Parent top up - what did you get

[Awayinthewindow]

I read a lot about parents top up to the max loan and the amount parents contribute these days. As someone with young dcs who went to uni around 15-20 yrs ago I'm curious how much did your parents contribute around the 2095-2010 era and is it really every parent topping up £5-10k a year now?

To add to the above... my favourite offers were from Imperial College and Sheffield. My parents were apologetic... but there was no way they could support me financially to go to Imperial unless I lived at home. They strongly encouraged me to take the Sheffield offer. I was very happy there.

The minimum loan amount won’t touch the sides of the accommodation costs, at least not in the first year at the uni/halls o OP f residence accommodation. It hasn’t kept up.

So what parents did in previous generations is irrelevant to what has to happen now.

1994-97 I still had a grant! No tuition fees. Those were the days. My parents didn't give me anything at all as they had no need to (just as well they had none to give) I worked in the uni holidays for money to do fun stuff.

These days it is not the same at all. You have to get loans for tuition fees and the maintenance loan and even with the max loan rent might barely be covered depending on where you go.

The maintenance loan is based on parental income and reduced in line with that so there is basically an unsaid expectation that parents will top up to the max maintenance loan at least. I plan to do that for my DD and have saved up to be able to. Martin Lewis has good articles on this and a calculator on his website

Even back in the 90s it was possible to shaft your kid as the grant was based on parental income. My friends dad didn't want her to go (massive sexist who thought education was wasted on a girl) so he refused to declare his income and she got nothing. She took a year out saved up and worked all the way through to get her degree.

I went 97 - 2000 and got a full grant, which still wasn’t enough to live on. My parents gave me £20 here and there and £1K towards a one semester student exchange in another country. I ‘had to’ take out a student loan of about £1.4k every year to live off, but looking back I was lazy and wish I’d tried harder to get part-time work whilst at uni and any kind of work in the summer holidays, so I wouldn’t have needed the loan. Still, graduating with almost £4.5K debt is small fry compared to what today’s graduates owe by the time they finish (£45k).

Mid 90’s I didn’t take the loan. My dad paid my hall fees and rent and gave me £65 a week. I was lucky

I started uni in 2007. I got the minimum loan due to my parents' income. They let me keep all of it to live on, and they paid my full rent all three years (first year in halls then privately renting). I was in London and IIRC it was around £125pw.
In first and second year I had a lovely part-time job in the archives which I loved. 7 hours a week, flexible on days and I could do extra if I wanted, and be away in holidays / during exam periods. I stopped it in 3rd year to focus on finals and my dad gave me a bit extra to make up for it.
I was very lucky! Loved my degree and my uni years.

Nothing. I had to work a lot though university.
I want out children to have a better time.

My late 90s loan covered catered accomodation costs and my part time job paid for everything else such as books, clothes and sundries which at the time didn't include internet as we still had a computer room with dial up and had to book slots if we needed to use one. Edited to add my parents gave me £50 per month towards uni and I was so so grateful.

I went to uni a bit later than you. But essentially my parents paid for my rent and my maintenance loan went to me. They also paid for my train journeys home

My parents paid for my accommodation and living expenses. I only had a loan for my tuition and it was £3k a year then.

My parents are high earners.

We are currently paying for PS and will just continue using that money for uni so the children won't need a loan.

I was 1998. First year of tuition fees, which in those days meant you had to pay them on arrival - there was no arrangement to pay them by loan as now. Loans were about £3k for the year (I graduated owing £9k). I managed ok, but was always in my overdraft. My parents had me pay my fees out of my loan (you could make termly installments) and they paid me back £100 a month.

I worked through summers but otherwise just a couple of hours a week doing campus and hall tours.

I’m working on the assumption that our kids will take out the loan for fees but we will cover accommodation and a contribution to living expenses. They can then choose whether to work or take a loan for anything else they require.

Went mid 90s and no tuition fees and almost full grant. Accommodation I went for cheapest room and was £20 a week for 10 weeks each time so £600 a year. And one year got given a £140 travel award and another year £40 award. Did take loans but only kept them in high interest account. I was given a place with a year out before as professor was taking a year out so they gave me one too and worked during that but lived in middle of nowhere so was £2.50 an hour. I was pretty frugal at university and I remember lecturing a boy who had been to boarding school on how he was wasting money by paying £1.40 a day for breakfast when he could get the ingredients from the supermarket for the whole week for that and he then stopped taking breakfast. 😂I remember a Masters was £1,000 and so I turned it down as considered it too much money.

I got a full grant in the mid-90s, It easily paid my rent and I lived comfortably but definitely not extravagantly! My older boyfriend took me out for food shopping when he came to stay which obviously helped.

Im now paying the rent for DS as he’s on a minimum loan. It’s just under £500 a month. This is in an “affordable” university town, with lower living costs. We also pay the phone contract and costs linked to his car (not fuel of MOT). We are both teachers, we won’t be replacing our cars any time soon.

I went in 2010 and got bursary etc, but the discussion about parents 'topping up to reach the full loan amount' discussion on here fascinates me. Most people around me got help from their parents in different ways, whether that was £20 a week towards food or tuition fees paid in full, but there was never any discussion about parents bridging the gap between what you received from the government and the full loan, and we talked about money a lot! I don't even think any of my peers would have known that parents were 'expected' by the government to top us up, we all very much saw what parents contributed as very welcome but ultimately not expected and had the understanding that it was ultimately down to us to fund from finance, bursaries and jobs, which is what we did. Did anyone else have the same experience in uni or was my social circle (which spread across the country at different unis) weirdly totally oblivious to the 'parents are expected to contribute' thing?

Not sure what the position was in 2010 but now parents are expected to top up to maximum loan level but cannot be compelled to do so

I was 95 to 98, my parents paid the room charge which was 40 per week, and gave me 50 per week. Cheaper than my school fees and food, extra curricular ls etc by a country mile for them. I also had a grant of about 1700 per year. I wasn't allowed to work in term time but did in the holidays if back home in the part time job I'd had as a teen and sometimes got my room for free over the vac by chambermaiding for conferences in College, about 3 hours per day, paid, albeit badly, but free rent and not having to move out. I partied a lot, and didn't come out with debt. Halcyon days, I feel sorry for today's kids.

@Foxblue I looked last night at halls at Manchester and Nottingham. Single rooms in average halls average £7K for this academic year. The maintenance loan is from £5K to £10K if you’re not in London and living away from home, so let’s say you get half way between those figures, you’ve only got £500 left over after paying your rent and not even a part-time job would be enough, so parents would have to top up.

My oldest went to uni in 2011 so around the time you said. We paid his full rent of about £3600-4000 and he lived off his maintenance loan and worked holidays.

One thing that has changed though is the student's expectation of what they consider to be acceptable accommodation. They want shiny new instagrammable rooms with ensuites kitted out by trips to IKEA rather than having a rummage through the airing cupboard and cupboards to see what they can use.

I don't think there was any expectation for parents to top up prior to a few years ago. The lowest maintenance loan used to at least cover rent. If a parent didn't contribute, it would have been feasible for a student to live off savings from a summer job or job at uni.

We're forgetting just how recently these rises in rent and food have occurred. It would be interesting to compare costs between a student starting in 2019 v 2024.

My dds food costs have doubled since starting in 2021. I suspect energy bills in private rentals in 2020 were half what they are now.

But parental income has been considered, and the students loan/bursary reduced from
the maximum accordingly, for many years - I went in 2005 and it was definitely the case then. If your parents earned more than X amount, you got less money than people whose parents earned less than X amount. How could anyone not realise that meant parents were expected to contribute? Why else would their income be assessed?

My parents understood this and topped me up to the maximum amount as a baseline (plus a bit more). But, as someone mentioned above, plenty of students and their parents didn’t realise this was supposed to happen. My favourite situation was a housemate who was privately educated at a school almost as expensive as Eton until 18. He went to uni and his parents gave him nothing. Nothing! I was incredulous that they’d considered his education so important they’d spent £30k a year on it for 13 years, then cut him off completely. He was very surprised to hear my dad paid my rent, and considered me to be very privileged 😂

Nothing.

But, as someone mentioned above, plenty of students and their parents didn’t realise this was supposed to happen

But @modgepodge housing costs now are much higher than they were then and the maintenance loan amount, whilst increasing each year, hasn’t matched the accommodation cost increase. So there wasn’t the need then to top up as much as you have to do now.

1996-98 here, no fees, no grant, full loan (easily paid off when I started working, even on a tiny salary). Parents paid halls in the first year, possibly rent in the other years, but I paid bills etc and had a part time job. Managed fine.
Feeling very fortunate now to be in Wales as no way we could afford to top up the student finance offer if in England, though it does mean a bigger debt for DC when they graduate. A holiday job will be necessary (Oxbridge so no term time work) but probably difficult to find so we are trying to save an emergency fund just in case.

I've just looked at student housing (shared houses, not halls) in my old university town.

When I was there (2004-2008) you could easily find one for £50 a week. £70 if you didn't want to walk up the massive hill.

Cheapest now was £90. £4680 a year. Minimum loan is £4767.

Its a vast change!