Cost of student accommodation, I could cry

[ElbowsUpRising]

So Dd has found out today she’s been accepted into Manchester and is looking at accommodation, of course all the stuff she likes is £260 a week. 51 week contract as well! It’s all the fancy, swish stuff though she is adamant the reason she wants the expensive stuff is because she’s prioritising her safety as she wants something close as she’s “terrified of getting raped” if she has to walk back to her digs late at night.

she won’t consider a house share, she won’t consider cheaper halls a bit further out.

so accommodation is looking at 13k a year! She will get minimum student loan so think that’s 5k.

she won’t be able to work partly due to her health- she has fibromyalgia but nowhere near bad enough for PIP. Also she will be doing architecture Masters which if anything like her undergraduate degree will be too full on to be able to work as well.

so we will need to find another 8k a year plus however much she will need per week for food, etc. I’m guessing over £50 a week. Nearer £100 a week? So another 5k. How the fuck do people find 13k a year?

im trying to impress on her the difference that cheaper accommodation will make on her (us) and she’s just going nuts and accusing me of risking her safety and putting her at risk of being raped!

Is £260 a week normal?

She has a lot of growing up to do OP. I'm sorry to hear she is giving you such a hard time. It all sounds a bit like a less charming version of HBO's Girls. I went to Uni in Manchester, lived north and south. Its a safe as any big city and if you can't afford fancy accomodation for her, well thats that. I think you need to set a boundary for her own good, at somepoint she will have to stand on her own feet. That is transition of moving from the student bubble to the real world of work. Its rough, my masters was one of the most poverty stricken times of my life. But I learned a lot about hard work and the value of making an effort by myself. Travelling is all a valuable experiance but she isn't funding it and isn't willing to fund her own lifestyle while studying either. I'd put the financial boundary down that you are comfortable with and you can afford, then let the chips fall where they may. She can take it or leave it. If she wants to flounce off, cut contact, let her. Hopefully that isn't the woman you've raised but it might do her some good to see what life is like out there without her parents picking up the tab.

I went to Manchester uni 20 years ago so admittedly this information may not be accurate! I was told at the time that the bus route from Fallowfield to the university was the busiest bus route in Europe - not sure if accurate, but certainly believable. So many buses. I also don’t think that being central guarantees safety. I lived on the old UMIST campus in first year and was assaulted one night when walking home alone (they followed me from the central student union area on Oxford Road). Most students back then lived in Fallowfield, I imagine that won’t have changed in 20 years.

Have you not seen Derry Girls? Just take the accommodation money out of her trust fund.

Can't edit but already take this back - hadn't RTFT.

If your daughter is early 20s and qualified already to work an entry level job ad oppose to 18 and having a panic about leaving home, she needs to wise up. I'd be telling her straight you'll be happy with any decision she makes, just to let you know where to forward the post, and let her work this out. You've given her a huge leg up which is what all parents want to do, but it cannot be your responsibility to fund her forever. Grey rock and disengage from any conversation about halls.

Whilst I agree the cost of uni accommodation is insane (in 2001 I was paying £35/week at my popular russel group uni and if costs had just followed inflation that should only be £65/week now) your Dd is in her twenties on her second round of higher education?! She should be paying the majority of costs herself and desperately needs to grow up.

Honestly she needs to cut her cloth. She could take on a pastoral role in university accomodation and get into a hall of residence. She should enquire about that if shes concerned about her safety.

£260 is not normal that is a 1 bed flat cost and I would be flat out saying no if you can't afford it.

She's manipulating you saying you don't care about her safety. Does she never travel more than 30 minutes from home? Will she never leave the campus to go shopping or go on nights out? If you can't afford it you can't afford it and she will have to put up with being a bit further out.

Edit - sorry didn't see part where it said it was a post grad course 🫣 disability team may still help?

Apologies not read all posts - not sure if Manchester do it, but might be worth contacting the disability team at the uni. My DC in similar situation with chronic illness and neurodiverse. They have been in touch with disability team who have taken their diagnosis etc and arranged a meeting with the accomodation team - it's possible that they can get a room nearer campus / accessible for price of a cheaper room ( this hasn't been confirmed yet!! )
Can also apply for disabled student allowance - don't give money but they can provide items that may help ( other DC got a printer provided and has heard of others getting bus passes etc to make life easier )

Apologies if none of this relevant but we didn't know about accomodation possibility before contacting disability team. Good luck!! Xx

This is a masters so how about she works to save up for the year of study?

what will she do after this Masters? Does she not plan to work?

OP, I don’t have any advice, but I will say this. I got no financial support from parents or family for uni. I got some student loan and a small grant (£1500 a year). I had to work, got into debt anyway because there weren’t enough hours in the day, had a breakdown in my second year. It was hellish; I was far too busy trying not to literally die to make those friends they tell you will be your friends forever. I got there, but every day was painful and hard and I didn’t enjoy the experience at all. If I’d had a mum like you, present and supportive and rooting for me and wanting to help make my dreams come true, I would have felt so loved. Not being forced to work? Travelling the world? Even having someone help with my rent from time to time? The thought of it makes me weepy. I’m sorry your daughter has so many wants that she can’t see how fully you’ve met her needs. I feel for you, truly.

Think it’s time she had a wake up call.

Option 1-take a year out and work to fund her further studies and expensive luxury student digs.
Option 2-she forgets about this course as neither she or you can afford to fund the digs she wants.
Option 3-you sit down with her and look at the costs of halls, discuss what you can realistically afford to contribute and ask her how she plans to make up the shortfall (has she any savings, can she work and save now, can she apply for PIP, can she make any economies etc etc).

This is ridiculous. If she's doing a masters she is a full grown adult who should lookafter her own rent and safety. I can't believe she suggested that you were putting her at risk of sexual attack by suggesting she looks fir something cheaper. Unpleasant entitlement, I'm afraid.

Surely she should be using this saved money to fund her masters rather than for a year's jolly around the world?
Honestly OP, I think you've been enabling her.
She's spending money you saved for her as a child for a house deposit for a year long world trip, whilst demanding that you fully fund the most expensive accommodation for her Masters???
Presumably once she's squandered all the house deposit money on her trip she'll be expecting another pot of money from you for her actual house deposit?

I did architecture at Manchester, both undergrad and masters. It’s a great course, she’s done well to get on it and hopefully will enjoy it. I got a flat share with another architecture student for my Part II, so maybe worth contacting the uni to see if there is a group of new starters who would be interested in sharing. Otherwise, Fallowfield is great, easy, plentiful buses and can still walk to uni. I also worked part time during both years of my masters, and full time during all the holidays. It is definitely do-able. I had to fund myself with student loans and part time jobs as no financial support from parents. Public transport fab in Manchester, no need to be close to the architecture building.

This is crazy. She wants to do her Masters….. does she really, really want to do it, because if she did she wouldn’t be spending £20k on travelling. She’d be using all the money she has to get herself through Uni. She’s in a very privileged position that she can even consider doing her Masters as it’s so expensive, never mind doing it without working.
I’d really question if you think she will actually stick in and work her way up at a career that isn’t important enough for her to not want to at least partially fund. The money she has right now would get her through the bulk of her studies.

Not wanting to live in a certain area because it feels unsafe, yet happy to go travelling for months in Asia etc is nonsense. Really she just wants the luxury you seem willing to provide rather than accept living somewhere perfectly acceptable to thousands of other students again makes me question whether she actually has the commitment to the course as opposed to to being in it for the funded lifestyle that delays her having to live in the real world.

really OP- I think you need to stand your ground, either she curtails her travels and helps to fund herself for Uni or you give her a very strict budget that is realistically affordable for you and she makes do. I think in a few years you may well regret not being more firm with her when she’s back living at home and you wonder where the 10’s of thousands of pounds you’ve spent on her have gone for no reason.

My DS had to wait to do his Masters, until he had worked fulltime and saved to support himself.

He worked in hospitality for two years prior.

Perhaps your DD needs to defer until she can afford to return to study @ElbowsUpRising

Or at least this is an option you can set out to her.
‘We can't afford for you to live in this expensive accommodation but you can either choose cheaper accommodation and start next year as planned or defer until… so that you have saved to pay for your expensive choice of accommodation’

Id be very curious to hear from parents who had the 3rd, 4th etc as to how it worked out longer term.

Part of me really wanted the 3rd and to some extent still does. The lure of babies is hard to resist. But I tell myself I’m it for the long haul and 3 just isn’t a viable option.

Your daughter is spoiled and entitled. She can go into a houseshare if she’s doing a masters and attempt some form of employment. It doesn’t require her to be in expensive halls. It seems she finds plenty of reasons to struggle with her health and whinge at university but she is happy to travel with no issues, money or personal safety worries. She is manipulating you. Stop enabling this.

Think it would be loving to cut off the magic money tree and expect more of her OP. Make it clear that whatever contract she takes on is her responsibility and the limits of what you can fund - the choice of how to fund the rest of it and what to spend it on is up to her. But I get that it's going to be very hard.

Do most people doing architecture not do the UG degree and get a job with an architect company and do the masters part time, on like a day / hours release premise?

I find this crazy I had no help from parents at uni, it was just my student loan and part time job!

Grandparents would get me shopping sometimes bless their hearts and help with washing now and again

All part of the student experience being poor isn’t it 😂

I empathise with this. Same issue myself. Eventually, you'll get fed up with the emotional blackmail and just let her get on with it.

It took me a long time to get to that point. If I could talk to my younger self, I'd tell myself to do it 15 years sooner. Both of us would have been better off for it.

Jeez, 260 a week - is that the going rate these days? And that's up north.
In the 90s, but I remember my rent being £40 a week back in the day (also up north)

What a spoilt brat! Why did you allow her to refuse to pay board? She needs to get her head out of her arse and find a job.

This!
A friend had a daughter who did exactly this.
And after the degree, the Masters and the PhD she worked part time as a librarian for a few years, before making being a librarian her full time job.
She certainly never used her Masters or PHD.