How much for university maintenance

[Orquid]

How much you/ your child spend on maintenance per month at university: Food, accommodation, transport, entertainment, etc. If they live away from home; and what university or town are they in.

Thinking DD will need at least £900 per month. We only want her to borrow the fees so is not too much debt.

Martin Lewis is very gd on student loans. There are lots of links on his website, but this is a gd start:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-decoded/

Broadly, he has said the options are:

1. if you can’t afford otherwise and/or your child already knows they will be working in a (relatively) low paid sector: take all loans to the maximum because they will likely never pay them off.

2. if your child doesn’t know what they want to do, take the maximum loans and review the situation when they graduate and start working. At that point you may have a better idea of whether they will earn a lot or a little. If they are going to be relatively high earners, under the new loans, they will probably repay most if not all. You might then consider helping them to pay off some or all of the loan sooner rather than later to reduce the interest paid. However, this is a judgement call - will they always be a high earner etc. You may prefer to give them the money as a deposit for a house. Interest will have accumulated on the loans so even if you pay them off in full at that point, there will be this cost. Think of it as the cost of the option of having a better idea about your child's future earning prospects.

3. if you can afford it, pay the lot and don’t take the loans. This is a way of distributing your wealth tax free ie exempt from IHT as it’s a regular payment to your child. (But still consider if there is a different way you may want to help your child with this money financially.)

4. He explains why taking only some of the loans at the outset is actually the worst option. It’s surprising how many people don’t realise this - you are not alone OP.

You do have to take a view on your child’s future earning prospects and also what you can afford. However, thinking about it in terms of the “size of the debt” is not the right way, it’s not like a mortgage.

The details of the loans have changed over time and for current students, a greater proportion are expected to pay back in full, but a significant minority won’t.

The Labour govt made a mistake when they first introduced these loans; it should have been a graduate tax that all graduates paid for a certain number of years. What we’ve got is a muddle that a lot of people don’t understand. The amount you can borrow depends on your parents’ income but the amount you pay back is dependent on your income. Structuring them as loans was for accounting reasons - to give unis funding and keep it off the balance sheet. Always the wrong way to make decisions!

There is also the possibility of a “black swan” event where the govt decides to properly fund universities and all students loans are cancelled but unfortunately I think that’s very unlikely ….

Very helpful. Thanks

I have also been looking at this. I understand that student finance is changing in 2025...I think. But I am not sure of the details. Does anyone have a source or specific details.

Do you mean this?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/03/lifelong-loan-entitlement-student-finance-overhaul/

It changes who is eligible for funding but - so far - doesn’t seem to change the repayment model (they’ll be Plan 5 loans).

We didn’t get anything from the college but it was during Covid although I don’t think we had mass restrictions at the time dd was applying and starting her first year. But we didn’t get invited to any talks or anything and the first round of open days were online.
Dd is at Bristol, it definitely is extortionately expensive renting any kind of property down there, even halls was an eye watering amount for essentially a damp, mouldy, dark cupboard!

Yes that's what I meant. The details seem unclear still and as it looks like we're probably having a new Government it all feels a bit unknown! Is this actually going to happen?

I assume they still have their tuition fees loan and a maintenance loan (amount depending on parental income), but do any of the other T&C's change? Someone on another thread mentioned it was better to start a course in 2024 than 2025.

I found this but it sounds quite complicated: www.gov.uk/government/publications/lifelong-learning-entitlement-lle-overview/lifelong-learning-entitlement-overview

Are tuition fees increasing in 2025?

It would be nice if they could confirm the details of what students are signing up for before they start signing up!

From the link I gave (dated in 2023 but doesn’t seem to have been updated)

1. Repayments will be based on the new 'Plan 5' terms. Under the rules as they currently stand, this means you would pay back 9% of everything you earn above a certain threshold (£25,000 currently) and any remaining amount owed will be wiped after 40 years.

I think the only thing Labour has said about student loans is that they aren’t getting rid of them. But others may have seen more details…

The university sector is in an extreme funding crisis with staff being laid off and courses cut, but it doesn’t seem to feature in the election campaign….

And the rest!

Interest starts running from day 1 of them taking any loans. As such, if you take the tuition fee loan and the minimum maintenance loan (circa £4.5k), by the time you leave at the end of the third year your debt will be circa £55k. This is because on some of it you have accumulated three years worth of interest already.

On a four year loan its much higher since you have circa £40k in tuition alone plus another £18k in minimum maintenance and the interest will have been running for four years not three so your £58k borrowed will be over £70k. Plus of course, if you only get minimum maintenance loan, someone (probably parents) has also had to pay your accommodation for four years at an average cost of about £7k so thats another £25-£30k on top of the loans..

The English loan system changed between 2023 and 2024 starts. There are no changes proposed again, although that may change after Thursday. I don't think any of the parties have mentioned student loans or tuition fees.

@TheChosenTwo I forget sometimes how good their sixth form was. From the start of year 12 they have internal talks and presentations about the two pathways they support, one is working/apprenticeships the other is uni. Right from the start they are thinking about it. As parents we are brought in for that same work/uni talk with finance over-view and later for select students competitive entry so medicine/vet Oxbridge. In depth finance for uni parents at the beginning of year 13 before uni applications start.

They had looking forward days with unis and employers there to talk. This is an outstanding sixth form that supports everyone not just the highly academic students.

Ds was willing to take on the debt as he has landed a graduate job and knows that his take home pay will have removed tax, NI, pension, private healthcare and his student loan before he sees it. He is just looking at what he actually walks home with. Even on £50k he would be only be paying £2k a year toward the student loan.

@Orquid things to consider, laundry both washing and drying, Ds says 1 week to 10 days for clothes, same for bedding and towels so 2 loads every week as a minimum. Amazon Prime, Netflix, Spotify, Phone contact and insurance and any other subscriptions. Some unis will list average costs in their area for living costs.

This thread is making me a bit depressed 😅🥲I am feeling very sorry for the youngest generations.

We pay rent. 650 a month or 8k a year. They live of the maintenance loan of 4500 a year.
Northern city.
It's a stretch for us to pay that tbh. They haven't found a job despite looking.

It is awful. we are trying to support two kids through Uni as maintenance loans don't even cover rent. Ds has tried and tried to get work to no avail. DD will be starting Nursing course in sept so unlikely to be able to do much work due to placements etc but hopefully will get NHS bursary. For various reasons both will have done four years each at Uni. we have also supported eldest ds through Uni a few years ago. All the time whilst trying to save to retire which seems a long way off. Then they start their working lives with all this debt.

What are the brackets for the parents income?

DH who isn't DD's dad, but lives with us, earns quite well.

Is it household income of the parent the student resides with?

The brackets are on the student finance website but over £60k ish they can only borrow the minimum of around £4k.
I think its household income, I don't know how they know who lives there though

It's the income of the parent(s) the student lives with, plus any new partner of the parent at the same address. Sibling income eg doesn't count.
Student finance has access to HMRC data so can check.

DD does lots of babysitting when home, does tutoring for a child who is home schooled and also has a bar job.

Hello @lokshen I was thinking similar amount per week and wanted to know do you give the £100 to your child each week or give as a monthly equivalent? I fear My dd will burn through the monthly amount in the first couple of weeks (going by how she gets through her part time job pay) if give a monthly amount but I was wondering if I transfer / standing order at the start of each week?

My DD is going to uni in September. She has applied for the minimum maintenance loan which I think works out at around £120/week, and we are paying for accomodation which is approx 200/week but it does vary between areas.

They need to learn to budget and paying weekly will leave them short in some weeks, particularly during freshers. DS gets minimum loan of about £4500. He uses this to pay some of his rent. We then top up the rent and give him £500 a month (about £115 a week). We also pay for his lenses and phone. That’s fine for him but he’s not in London. He spent lots more in the first term than the second. Spent quite a bit at the end of summer term after exams when they’re going to balls and parties etc. it isn’t linear. In the first term he also had to pay out for memberships and clubs, a couple of books, bus pass, college subs etc.
we don’t give him anything in the holidays.

Most people I know with kids who only get minimum loan (pretty much everyone I know) pay their rent for them and then they live on the minimum maintenance loan.

This might help work our what you would get, you don't have to put household income or details in if you are only applying for the minimum

Except if applying to Imperial (there might be others) who I think said that they give you a bursary if household income under £70k. You don't apply and they just tell you, so that must only work if you've applied with household income?

Free tuition is for Scottish residents studying in Scotland. There are restrictions on courses/places and requirements relating to length of residency.

The Scottish Government doesn't just cover tuition fees for anyone who has a tenuous historical link to the country!

Thank you. I researched it a bit yesterday and found out.