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.

It didn’t help for us that we never ever thought that ds would never even live independently let alone go to uni. Paying for music lessons for him not only got him through school, it got him into uni.

For students starting now it’s £25k just slightly over the minimum wage and doesn’t get wiped out for 40 years. Almost everyone will be paying back something from their 1st job.

Why can't you help, op?

It will cost you around £4.5k in “parental contribution” per year - £13.5 overall. “You” have £9k so need to save £4.5k over the next 3 years to cover the shortfall in final year, which is not at all bad considering you are no longer feeding her - but there are a lot of assumptions

That she can live on the max loan amount and is prepared and able to work to pick up any shortfall herself. Preferably lower contact hours to allow flexibility with part time working and no coming home in the holidays if you need rather than want to hold onto that job

That she goes somewhere cheap enough for this to be feasible - Newcastle, Cardiff and Liverpool rather than Edinburgh, Bristol or Bath

That she does a 3 year course and doesn’t need to repeat anything

That she doesn’t spend her CTF on other stuff. It is her money and you can’t stop them wasting it. I have 4dc in this ballpark age and know many, many more 18yo who have bought phones, clothes, holidays, tech etc that they never in a million years would have bought if they didn’t have ££££ landing in their bank accounts than I know who have sensibly put it to one side for third year accommodation.

Me too! Grateful that in Wales the student loan covers maintenance costs and the maximum repayment term is shorter. Another benefit of devolution!

Good grief. Let's think- lower paid job, high mortgage or rent because OP lives in an expensive area, working reduced hours due to care responsibilities, unexpected redundancy, long term illness etc.. Not everyone on Mumsnet is on £100k + a year or alternatively utterly feckless. OP, please don't answer @Pinkissmart (ending of username not that appropriate...)

See what I mean? Of course we can all fund our children at university. Some people are so outside the real world...

@Philandbill
OP said her household income was 69,000.
That IS a healthy income. Surely enough to help her child in some way.

All your imaginary scenarios don't really make sense.

I don’t think it is an especially high income tbh. Not for two people who presumably have a mortgage and perhaps other DC to support. I presume that is gross rather net as well.

They may well be able to offer some support to their DC – but I think the expectation that you need to find a spare £8k (or even a spare £5k) per year, if you weren’t expecting it (as the OP clearly wasn't, for reasons including that they didn't expect DC to go to uni at all) from your net income is pretty serious.

I wonder how many of us could easily put aside £4-500 a month without worry.

@clary
It is a healthy income.

I am maybe a bit jaded because I work in education and so many students end up in a really bad position because parents have a high income, but WON'T help. We see it all the time.

OP's daughter can save money by choosing a less expensive city, or less expensive accommodation. She can get a part time job, or take a gap year to save. There are ways to bridge the gap a bit.

But we do come across parents all the time who just don't want to contribute.

Well I totally agree with you that her DD could do all those things to help and indeed I posted as much – with some hopefully helpful direct ideas of possible unis where accom is cheaper.

I guess it depends what you mean by "healthy" and we are getting into semantics there. Whether you can easily live off that income as a family of 3-4-5 people would depend on a lot of factors inc where you live and the size of your mortgage. Could you easily put £500 pm towards your DD's student experience? It depends; but not necessarily.

I think the fact that high-income parents won’t help, disappointing though that is, doesn’t make the OP’s situation any easier.

That's interesting, can I ask which course this was for? My DS1 is at Bath, his reduced fee for placement year was £1800ish and unpaid placements are not allowed, students taking positions that pay below NMW can't class them as a placement.

@MillicentFaucet it was psychology. DD1's Manchester course also says no unpaid placements, they expect them to be paid decently so that they are part of the workforce and not a coffee fetcher.

I forgot to say in my post that my child also qualified for £2000 from the uni in her first year due to the fact we live in a poorer area and we earned under a certain amount. It's been really helpful, they've saved a chunk of that to pay off their second year rent until their loan comes in (rent starts in July). We are hoping they will get it in the second year (and third) but we haven't relied on it when budgeting for the rent costs.

We’re in exactly the same boat with near identical figures. Dd will get minimum loan so I think a bit under 5k. Her rent is £980 a month, this includes bills. We will pay the rent and I am kind of hoping she can live off £4800 a year for food/socialising.

she’s hoping to get a part time job but I’m under no illusion that this is guaranteed. Locally pt student type jobs are like rocking horse shit. Maybe Manchester will have more opportunities but I saw an advert recently for a barista in Manchester, minimum wage and wanted 4 years experience. I suspect it’s tough there as well to get a job.

if she can’t live off £4800 a year we will have to give her more than just her rent but it’s going to be tough.

@MoominUnderWater £4800 should be plenty – over 40 weeks that’s £120 pw. Easily enough for food and fun for one person. £40 plenty for food which leaves £80 pw, even if they need a bus pass or sports clubs it will be fine.

Thanks, she won’t need a bus pass. I can’t imagine she will join any sports clubs. Her accommodation has a gym and yoga studio so think she will just use that. She will need to buy quite a bit of art type materials for her course and will need gluten free food which costs a fortune…..£3.50 a loaf of bread, no cheap lunches from Greggs on the run, etc.

She is also hoping to stay in Manchester over the summer but I’ve said it depends if she can afford to stay. If she wants her money to last a year it’s more like £94 a week. She normally falls on her feet so I’m hoping she’ll find a job….she does have barista experience and has enquired about campus jobs already.

she will have costs like hair highlights which I’m sure she thinks is essential!

What course is she doing @MoominUnderWater? DD1 is doing an arts related course at Man Met and loves it.

I had to get a second job to fund the parental contributions which are £600 per month for us. As my earnings are in the higher tax rate that means earning an extra £1k per month. I applied to get her free nhs prescription and help with glasses and dental considering she is not earning I thought she'd definitely get that but no was turned down as they count the parental contribution as income. Feel totally fed up.

I echo this. In one instance the parents claimed poverty because of the need to finance their holiday home in France.

Architecture.

My DS1 is just finishing his 3rd year of architecture, it's a really intense course with lots of late nights/early starts in the studio making p/t work hard to arrange. He did save enough cash from his industry placements to supplement living costs so has managed to live ok in his minimum maintenance loans so far.
Architecture is a long (expensive) slog, DS will finish his BSc next summer then work for a year before starting his Part II, fortunately loans are still available for this too.

Agree totally. The current university system is still class based and favours the very rich families for whom the costs are not an issue. The system also favours the very poor as they get both full grants and can afford a basic lifestyle on the maintenance loan. The ones that who lose out are the families with average to slightly above average earnings,particularly if they have more than one child in this age group.
However, his poor deal isn't publicised as much as it should be to either parents or students at an early enough age.
Too many students drift into going to uni either because they can't think what else to do or they have unrealistic expectations of the the employment opportunities of that degree. Too many parents push students down this route because they can't really see the costs or the alternatives.
Realistically, only the rich elite or a person with outstanding talent can afford to study a subject that doesn't lead to a career
Even graduates in so called " shortage subjects" are struggling to get good jobs in this country.
Schools always want 6th formers to go to uni because it looks good on their stats. They don't publicise other options like degree equivalent apprenticeships enough.
A serious sit down conversation is needed between parent and child.
1.Do you really want to do this degree or would a working gap year give you time to decide what you want? ( You can always apply to uni next year once you have your a level results.)

1. Does the degree represent good value for money?
2. Can you really afford to go?
3. Are there any alternatives like apprenticeships that will get you to the same place for less cost? Mo

Yes it’s a bit of a nightmare. It’s actually her part 2 which dd is about to start. She worked for the first 2 years of part 1 as a barista but as the 60 hour weeks on campus ramped up she had to concentrate on her studies.

she was going to work for 18 plus months in industry and did her first 12 months and didn’t save much. Was going to save in the next 8-9 months but the company folded. So she’s been unemployed since Jan. 🫣

I do think that the need for parental support should be publicised more (no idea how because Y7 might be too late to save up enough).

I remember talking to the mum of one of DD's friends a few years ago about it. Her eldest wanted to go to Uni but when they looked into it, there was no way that the family could afford to top up the loan. She'd had no idea, just assumed that a loan would be enough for him to live on. In the end he took a few years out and worked and has gone this year aged 24.

Assuming DD gets the grades, we've told her we'll pay £1000 a month all in so £12000 a year. She's chosen the cheapest accommodation at a pretty cheap Uni so that she has more money left to live on/save towards next year. If she wants more she'll have to get a job but she should be fine, the accommodation is about £5700 and she'll have no living expenses during the holidays.

But we're lucky we can afford this and very glad we only had one child!