Does the maintenance loan usually only cover student accommodation costs?

[peeweep]

I have a dc with additional needs hoping to go to uni this September. Is it usual for the maintenance grant to only just about cover accommodation costs?

We are not a high earning family so she will get the higher maintenance grant.

She has been offered a place in halls for £207 a week, but we have found some better private accommodation.

How on earth do students manage?

Mine had the exact amount of max loan (part loan part from us) and managed fine, accommodation was about half but neither went to expensive cities. Dd2 was more expensive at £145 a week but the loan has increased since then. Make sure the accommodation offered 40/42 week contracts not 52 weeks!

If you’re in England, yes the maintenance loan is unlikely to cover much more than accommodation costs, and sometimes not even that. Parents are expected to provide the rest. If in Wales then the maintenance loan is much more generous and will cover all living costs including accommodation. Welsh students do have more to repay of course, although there’s a sliding scale of grant vs loan, so lower income students have much lower repayments. DD is studying in London and there are tons of Welsh students because so many English kids are priced out of the more expensive cities.

They work. It's incredibly expensive, and very hard to do without either family helping, saving money in advance, or working alongside their studies.

We live an hour from London on the train and DD will be choosing one of their unis. It is unaffordable otherwise. We had to have a conversation that said "we can top up to maximum loan but we can't pay extra. This is how much it is likely to cost and these are your options."

Would she not be better in halls, around other students?

Thanks for the replies. She had the option of a studio in halls at £207 per week, but we looked at the halls and a few private student accommodation options yesterday. The private ones were a bit cheaper with nicer facilities and seemingly better socialising options.

Because of her needs she will have to go into a studio apartment rather than one with a shared kitchen/bathroom.

We have been looking at Uni for next year. So far all or most dd's maintenance loan ( and we too are low earners) looks to be going on rent.

How long ago? Costs have risen pretty rapidly.

Doesn’t even cover the accommodation for Dd. So we pay her rent and mobile phone, contact lenses, prescriptions, Netflix, Spotify. She lives off the minimum maintenance loan. Cant get a job.

Mine had student loans and also his dad and I had a joint account that we paid a set amount into each month when we got paid that covered the rent each term. Also my son got part time work in a pub, and learnt to budget..he'd walk to Lidl to do his shopping rather than use the more expensive Nisa Local on the campus!

Is she going to claim DSA? It should pay for the extra costs of a studio compared to shared.

My daughter gets the full loan & it covers her accommodation & maintenance costs in Liverpool. My son’s covers all his costs in Leeds although he also works (his rent is more expensive)

dd chose not to pursue an offer of a place in Brighton as she could not have afforded rents there.

If they chose wisely it can cover rent and food etc , in some areas it won’t be enough to cover rent even if they get a full loan.

Fortunately I was savvy enough to start saving when DD was born which enabled me to top up her maintenance loan and give her £200 a month on top. She also had a job to pay for her social life!

Didn’t cover it in 1st year we topped up by a couple of thousand (we didn’t get maximum amount though)
We gave dd £500 a month for everything else…. Food, petrol, social life. We also pains for car and phone. She went up over the summer before she started and got a job lined up. She didn’t like it so got something else better after a few months this brought in around £5OO a month on top of what we were giving her.
She works as many hours as she can when she gets home (she had a bar job) and saves a chunk of that too.

DC get minimum maintenance loan. It's about £5k. Halls are about £7500 (we top up the extra) and they have a further £3600 a year (£120 a week term time only) to live on (again funded by us).

Also lucky enough to have spare income.
The reason some can't afford to save has nothing to do with not being savvy!

If she is entitled to the full maintenance loan she may also be entitled to bursaries.

Have you applied for DSA? They may cover the additional accommodation cost if she can’t stay in regular halls due to her disability. Also check if she would be entitled to PIP.

Full student loan will generally cover usual hall fees with a bit (not loads especially for a year) leftover. But most students don’t stay either in a studio flat or private halls.

I know you’ve said about private halls had better options for socialising options, but at DD’s uni it was mostly international students who stayed in them so there may be a risk there.

We paid the rent for our two.

So the maintenance loan has not at all kept pace with (rent) inflation. When my DD started at uni (about eight years ago) her loan was more than DS (just finished) got bc my salary was lower. It covered her hall fees. But when DS started the min loan (which he then got) only just covered hall fees and that was bc he picked the cheapest accommodation.

So in general the min loan will not cover accommodation at many unis. £207 pw is pretty £££. If she has additional needs you can sometimes get the extra for specific accomm (eg a studio as you mention) covered by the uni? Worth asking.

Max loan here (5k ish), halls 7.5k, plus food/living expenses for the year. Also don’t forget money needed for a house in the second year - deposit (£700), plus you're paying rent for 12 months, and will be due over the summer (usually) before the loan for year 2 comes in, so you need a few 000 to cover that as well.
roughly costing us around 10k a year all in.

I don’t think the loans are at the level they were in the past. I had a well paid PT job but I could have paid my accommodation and eaten on just my student loan with a fairly expensive halls in SE. Whereas nowadays the loan won’t even cover accommodation in the SE. It puts students from low income families at a huge disadvantage.

Some universities have disabled rooms which are larger with double bed and contain small kitchenette with sink, fridge freezer and microwave. My foster son stayed on one last year and DH had a carer room adjacent with similar amenities but he also got a 2 ring hob so he didn't need to use the shared kitchen at all. Both foster son and DH room ensuite. DH stayed 3-4 nights a week which was entire to e FS needed to be there to begin with then 2-3 nights second semester.

Also remember to apply for the disabled student money of £1000 which does not have to be repaid.

Foster son found his full maintenance loan mostly covered his accommodation and the additional £1000 he got plus £2000 from local authority paid most his expenses and we bought him a weekly food shop and DH bought him a takeaway each week.