Student Finance

[mumtosnchild]

My daughter is currently in Year 12 and we have started visiting uni open days. She wants to go away to university. Looking at student loans though, it looks like she will only get about £5k due to our household income which is around £69k. Halls of residence we have looked at so far are coming in around £8-£9k. How do students manage to pay this if the parents cannot contribute significant sums?

I was kind of under the illusion that the student loan would cover this but it seems the system expects the parents to contribute thousands of pounds to support their child/ren at uni.

I know there is part time work but that is not guaranteed and not sure how much that would amount to.

Help gratefully received as I find this all quite confusing.

Oh I did forget that my daughter gets £500 per year bursary which her university gives to everyone on a maximum loan. But that is specific to her university. Several of my son's friends on full loans are at universities where no such bursaries are available.

Some students work term time, my daughter didn't, but she worked every hour she could during the holidays which meant that we didn't need to give her any parental contribution in her third and fourth year. She'll get her parental contribution later, to help her buy a property.

These threads make me feel very thankful that I'm Welsh and that we're devolved! People from Wales who go to uni all get the same amount, it's just that the loan/grant percentage that differs depending on parents' income. I don't like to think of my DC graduating with a big debt, but at least they will be able to attend university.

We pay DS rent (£700 a month in Bristol) and he gets the minimum loan, which is all he is eligible to, for everything else.
it seems okay.
my mum pays towards his rent which is very kind.
OP could you extend the term on your own mortgage for a few years to free up some monthly income?

This is what pisses me off when you hear "uni is open for everyone" trotted out repeatedly ... it really isn't! A lot of families can't afford for their kids to go.

My DD got a part time job at uni and were lucky that her grandparents could contribute monthly.

I agree with you that uni is becoming an issue in terms of affordability.

I don’t know who is saying it is open for everyone, It really isn’t. There is no way my DS1 would have been able to go to uni, for example. And that’s fine btw. Uni really isn’t for everyone. The issue is IMHO that for some of the people whom it should be for, it is becoming unaffordable due to family circs.

@mumtosnchild I have only just clocked your username. Is it your DD that is looking at uni that has SEN? If so, of course that may be a factor (for example their SEN may require an en-suite shower room). Also other options people are suggesting here may also not be workable (depending on the SEN obvs). Apols if I am jumping in where not needed.

Thats different then. 52 x 60 is £3120 a year. If you actually just spread that over term time weeks its £104 a week (£14.85 a day) and so not far off the £500 a month (£16.66 a day) term time only that mine generally has (although this year he's had the minimum loan as most of his friends do).

Mine gets nothing during holidays. He works if he needs extra money.

It seems to be that so many parents just blithely seem to be able to 'pay the rent' for their kids at university. I wish so much we could .

We have scraped and paid her first months rent and deposit for the house as the landlord, already.making about 70 grand a year out of 6 students for an average house, demanded they pay from June, even though they can't move into it till July, and what normal student is going to have £1250 lying around at the end of term?

That's something that really needs regulation

We will not even entertain moving from Wales until all 3 of our children have gone through uni!!! DS gets the minimum grant due to our income so the rest if loan so will get £12k per year on top of the £9k tutition fee loan.

I think once you take the tuition fee loan for the 3 years you will be paying the 9% repayment over a certain income anyway and highly unlikely to pay it all back unless a super high earner so just need to look at it as a graduate tax.

Families who pay the rent, then let their kids live off the minimum loan of about £5k, could well be ensuring they have £15k per year….in places where Halls cost £10k. In many places £8.5k could be normal so they’d still have £13k.

Id just say that’s a lot, unless London.

A cheaper way for families without limitless money is to simply top up the loan to the full loan size, or the loan adjusted for inflation (which takes it to about 12k)

If you give your kids a budget, they choose accommodation accordingly. If you don’t, and just say they will live in the loan and you’ll pay rent, don’t be surprised if they want the expensive options and don’t really think about the costs as they essentially aren’t budgeting for it.

Most students can earn £1k over the summer before uni. Most can earn £1k each summer or often more.

En-suite accommodation, and spending money after food in excess of £100 a week isn’t needed to fully participate.

But yes, parents will be looking at needing to provide around £100 a week, 52 weeks a year if the minimum loan is what they get.

For spending, mine (living in fully catered halls this year) had £800 spending money per term. So £80 per term time week.

Each term, they’ve had a couple of hundred left.

We didn’t provide extra for hols. They already had some savings and did at least a week of paid work each hol so earned enough to keep going.

Next year, in house, they are budgeting £20 wk for bills (52 wks) and £30 for food about 35 weeks. I think they think they will have about £65 a week for other spends.

Having a buffer before starting of a couple of £k helps.

My son couldn't earn anything before he started university. He has SEN and couldn't find a suitable job plus he also did 3 weeks with National Youth Music Theatre (for which we paid course fees). However, I don't regret that as he gained a lot of professional contacts from it and has since been able to work and earn a decent amount from some of those contacts.

My daughter was able to save as she worked full time for three years before going to university.

Before my son went we agreed that we would top up to the full loan. We gave him the choice of how he received that money, monthly or weekly (the whole sum termly was not possible as it has to come out of our earned income) and we said that we will not penalise him for working. He earnt £300 per day plus a daily per diem amount over the Easter holidays but we still gave him the agreed amount of our contribution. In his first year he earnt a lot less but he did manage to earn £500 during reading week, then nothing until Christmas.

My student has £45 a week off us, and manages well.
She works, and has saved for holidays and the like.

I would say that I think the £30-ish figure quoted for food by some PPs is possibly low – or do I have a big eater haha!

DS2 is very sporty and focused on his health and physique/gym goer; he reckons his spend on food in the last four years has gone up loads (for the same food) – from an Aldi shop in year 1 of about £25-30 to more like £45-£50. He does eat a lot of protein tho and fruit and veg. But he comments he can’t buy free-range chicken for example nor strawberries when caged meat and apples are so much cheaper.

I realise that FR meat and fancy berries are not essential in life. And I imagine esp if vegetarian and a creative cook (or a basic eater like my DD tbh) it’s possible to eat for less. But it’s worth a look at a basic budget on this.

Food has gone up, ds is appalled at how much. He is not a big eater (he has a limited amount of safe foods) but he is also not inclined to cook much so eats out far too much (macdonalds, KFC and Spoons). Dd does cook a lot from scratch. Both of them reckon they spend around £30 ish per week on food. The big thing for ds is that he does not drink alcohol - at all - he just doesn't like it. He also doesn't like fizzy drinks.

Dd manages to run a car on her maximum loan although her grandparents pay her insurance as a gift.

I realise that FR meat and fancy berries are not essential in life.

I'd say that most of us find free range meat too expensive.

Dd is fortunate to live opposite a Lidl and she goes there at night and buys whatever is reduced/on offer then batch cooks.

People need to know how expensive Uni is now. Nearly £10k fees, accomodation from 5k to £15k (London) and living expenses around 4k per year.

So best case approx 20k p.a (15k available as loans). £50 per month per child over 18 years should get a sufficient fund. Thankfully not yet at US college funds savings but parents need to know and start planning for University.

If a parent funds Uni, including fees it's £25k p.a. which seems crazy to UK parents but would be considered great value by US parents.

You’re not wrong about free range meat! But he admitted recently he buys battery eggs.

£30 per week is good going for your two. I have been to Aldi with ds and seen what he buys and it’s good stuff and basic too. A lot tho. He would come home, eat a big Scooby-snack sandwich of chicken and salad, then eat dinner an hour later.

He would come home, eat a big Scooby-snack sandwich of chicken and salad, then eat dinner an hour later.

Maybe it's because that amount of food has never been available in our house. Don't get me wrong, I don't starve my kids! and I admit to sneaking protein powder and chia seeds etc into ds's pasta sauce as he has always been underweight. But dd trained as a dancer and is now studying sports science and is a gym girl so she has always eaten like an athlete.

But I meal plan and if someone ate the chicken and salad as a 'snack' there would be no dinner as there would be no ore food available. I can afford to replace these things now, but in the past I could not have.

My DS had to choose a course where he could live at home as we couldn’t afford for him to go away. He works but they do need to study too!

We saved for them from when they were small and it wasn't easy. DD1 has done two years and we are paying her rent. Currently on a work placement year and earning a proper wage so should have some money for next year. Thankful she is up north though so not as expensive for rent.
We looked at Bath University with DD2 last weekend and it was expensive, and not just the accommodation. The course she's looking at offers a work placement year but 80% of placements are unpaid (with many seeming to be in London) and the 20% that were paid were salaries of between £9 - £22 k. Plus you still have to pay university fees. Open day seemed to be full of rich Londoners. DD wasn't feeling the love for Bath Uni thankfully, going to an inner city comprehensive may have given her a different outlook 😁

Plus you still have to pay university fees.

Should only be 20% of fees on the year in industry - though that's still money to find!

Yes, that's the case for DD1 and is ok as she's on a reasonable salary. Bath didn't say how much, just that it was reduced, which makes me wonder if they are somehow charging more, especially as the majority of placements are unpaid...

Hmmm... I think it was 20% at Bath, but we went to a lot of Open Days so I couldn't swear to it!

Its really not easy and something I wish was more widely spoken about to parents when children are younger
We have had 3 go through Uni now and the youngest is just about to graduate from Loughborough and is moving back home to do his masters but the cost of putting 3 through Uni (especially when we had 2 at the same time to fund) was a real challenge and in all honesty, not something we were prepared for at first
All 3 got the minimum loan and to be honest all 3 have had very different experiences- DD went to a more expensive uni and whilst we covered her rent in first year so she could live off her loan, it was a struggle. She was able to work part time and in the holidays in Asda which meant she could pick up extra shifts, and transfer to our local store in summer and over christmas and she saved a good amount for second year, we did still top up her loan every term but she was able to fund her accommodation in year 2 and 3, she also moved home to do her masters after graduation
Ds1 went to a much cheaper uni where his loan covered his accommodation with a little to spare so we topped up monthly for him to live on but he also found work to supplement that
DS2- accomm was reasonable so we did the same as we did with Ds1, in second and third year we paid the shortfall of his rent as the loan did not cover that, plus topped up living expenses and he also works evenings and weekends in a pub- although he was so lucky to find work and has kept the job the whole time he has been there- there isnt a lot of part time work in loughborough and what there is very uni dependent so tails off a lot in summer
If I could go back in time I would 100% start saving as soon as they started school as we were massively overstretched trying to provide the level of support we did, it was a very difficult 6 years and whilst we have ourselves to blame for not knowing, we realised we had prioritised "in the moment" expenses such as driving lessons/contributions to cars and insurance, sports fees etc when that money might have made their uni life easier had we had it to hand