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?

Ah this all sounds very stressful OP.
Sounds like she needs to stand on her own feet. She already has a degree. I'd be refusing to pay anything - she had 20,000 she is wasting away on travel. Now is the time to stand firm or she will never grow and continue to use you. Do it for her sake. Its hard but better late than never.

OP please do seek out some therapy for yourself to help you move on from the past with confidence and a sense of peace, and stop the pattern repeating with your daughter.
Like others, I am horrified at the idea that your DD has been too tired to find work at home to help fund her wants, and that she is convinced she will be raped in Manchester unless in expensive accommodation, but is happily planning hostelling in Europe and travel in S E Asia. She needs a reality check about hostelling and S E Asia solo travel, both in terms of exhaustion factor and safety. My DD travelled solo for several months in S E Asia including Vietnam after graduation. She funded it herself by working full time for 6 months after graduation in a retail job. She also has a chronic health condition. She encountered some serious personal safety situations in these areas as a lone female, and she is very independent and capable.

Please do look after yourself by putting a stop to this never ending demand for money. And stop looking up bus timetables for your DD.

This. She also sounds highly manipulative with the " You are risking me getting raped" comments. She wasn't too worried about that when she was going travelling. You need to put your foot down op.

Yes but I was reading things differently OP referred to the minimum student loan when daughter lived at home I was assuming OP had taken her daughters word for it this would still be the case now she is staying near the uni also if this is a masters isn’t the funding different?. I believed masters were meant to be self funded without parents help. She’s choosing further expensive studying and travelling but expecting her parents to fund it. As parents you can loan her any money to make up realistic shortfall with the condition she pays you back when working. If she chooses to use her savings (for future house) instead then make it clear there will be no more financial help as her responses when she doesn’t get her own way suggest she isn’t independent at all and OP is stressed with everything as she thinks it’s normal for a 20 year old to act like this.

Also wanted to add to my previous post architecture is a long long hard slog and working in practice is hard work too. If she's been burned out after a year I would suggest that maybe she explore something else to use her undergraduate degree for. My friends who left architecture after part one went on to earn really good money, lots of holidays, pay their own way and generally have a nicer less stressful life! I wouldnt want to discourage but with fees the way they are now i do wonder if i would advise my own kids to not do it. I don't regret my career choice but my goodness it pushed me to the limit both studying and in practice.

I have also noticed that she is spending the saved money on travel not uni...as everyone has said that's a step too far. It took you 18 years to save that money and now she's going to spend it on a jolly?

This is far more about your daughter being entitled and manipulative

I have this too and I do believe it is genetic, and the double whammy of getting it from ‘both sides’ is hugely painful and traumatic.

Can I suggest op that rather than let her burn through that money (I would have struggled with the temptation at her age tbh) ..you tell her she funds her MA with that money and you could always re save money rather than pay for her accommodation

Otherwise she is going to just waste that money you saved so hard for her to have

I’d tell her she has the £20k you had saved for her, and it is up to her to use that to fund her masters. She needs to make it work and cut her cloth accordingly.

She's got 20k.

It's up to her whether she spends money on travel or topping up her accommodation costs but she doesn't get both.

She should have saved money by living at home.

My daughters at Manchester met.
She's in halls, it's perfectly fine , shared bathrooms and kitchen, but it's clean and extremely safe. Security on the front desk, key fobs to even get into the courtyard for the entrance to the halls.
There are more expensive out there, but she's happy enough with it. Her room has everything she needs, all bills included and fast wifi and contents insurance too.
Next year she's in a shared house with 5 others. Even then she's only paying £160 per week and the house is very nice, very modern.

Tell her what you can afford to contribute and she can find accommodation to suit or fund the difference. Her attitude is awful.

But when she lived with you over the summer and was working, you said she refused to pay board. So when she’s no longer a student are you going to let her come home and never work or pay rent? While still funding things like travel? Because if you don’t put your foot down now, that is exactly what she will expect.

i would just say like others have advised- here is 5k from us for the year. It’s up to you to work out the rest. I wouldn’t give her ideas such as work over the summer to save, take a year out, cheaper digs etc. she must be at least 21?! She’s old enough to sort out everything on her own by now

I’m astounded by her entitlement.

I started my Masters at 27. To facilitate this, from the April before I started, I worked my M-F job and worked at a pub Sat-Sun to save as much as I could to supplement my loan. I wasn’t refusing to work, nor was I swanning around travelling internationally.

My course was on the other side of the country, so I lived in halls with students who were so much younger than me. We shared communal bathrooms and a communal kitchen. That was what I could afford, so that is where I lived. I put my head down and got on with my studies. (And didn’t ask my parents for money.)

Does she think rapists only target those who live in cheaper accommodation? She’s emotionally manipulating you.
Id be very frank with her in that those costs are outside your budget. She’s an adult, she should be financing those things as much as she can herself.
There is no reason why she cannot house share like most other young adults have to if they cannot afford to live on their own.

Your daughter is being ridiculous and tbh she sounds spoiled. It's generous of you to be funding a Masters - most people I know who've got one (including me) funded themselves. Just put your foot down, give her the budget you can afford and let her work out what to do. She might have to get a job. She'll manage to do that and study, just like thousands of people all over the country have more than one job just to pay the rent.

She doesn’t have to be walking home later though does she, she could stay with friends, get a taxi or come home early.

Agree with this. Both of my kids have an inheritance from my bio father which they will get when they are 21. Enough to fund a masters, travel a bit and still have a bit left over for a 5-10% deposit on a flat in the S East. Or pay off their student loans. Under no circumstances would we pay for their postgrad education if they pissed all this money up a wall travelling, returning with their hands out.

She is a monster of your own making OP. You need to cut the purse strings and the ones attached to your apron.

There are loads of ways she can obtain funding via an employer to complete her architecture training if she really wanted to even without all the money she is spending travelling. And the rape risk? I would suggest is is exponentially higher in many of the locations and hostels that she’ll be travelling in so tell her to grow up and pack that rubbish in.

Point out that the cost of getting a taxi every day/night would be significantly cheaper than the closer overpriced accommodation

Actually that's a very good point, @Rosejasmine
She'll probably insist tthat someone was once abused by a taxi driver so that's not acceptable either, but hey ho

Edited to add OP's not mentioned how DD will cope with the travel plans she's making if her illness prevents her working even part time, but it would be interesting to learn what the DD's take on that would be

She sounds like a classic narcissist.

Yes, the whole ‘if I don’t get the very best you’re putting me at risk of SA’ thing is really cynical and distasteful. Aside from being utter bollocks, obviously.

Then I suggest you tell her firmly that if she wants to live in the posh digs, she needs to curtail her travelling until she has a well paid job as an architect, and just go to Canada this year, and spend the rest on her student accommodation, because you won't be subsidising it further than £x budget. If she needs more money to survive her studentship, she can find a part time summer job. Remind her you have scrimped and saved for her 'house deposit' subsidised her since Uni and not charged her rent when working.
Don't be walked over!

I mean, if she asks for financial support on the basis of her fibro they are absolutely going to ask how it was she was able to globetrot but can’t manage other things. Whether it’s fair to ask that question or not, they’re going to ask it. They don’t take your word for a damn thing these days.

Isn’t she worried about being raped on her travels? Bussing around rural Vietnam on her own for example sounds a lot more dangerous to me than a late night bus in Manchester.

Call her out OP, she is leading you up the garden path, how is she expecting to cope if she does eventually find a job in architecture, how will she deal with site visits on industrial estates in the middle of nowhere for example?

You know she's trying it on OP. My 18yo and 14yo are on the Oxford Road corridor every Saturday for junior RNCM, and make their own way up and down Oxford Road when I can't drop them off, as do lots of their friends the same age. It's honestly fine.

The accommodation she has identified is so far removed from the average both in terms of cost and facilities that it's actually quite funny - in essence it's more like a good hotel. I would also add that because of the cost it is almost exclusive chosen by wealthy international students, mostly Chinese students, which might affect the social side of things for her.

Hulme Hall, which you've mentioned, is lovely, and has quite a middle-class MN vibe (I felt a bit like the poor relation there!). There's a good social scene which if she's new to the city might be really good for her. The accommodation is not luxurious but the postgrads tend to get put into the oldest building which is really pretty and with good sized rooms.

I'd agree to let her know your budget, stick to it despite any overdramatic protests, and then it's up to her if she wants to fund the luxury accommodation herself.