University: weekly money needed as 'extra' in 1st year (catered accomm)

[GLVF]

Eldest went off to uni for first time yesterday. We briefly discussed what we'll give her as an allowance to live off for extras, but I'm wondering if this may need revising.

She's in catered accommodation fairly close to campus. So, the main costs I foresee are:
• 5x sandwich-type lunch (Mon–Fri lunches are her only uncatered meals)/occasional snack or coffee out (we did pack her off with snacks)
• evening drinking/clubs (but she's not a huge drinker)
• possible bus travel (unlikely, as fairly central to uni/shops)
• very occasional extras, like haircut/cinema.

We plan to help her separately with printing/laundry/books costs, so I'm really focusing on main weekly expenses throughout term-time. What kind of ballpark are we thinking in the modern world to help her start to budget without leaving her hungry/deprived?! Are there many things I haven't thought of?

Our thinking was – very simplistically – £5 x 5 for sandwich + snack/coffee during day, and £15 x 3 for nights out, which equates to £70/wk. It should leave a little extra, potentially, if she's careful, as she rarely drinks more than 2-3 drinks, and has plenty of snacks for the time being.

Of course this will depend on family circumstances and location of uni, but a rough idea from those in the know would be helpful. She's been earning a little (waitressing) throughout sixth form and is usually fairly careful with money.

Thanks!

For MH reasons DD is very limited in the work she can do (food related).
She has been running a little business of her own for around 3 years which has given her some savings and if she can do similar near Uni she will but unfortunately most student jobs are in Hospitality and she just can't do them

They definitely do allow term time jobs, as I was recently talking to Cambridge students, who work during term time.

How can they "ban" what students do after university hours?

Most halls use Circuit Laundry which was £4 for a wash and £3 for a dry last year so £40 a month is pretty accurate.

Cambridge students definitely are not allowed to inderake paid employment during termtime ( except for the university or SU)

There is a difference between "shouldn't" and "can't".

If a Cambridge student chose to work on Saturdays at a local supermarket, the university really wouldn't care. If the fact that they were working meant that they weren't devoting sufficient time to their studies, the university would potentially follow this up and suggest they gave up the job.

But not really any different to spending large amount of time on sport/music/going to the union/student politics.

What you posted says

"Cambridge university takes the view that students shouldn't work during term time."

"Takes the view" is very different from "banned".

That doesn't say that the University has banned students from working during term time.

From a human rights perspective, you can't tell an adult that they can't work. And you can't dictate to an adult what they do outside University hours.

They can give advice on what they reccommend. But they can't stop anyone from doing things at the weekend

As I said, I know cambridge students who work during term time.

This is what I've realised. There would be next to nothing left. We'll have to sub her quite a bit, with or without her working in the holidays.

Oxbridge terms are contracted so they have to fit in more per term pro rata than other universities.

Universities like Oxbridge may not be able to dictate, but they can advise/suggest, as they're in a position to know how much is feasible for their students to achieve the results they need from attending such a rigorously academic establishment. If my child were at Oxbridge, I wouldn't want them working unless it was during holidays.

They certainly used to be able to ban it, like they could also ban students having cars, being away from college too many nights, and various other regulations. (obviously special exceptions apply in all cases). There were contracts signed with the college as part of becoming a student that said you would follow its regulations.

I think the ban changed at some point to allow students to work, though advised against it. Other regulations have also eased. But the college do have more control over students' lives than they might elsewhere, because it's also a place to live, eat, study, be a communal member of etc, and so they seem able to dictate more what does happen. What they actually did in terms of discipline, and how carefully things like paid work were monitored etc, probably varied in practice. (And like I say, quite a while ago, like 15-20+ years). They also had the power to, for example, discipline students based on behaviour in or outside of the college, in a way that might not be possible elsewhere where the university might not be able to control what adults do with their lives. Because you have to be a member of a college, that gives an extra layer of control.

Sorry OP, not really relevant to your question, but yes, students do work these days, Cambridge and elsewhere, either in term time or holidays.

@GLVF this might be useful.

Sorry to derail but reading this thread I understand better now why I felt completely marginalised at university... I was so poor!!

Times certainly were different 25 years ago and I lived in catered halls for a year. But my lunch every day was two slices of brown bread with Philadelphia and sliced cucumber, an apple and a muesli bar. I took my own water bottle everywhere. I walked. I simply never had money for clothes, haircuts, makeup, meals out, nights out except the bargain basement kind, taxis or tumble drying!! I struggled to buy textbooks even at book sales. I couldn't afford the gym or any paid-for societies. I never had the right trainers or bag, or even a good coat. I never had parcels from home, nice things in my room, nice toiletries. I felt shabby... not by choice, and I'm sure it showed. When it came to interviews and applying for graduate schemes I must have stuck out badly. And yet my parents weren't poor enough to qualify me for anything. It was difficult and I felt really excluded and out of place.

I worked every available hour during holidays including split shifts, but not during term-time, my course was too full on and I stupidly had a boyfriend in another city.

We need to encourage young families to start college funds for their children, it seems like a lifetime away but the years go fast and Uni is expensive as we all know from experience.

@BlueBobble Similar for me too. I was always in the shabbier shared flat and didn’t have all the right stuff, not out of deprivation but because my parents aren’t/weren’t flash with money and weren’t as materialistic as the more city types. I don’t see it as a bad thing, looking back.

Life has changed perhaps, in that some (not all, of course) teens will want to prioritise e.g. makeup over drinks if not a big drinker. Young people seem to be very clued up as to what they want to project, but there’s plenty to celebrate about the younger generation too! A lot of them are far healthier than I feel we were back then, and I don’t mean in a vain way but truly thinking longer term about their (life/health) choices.

I'm well aware that my original post will be answered by people of multiple demographic angles and financial extremes, and that’s helpful so we can make an informed decision. Just because we could potentially afford more than average doesn’t mean I think we should (have to), partly as this is a good opportunity for a young person to learn about budgeting but also partly as we have to plan carefully for our own financial future too.

Lots to consider and thanks to everyone for chipping in with ideas and advice.

Thank you! Wow, that’s a huge amount per week for clothes and homewares!

My son only finished at Cambridge 4 years ago and had to ask permission to come home for a sibling's wedding, the rule about not travelling in a car within x distance of the uni and the termtime working rules were part of the terms you had to agree to.

Regarding working during term time at Cambridge (or Oxford), Cambridge has eight week terms and Monday-Saturday lectures. They also publish advice for some subjects on the number of hours per week they expect students to be spending on university work (lectures, lab work, supervisions, preparation for supervisions etc) - for example, for computer science, the university expectation is for up to 48 hours per week to be spent on university work. If Cambridge students are doing paid work during full term time, therefore, I seriously doubt they are doing a science subject. There is plenty of time in the summer for paid employment, but how utterly ridiculous to try to squeeze working in term time into such short, intense terms. On top of that, you save a lot of money at Oxford and Cambridge by only having to pay for college accommodation in term time, but this means that for almost half the year, you are expected to be elsewhere, which limits the sort of paid, year-round work you can do, as you are not in one physical location all year. Most Oxford and Cambridge students are not from Oxford or Cambridge.

Also, the idea that the children of the wealthiest parents, who therefore get the lowest maintenance loans, should be expected to be working the hardest to make up the difference between their maintenance loan and the actual cost of university, is pretty laughable. What proportion of parents would deliberately disadvantage their student child compared to other students when they could afford not to? Self-evidently the intention of the loan system is that the larger the parents’ income, the more they are expected by society as a whole to assist their student offspring, and that they are not expected to suddenly announce to them that they are fully grown adults, now, who must look out for themselves. If you really believe that at 18, people are suddenly adults who must look after themselves, you might as well argue that students shouldn’t be entitled to student loans they may never pay back at all and that they should all be working full time jobs whilst simultaneously studying, or should be taking out commercial loans. If it is believed to be a good thing for the country as a whole to assist people to do degrees by subsidising the costs, because it’s seen as an investment in the future prosperity of the country as a whole, then why should students’ own parents be so mercenary in their attitude towards their own children? People on this thread who have commented that they got no parental help despite not being entitled to the full maintenance loan, need to accept that this is not “the norm,” it’s just what their parents did and, if their parents could have afforded to help them out a bit more, comes across as very hard faced.

Reading with interest. Mine will have about £195 a week, which I think is too much really. Accommodation, car, phone, gym is already paid for by me. I've told her I'm expecting her to save out of that, but we'll see. A friend has two kids at uni, but is earning just above the threshold for anything more than the basic loan, so her dc have £50 a week, with anything extra earned themselves. I don't think it hurts kids to learn to economise and budget.

How come it's so much? Is that what the maintenance loan works out at?

I don't see how it's £66 per week on lifestyle items. Lots of the homeware stuff will have come with them or be Christmas presents. For clothes, Vinted and charity shops mostly. And would it really be £31 per week every week on stationery and books?

You said

"but how utterly ridiculous to try to squeeze working in term time into such short, intense terms "

But many students manage to do it!

Let's not look at Cambridge in particular anymore, but at students going to University in general.

Many, many students work through University and fund their own University studies.

Saying that there is no time to work during University doesn't make any sense.

Look at younger teenagers. Many younger teenagers are able to go to school, have lots of homework in the evenings, and they still are able to do a part time job at the weekend.

If they can do a part time job at school, they can do a part time job at University

When I was at Cambridge doing natsci I worked 9-9 six days a week and usually 10-6 on Sundays. I occasionally used to finish at 7pm on a Saturday for a treat.. I have no idea when I would have fitted a job in.

In second year I managed to get it down to working about 60 hours a week instead of 80 but all that meant was that I was less exhausted, rather than really having enough time for a job.

I also did extremely long hours when I was at University as well, and I still managed to work a job at the weekends. I don't know anyone that didn't work during Univeristy.

When you're a student , workplaces give you shifts to fit you. They want part time students at the weekends. You can do a shift of four hours at the weekend.

I worked in a restaurant and a shop at the weekends, the restaurant was full of other University students doing part time shifts. Loads of students worked.

@Abbylikeswine

Copied from the student loan section of government website,

"Depending on their income, parents may have to contribute towards your living costs while you’re studying."

You might not agree with the system, but it is the current system in place that if your parents earn over a certain amount, the maintenance loan you can claim is less, and your parents are expected, by the government, to make up the shortfall. If parents choose not too, guess that's their prerogative. Personally I don't think it's particularly fair when the child has been unable to claim the full loan because of their parents income.

We will be giving Dd £100 a week, she is not in catered accommodation, so food will also come out of this. She also plans on getting a part time job.

Edit to add, my parents also gave me a weekly allowance over 30 years ago, and I only worked during holidays, so nothing new really.

Wowsers, if you worked 80 hours a week on your degree and fitted shifts on top of that that is exceptionally impressive.

I just wouldn't have been capable of doing that and it's not a failure on my part not to be able to work more than 80 hours a week.

I guess technically you are right that I could have started at 9 on a Sunday and then fitted a 4 hour a shift in from 6 to 10 pm, but I don't think that would have been a reasonable expectation.

Why wouldnt it be a reasonable expectation.

Fair enough that you didnt want to do it.

Many people did work shifts while at University.

Everyone who goes to University has a very full schedule of classes, practicals and homework. People work shifts around their University schedule.

Sure many younger teenagers go to school Monday to Friday, and they also work a part time job at the weekends.

If teenagers at school can do it, why would you think that teenagers at University can't do it?