for a busy social life for an adult. As you will probably learn in the next year when your young adult may go out more times than they cook in a week.

And that's a shitty dig about child maintenance. There's a difference between a parent leaving another parent to completely fund a child's upbringing, and refusing to pay for a busy social life for an adult.

Totally.

I don't know why posters have to get so defensive on these threads.
There are all sorts of ways to sort out finance with your students. What works for one family doesn't work so well for another. There are so many factors that input into it (the student's personality and life experience, the family's finances and what other siblings there are, the University they are attending, course they are doing, and so many more things).
People who have already supported students offer advice that many first time parents aren't aware of - for example the deposits and then the rent for 2nd year accom coming out of first year money to try to be helpful, not to criticise others' decisions.
Everyone should do what they want, but if taking part in a discussion thread on the internet, also understand that others will make different decisions.

It's not a shitty dig about child maintenance, its directly comparable.

Despite being affordable (due to means testing) some parents are refusing to give their child the bare minimum required to live on. Whether they are spending it on what the parents want is neither here nor there, it's not up to the parents to make those choices in the same way that a non resident parent doesn't get to decide how the resident parent spends the child maintenance.

Children are entitled to the full top up amount from their parents, and withholding that support disadvantages children.

They aren't 'entitled' to anything at all what are you talking about it is recommended nobody can enforce it? If parents are in the position to financially support their kids through Uni then great but for many they cannot.

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)

Christ let them live their own lives and work things out for themselves.

This is so useful to know about year 2, thank you. He is going to an expensive place- well it seems expensive, self catering accommodation is almost £200 per week which seems higher than a lot of places.

Hand on heart I am not sure he will stick to the course (for various reasons). I want to hand him everything on a plate but that won’t help him or me or DC2 in the long run. Hard to get the balance right isn’t it.

@mrsm43s they aren't entitled to anything at all from their parents. Anything. If a parent chooses not to or can't pay (because, as there are several hundreds of threads about, those with a middle income are struggling too, and it doesn't take a massive income to give a substantial reduction in loan amount) then the student has to support themselves.
The government has in no way dictated that the parent has got to give their child that amount.

They also have a recommended amount, that aside from being London/ not, or staying at home/ not, doesn't take into account the differences in: the cost of student accommodation in different unis, distance from university, hours needed in class or free time, supplies needed for the course, ANYTHING. It is an amount that will leave some students struggling, and others with a sometimes irresponsible amount of money free

To me, it makes a whole lot more sense to actually review the students costs for the year and top up with a fair amount, than to agree to an arbitrary amount that has no relevance on the students living costs.

Also, it is not disadvantaging a student who is not on a course that demands excessive hours or study to expect them to get a part time job. In my opinion, the way you are treating yours like a child is doing them a dis-service as a young adult living away from home. Let them live and learn. Although my DD can and has been irresponsible at times, I can honestly say she learnt quickly how she needs to manage her money and is a lot more responsible than her peers who still rely on parents. That's not to say we're not there for emergencies, but we give her a budget, she runs it. Because, as I keep repeating, she is an adult.

But maybe you'll learn this the first month that you give your child hundreds of pounds, and they go out every other night while eating junk food. Because there's every chance that they could do so.

@CrapBucket that does seem expensive.

Not every accommodation needs deposit/ rent up front- Dd's hasn't expected payment until August, which is still well before the student loan, but at least not til after the other term has finished. But it can be worth having a little look around now at the areas that he might want to stay in year 2, and the prices/ contract length so you can factor it into the sums.

I hope he enjoys it 😊

@Passe one of the things that was useful for us to do together to make a decision was to sit and do a sample weekly shop together on Asda or wherever. It scared her a little that she needed to keep X amount of money free each week for food!

We then made a list of other costs together- travel to uni if needed, washing + drying costs, how much a night out a week may cost, amount spent on books and stationery a month, factored in how much a train home say every 2 months might be, toiletries, luxuries. From there we were able to make a plan together on what was a fair amount, what they think that we should be funding, and what they thought they might want to try and get in savings before they go to take the pressure off finding a job right away, when they felt it was important to make the most of Freshers. We also found out how much rent was termly, and howuch her loan was, whether she would need to pay extra in September but have a bit of play money in April.

It was a good tool in helping us decide that she was better off receiving a monthly sum, but also drilled it home to her that her student loan was sacred for rent and if she didn't pay it right away, she would be screwed.

I agree with all of this, but especially this part
To me, it makes a whole lot more sense to actually review the students costs for the year and top up with a fair amount, than to agree to an arbitrary amount that has no relevance on the students living costs.

One thing that usually shocks first time students, is how expensive laundry can be. Yes, it varies, but, as a whole, halls / campus washing machines take a goodly portion of budget that surprises students - especially those students who have been used to just dropping things in the wash that probably don't really need washing

You don't have to pay anything. Many parents don't, or can't, pay any extra. During my own time at university, my loan covered my rent with about £50 leftover so I had a job to get money for food etc. No parental contributions. Worked full time over the summer to save up extra for the coming year. This isn't a pity party btw, but thought I'd add this for balance!

You don’t HAVE to pay anything. However, the loan for living is means tested and there is an expectation that parents top up to the full loan amount. That amount is what students are expected to need to live on. Anyone who isn’t topped up, and who for whatever reason can’t earn enough, will find themselves in hardship.

The state is providing X amount and for most students who don’t get the full maintenance loan, as expectation of co tinted financial support through education is expected and that’s made very clear although of course it can’t be enforced. Clearly families do have different scenarios and some who don’t qualify for the full maintenance loan have more than others. I think it’s one thing when families look closely at it and do the numbers ahead of time and decide they just can’t support their kids and make sure they know that in advance and help them consider how they will finance themselves to plug the gap, and something quite different if a family simply say ‘we won’t be financially supporting you’ without even considering it or looking at the numbers. Certainly some families have no interest in HE or inclination to use their money to support their kids through this, even if they have it. And as has been said, there’s nothing that can be done to make them…it is voluntary. However, the reality is these kids are disadvantaged. Quite simply, the world of HE isn’t a level playing field. Those with more financial support will have a wider choice of unis and courses and accommodations and a different student experience. It’s not just about having more cash for boozing but also things like being able to choose accommodation early which requires hefty deposits upfront….in locations close to uni which makes studying more straightforward.

Absolutley, some families can’t afford to help. Absolutley there are also families who if they’d thought about it 3 years before, could have made a few adjustments to their budget so they could provide something as support, but didn’t get round to doing that. And there are those too who either don’t understand that there is an expectation in parents to top-up and have somehow missed the memo, and those too who saw the memo but choose not to support. And all credit to those 18 year olds who manage and head off and get their degrees. I know some families think that at 18 it’s time for a young person to fully stand in their own feet. In my view, it’s all about growing independence and that’s step by step, and finances are part of it.

Fuck me this is expensive!! He’s had the email. Way off the calculator prediction. I expected to contribute a little under £3k pa and in reality it’s over £5k. Argh.

It's up to you how much you contribute. You know how much loan he is getting, you both need to work out how much he needs to live on and what the difference is between that and the loan amount, then how the difference will be funded. You will not be compelled to contribute anything. He could get a job or might have savings for instance. Even if you contribute the £5k that might still leave him short if it's expensive. My DC's halls are £9k this year! You're getting too caught up in the expected amount, when really there is no such thing. We contribute way above the 'expected' amount but that's our choice and we're lucky we can afford to. If you can't, then you contribute what you can afford and your DC looks at jobs.

@Motherhubbardscupboard thanks - I do realise that it is only a guideline amount but just feeling the pang of wanting my children to have as good a start in life as everyone around them. But of course there are differences in luckiness with this as much as any other part of life.

@CrapBucket he will be fine. At all universities there is a broad range of students and a huge difference in their financial situations. You'll find your son will be in the same position as loads of others. You're doing your best for him which is all you can do. Work out what he needs and come up with a plan between you.

That’s a great post by @WombatChocolate

It is true that some parents have no ability to provide any support for their children, but there is also this odd expectation by some people that once a child turns 18 they should be completely independent, which I really struggle to understand.

DS’s dad pays his fee’s (I personally think he should have got a loan for that but his dad didn’t want him getting any debt) and then his dad pays his rent (7-8k) and I give him £100 a month. His dad has forgot he still gives £50 a month for 5 a side so he’s getting £150 a month and he generally lives off that. He’s working 30-36hrs a week during the summer so earning around 3.5k which he will use for nights out / anything else. He had his childhood savings and trust fund which he didn’t really need to dip much into. He’s very lucky not having to take the loan. I think it makes sense to pay the rent for them and let them live off maintenance term time and work in the summer