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?

That won’t be happening. I’m fed up of her attitude, she is acting like a spoilt brat.

So many buses run up and down Oxford Road connecting Fallowfield (Owens Park campus which is massive, plus other halls) with the university then on into the town centre. You're unlikely to wait more than 5 mins unless it's very late.

She’s burning through 20k which I saved up as a house deposit for her.

Weston Hall is right by the architecture building and quite reasonable cost wise as it’s an older hall. Shared kitchen but en-suite rooms.

Fallowfield is easy by bus and quite a pleasant area these days.

the government give loans now for living expenses during masters and she can also get commercial loans from a bank.

I didn't know thei. When did this change?

DD gets an NHS bursary for her masters, but no loan for her living expenses. She worked fo two years between undergrad and post grad and saved for this masters.

This gets better and better. You haven’t addressed why she feels so entitled and behaves like a brat treating you like shit off her shoe.

she refused to pay board?
she’s emotionally blackmailing you to pay but has funds to not work for 9 months and travel the world.

you need to grow a backbone and before she goes away for the month have an honest conversation. Tell her that you won’t be funding anything (or name an amount you can afford) and so she needs to re-evaluate the masters/choice of accommodation. Make clear you won’t be supporting her further financially as she is an adult. Also make clear that from x date she will be required to pay board or else find somewhere else to live.

you are doing her literally no favours and are creating a monster.

my parents supported me through my undergrad, paid for family hols etc. at 21 when I graduated they told me that they had given me a good education and now I had to support myself. This seemed totally reasonable to me and I worked, paid board then moved out.

her behaviour and expectations are appalling and I’m quite shocked. You need to make changes to your relationship as well as decide on any support you can give

DD is mugging you right off here I’m afraid OP. Is she planning on becoming an adult at any point in the future?

I lived very close to the uni second and third year but all my housemates experienced attacks or crime, I was attacked opposite the uni / halls on Oxford in broad daylight and a friend was raped on the way home from the students union. Being close is less relevant than being aware of reducing your risks ! If she has fibro she hopefully will not be out late and drinking on a regular basis and will know how else to be careful, wherever she lives.

Weston is undergrad only sadly.

She is a spoilt brat.

And that's on you.

Eh? My parents didn't give me a penny for my masters (or my undergraduate degree for that matter). She's an adult. I researched it and got a CDL (a career development loan), which was intetest free for one year after the masters finished. I also worked 25 hours a week (understand your daughter can't but a decent summer job could save a lot)? If you're generously offering to help her out a bit financially, let her know exactly how much, and she, as an adult, can figure out how to fund the rest.

With all due respect @ElbowsUpRising this is not her decision, you sit her down and tell her

1. Your budget
2. Your expectations- she gets a part time job
3. if she’s not happy…see points 1 and 2.

Done.

Sounds like a good time to learn a lesson in life that you can’t have what you can’t afford! Has she not done any paid work during her undergrad degree if she was living at home? If not, I’d suggest she spends her summer wisely or she’s not going to have much to put on her cv when applying for graduate jobs.

You need to grow a pair and stop letting her walk all all over you. She’s treating you like a piggy bank, entitled, spoiled, selfish girl.

It sounds like she has several grand but wants to allocate it to travel instead. She could make up a lot of the shortfall by September and at her age, I’d be telling her to do that.
If you find fancy accomodation then you’re going to be doing it forever. Being a student and starting out in a career involved financial sacrifices and her next demands will be a house deposit “so she doesn’t get raped after work”

If she wanted to do the masters then she’d earn the shortfall herself. If she can’t earn enough my September because she can’t do full time hours, she can go next year. 🤷‍♀️

Yeh I heard about this too. Quite a few years ago. Too late for it to be any help to me, but I do remember reading this in the media.

She sounds spoiled and entitled. She's an adult, why should you fund this for a her as well as her travels?

Supporting a DC through an undergraduate degree, if you can is one thing, funding a masters and world wide travel when they do nothing for it is quite another. When do you place to stop bank rolling her?

😲
So she has been financed through an undergrad, whilst living at home
Worked for a year without contributing to living costs because she refused
Seems to have saved nothing as usual now using her £20k 'nest egg' to bum round the world (why in earth did you let her access that!?)
And is still demanding a fortune be spent on top notch accommodation!!

Sorry I don't understand- why on earth are you giving her 20 k for holidays and not saving that to fund her masters? She is being a spoilt brat buy you are enabling her behaviour.
Try saying no

Whaaaaat?! I'm sorry OP but she sounds incredibly entitled.

She did work part time doing bar work until the start of year 3. She got very acutely ill with blood clots and had to stop work.

pay what you can afford is my advice.

also she might need some help with safety at university. Rapes mostly happen from known people after alcohol consumption, rather than strangers. If she’s worried about being raped you can help her with how to protect herself - such as for example not drinking too much so that she cant ever be taken advantage of by men. Also set up female friendship groups to walk each other home, ensure each other are safe.

hope she is ok and when she’s used to the city, she feels better.

Interesting how she can galavant off on loads of Holidays and travel no problem but can’t work “because of fibromyalgia”

Also no concerns with getting raped in various parts of the world but terrified of big bad Manchester.

In regards to the buses, I can't drive for medical reasons and use the buses all the time including university areas and city centre and have never had any issues.
My child travelled six miles to school on them also for years.

I'm not saying there are never weirdos because there are weirdos everywhere but no more than any where else.

The money was in an account in her name which sadly went to her without me realising when she was 18yo. I didn’t realise I lost control of it on her 18th birthday. So she got it, promised me she wouldn’t touch it until she was ready to buy a house.