How much do you contribute to child at university?

[AnonymousBleep]

I've got a couple of years yet but I am planning ahead. I don't want my son really to start work with massive debts, but his dad and I (we are separated) are not completely minted so he'll have to get some loans to cover his costs. What is 'normal' for parents to contribute to children at university, and what's the most cost-effective way of going about things? I was thinking that my son would probably need at least £1K a month in living expenses (and that's if he doesn't go to a London uni) - is that reasonable? Is it better to pay for the tuition and my son get loans to help him out maintenance wise?

Will he get the full maintenance loan or is it going to be reduced for parental income?

IMHO the Student Loan system is an absurdly complicated way to run what is, in effect, a graduate tax. I'd suggest taking the max loan he can and then doing a budgeting exercise to see how much of costs in London are covered by the loan.

I should imagine it'll be reduced for parental income. I earn roughly £50K. The system does seem really complicated. I also have another child two years younger so will be paying for two at university (hopefully) at the same time.

The loan doesn't usually even cover the rent so if you want them to have 1k each month (do you mean before or after rent?) I think you would have to contribute some and they may get a job?

I probably think let them borrow the fees and if you have tens of thousands spare when they are finished at uni then you could help with a house deposit.

How do parents cope with this?? We're certainly not poor but don't have a spare £1000 a month to give away!

We are paying DS’s rent (£8k), and he’s going to a Scottish uni so there are not currently any fees. He’s got a student loan for living expenses (assumed to be £4k at £100 per week of term). He will also have a part time job alongside uni, which he will save money from to offset against the need for a student load for subsequent years.

I definitely won't have tens of thousands spare! Lol. Chance would be a fine thing. But me and his dad could probably contribute £500 each a month towards his expenses. He costs me a lot more than £500 a month in food and clothes tbh!

That makes sense re the rent. Maybe that's the way to do it, we pay his rent and maybe a small amount towards living each month, and he can fund the rest through the loans/a job. I just worry about the latter, as I got no financial help from my parents at all when I went to uni (back in the dark ages of the 90s), and had to work all the way through to fund it, and that actually made it really difficult to study.

That's sort of what I was wondering, really. How DO most parents cope with it? I guess kids are just having to leave uni with upwards of £50-60K in debt?! It seems crazy to me, I don't think I'd have gone to uni at all if I'd thought I'd have to start working life with that much debt hanging over me.

I'm not convinced there's much point having loans for some of it, you'd have to sit down and look at the interest rates and work it out. Have a read of Martin Lewis.

With both of our dc they only got minimum maintenance loan so we had to top up their accommodation costs by a couple of grand a year (this was a few years ago!) plus we have them each £300 a month to live on.

One was only in lectures 2.5 days a week so had time to work during term time. Lucky she did, as she liked to spend lots on clothes/socialising. The other was in labs and lectures all week so worked in the holidays only, but didn't drink/go out much so managed fine.

It really all depends on your dc - can they cook/budget well? Are they party animals? Spend a lot on sports/hobbies? They're all different so what they need is different.

In my case my DS is only looking at unis where his loan will cover the rent, I will give about £300 a month to cover food and essentials and he will need to save / get a job for fun money. He wants to do a 5 year course so has just accepted he will have to be careful with money and still leave with about £80k of debt.

In Scotland so no fees
We give our DC£1100 a month to cover rent and spending money
They don't have loans and don't work term time

I wish I was in Scotland!

DD gets less than £4000 in loans and her accommodation is £10500.
She was at Private school but went to State for 6th form so we put the fees we used to pay aside for her but thats still not enough to last her the 4 years.
We intend to pay the accommodation, which is catered this year so she won't need much else.
DS15 says he doesn't want to start his working life in debt so many not go to Uni at all, which is his choice but a shame really.

We paid our DD's rent 3 years ago and are now doing the same for our DS. With DD it was quite manageable - I think roughly £450 per month.

DS it's a different story! £775 per month ffs. Cost of living has gone up, our earnings have gone down. We really can't afford it but want to treat them equally.

Ours will get the minimum loan and we are budgeting £500 / month either in one go (eg rent) or spread across the year, however makes more sense.

Prepared to up this among slightly if required, but both are looking at the cheaper cities after only a small amount of nudging away from London / Bristol etc where living / accommodation costs are extremely high and often horrible.

Martin Lewis has been going on about this for years so we planned accordingly, I do think it's surprising when parents claim they've never heard anything about it. Student loans / fees / increases have been in the news for more than a decade now. It might not be fair or what people want but it is what it is.

I'm planning on about £5k a year when she goes next year. ( Mire than I paid for our eldest but there's a 6 year gap). She will also have her savings and a student loan. Any extra niceties she can work.

@AnonymousBleep we do the same as @thereiscustardinthejamtart - we pay the accommodation fees, then they get loan of about £4k which they have to budget with (food etc), and anything else they want to spend comes from anything left over after putting £4k from their CTF into a LISA and part-time jobs (DS1 works during term time and DS2 during holidays). They both have a loan for the fees (England).
We've been saving up since they were babies, this year's the expensive one as both are at uni now.

No loans available when DD went to Uni so we paid all accommodation, balance of tuition fees over a grant that she got and gave her £80 per week for other costs e.g. phone contract, food, travel. She went with a large supply of store cupboard stuff that I started collecting weeks before and she could also cook really well. Paying her weekly helped her with budgeting. She had a holiday job so used to top up her allowance from her savings. Fortunate to have left with a PhD and no debt. Luckily DH and I were both working full time so could afford the financial support for the 8 years in total. Doing science degrees we wanted her to be able to fully focus.

There's a calculator online, you can find out how much they're entitled to in loans.
It's also worth checking out where they think they might go, to look at rent.

Our DD gets a loan that thereabouts covers her rent. That has bills included, and is about 20 minutes walk to uni.
We give her £250 a month, that covers food and travel.
She got a part time job that pays for fun (not doing a degree that would rule it out, low contact hours each week).

There are not many parents doing it that way on here, I think most seem to cover the rent and the student (who is always described as a child, but is an adult) uses their loan to live, plus extra if it's a lower amount than the full.

Oh, and I think the minimum loan amount granted is £4,500 ish, for any income over a certain amount.

I only wondered if you have big savings as you considered paying his tuition - which would be at least £9,250 x 3 or more so basically 30k over 3 years - I think that 30k for most youngsters would be better as a house deposit.

I have been putting money aside for him since he was born and it'll be about 18K by the time he gets to uni, which would cover two years. I'd rather tighten my belt a bit while he's at uni if it avoids him getting into massive debt though. I do have some leeway in my budget for that (and can always take on extra work).

From a living cost (as opposed to tuition fee) perspective far better to wish that you lived in Wales. Given all can access the same level of maintenance funding, which is also near £2k more than the max maintenance loan in England, irrespective of household income, the latter only used to mix the level of grant vs loan mix.

Yes, I think I will be steering mine away from London/Bristol/Brighton too. My son is muttering about Oxford - which is commutable from here, so would make most sense for him to stay at home and drive! But personally I don't think this is really the whole student 'experience', it's not him spreading his wings if he's still at home with mummy! Midlands/Northern universities are much more affordable.

We give DS 6k a year, split between every month he has to pay rent - so this year he has a 12 month tenancy so we give him £500 a month. Last year was 11 months so we went him a bit more each month.

His rent this year is £480 excluding bills, so in effect we pay for his rent and £20 towards bills. Bills are around £50 a month.

DS also gets £100 a month from my parents, during Uni months (Sept - May).

He gets minimum SF, so roughly £110 a week.

I don't know if his Dad gives him anything, but I'd be staggered if he did!

He also works as many hours as possible during holidays (although does spend a fair bit on trips with friends/GF). This year he's hoping to get a P/T job at Uni as he's saving for a flat deposit for after Uni.

He pays for his own gym membership. We pay for his phone.

So I suppose after the much waffling, he has about £130 a week to live on?