How much financial support do parents give children at university?

[MerryRedBiscuit]

My daughter is starting uni next September (2027). Husband and I have been putting a bit of money aside each month which has been tricky as the cost of living rises!! When she starts uni, my daughter will get her student loan and be away hours from home. Her accommodation costs much more than her loan amount, so we will be supporting her with some money each month and she will also be working alongside studying.

My question is: how do other families manage this? How much do you send your kids and are there any tips to make finances stretch? I’m feeling anxious about it already.

I don’t want to project this to my daughter who has her own nerves and excitement about university and is determined to have a job to help.

I pay her rent & bills (750pcm). She lives on minimum loan. No tips to make it stretch, but I know I'm going to feel very rich when she graduates!

We will be paying the shortfall on the full loan. If she wants more than that she needs to pay for it with jobs.

Don't use Mumsnet as a basis for comparison. People will be coming to post that they paid for all of their children's uni plus accommodation plus holidays in Barbados. You get a super-crazy slice of life here.

Our kids paid tuition and living expenses from their loan. They both worked (one worked a Saturday job, the other worked most afternoons in uni staff nursery) to pay for extras/fun. We paid for their accommodation, but we were fortunate that we could afford to do that.

My son’s loan covers his accommodation, he took 2 terms to find a job and he had some savings from working previously, plus his child trust fund, we provided some money, but less than the Government thought we should. Since he has got a job, he is financially independent. I sometimes buy him a train ticket home, and will take him fora food shop at the start of term. He still has a savings account from being a baby which he hasn’t yet dipped in to. He has 1 year and one term to go

We paid £350 per month. Minimum loan and DC worked in hols.

For us- crippling as have a mortgage and younger children

Next child goes in October and it starts again but accommodation has gone up £2000

I've been saving in preparation. But when I started saving, 10k would have covered a lot. Now it won't go very far at all.

Not really sure how it will work out.

It's always an option to have a year out and work and save.
Work in the summer should be a given.
Maybe some part-time work depending on course

We are paying for accommodation: £200 per week for term time. Annoying when in summer term it appears they are told they can go home after exams.

DD starts this year so will have two at uni overlapping.

both have jobs and don’t expect any other help than this.

I do food parcels for DS when he comes home but only we still cook for 4 and I freeze his portion!!

Part-time jobs are now hard to find ☹️

We paid £850 per month for the three years she was at Bristol. She got the minimum loan. We were very happy when she graduated and got a job!

Ours got minimum maintenance which they used for accommodation - which we topped up if the loan wasn’t enough. We then gave them the difference between minimum and maximum loan - around £400 a month. This was 5-8 years ago so I’d probably up that to £500 now.

It's awful now.
The government should be ashamed to be doing nothing to improve a system that is more difficult for lower income families and consequently negatively impacts social mobility.

Start with a budget. Then work out what is left over after her loan and a reasonable amount of work - can you afford that?
First year is usually the most expensive as halls usually cost more than flats/houses.

We have 2 kids at uni. We pay accommodation, they live on min loan (and don't spend it all). But we can afford it. Just wish we could afford for them not to take loans at all. Ultimately you just have to be very clear about what you can afford and encourage them to choose cheaper unis for living costs.

We pay for catered accommodation and DD has the minimum loan amount to pay for travel, books, clothes, the gym. She has not found a job yet - a common problem apparently. Her accommodation is some of the lowest cost in the country- we researched the halls fees before she applied.
Next year she'll be in private rented houseshare, and we will cover rent and bills, food if necessary.
I would love for her to get a job but not at the expense of her degree, so I am happy to work to support her. She has to be open book about her spending though.

my DDs grandma is paying for DDs accommodation and I’m planning on paying for her food about £250 a month. She has savings for everything else.

Hoping she can manage with no maintenance loan and just a loan for the tuition fees.

My son gets approx 8k in loans and his rent is 6k. I send him £50 per week for groceries. He uses the remaining loan money to pay for everything else so clothes, transport, social, gifts, books, stationery, trips etc. he doesn’t have a job atm but I sometimes pay him to do jobs around the house like painting and gardening which adds a little extra.

I often see when kids get the minimum loan, parents pay the rent in full and leave their child to live off the loan money. I think the way we do it gives DS a similar amount.

Mine have the minimum loans and fee loans. I pay the accommodation and top up the loan. I budget £10k a year and that makes them very comfortable. I wouldn’t under any circumstances pay upfront. I firmly believe it’s an investment they make in their own future and I’m not remotely concerned about the debt and neither are they

I moved jobs so I could work full time (I am disabled and needed a WFH job to do this, which my previous job couldn't be) when I realised how much this was going to cost.

We will pay the rent and he will live off the minimum loan.

I am glad I had this realisation early enough to be able to make a change and start saving ...and also that he is an only child!

We top up DSS’s loan by £1000 month; this is pretty much the equivalent of what we were paying in maintenance so it’s just going to him directly instead and hasn’t actually impacted our household finances on a day to day basis. I think his loan just about covers his accommodation so it’s bills, food and entertainment out of the money we give him.

We paid for their accommodation. We had two there at one point costing just over £1300 a month for houses they lived in term time only for twelve months.
They lived off the maintenance loan and were lucky enough to have part time jobs for extras.

I have 2 DDs at uni. I send them £100 a month each. They both have part time jobs while at uni and work during hols when they are back home. DD1 hasn’t worked this academic year as she’s abroad but got Turing fund money.

My daughter’s friend gets nothing from his parents. Apparently his grant for next year will be £5900 - the accommodation is £149 per week. There are no part time jobs anywhere. I paid for their train ticket home at Christmas and we feed him at weekends. My daughter cooks enough for 2 most nights. I think it’s awful as they’re obviously earning for his grant to be much reduced.

We have two at Uni ( soon to be one) and it has been difficult to say the least !
We give them £300 a month each , well dd gets slightly more as her rent is higher. Their loans just about cover rent and nothing more. DD is doing a nursing degree and gets a bursary which helps with travel to placements etc. She has a busy schedule and does not get the normal holidays off, and whilst she probably could get some kind of part time work it would not be easy. DS has struggled to get part time work although does struggle with social anxiety. He has worked the past two Christmas holidays but has not been successful in getting work in the big summer holidays as he had hoped. I know people say they can just get jobs but at the moment it really isn't that easy. We have noticed a really big difference in availability of student work since our eldest went to Uni around six/ seven years ago, he did all sorts and was never out of work. I think it depends on area also. My two nieces who live in an affluent area have no problems getting summer work wheras where we live is a lot harder.

Yes I think this is common. My dd mentions that her flatmates get no help whatsoever from parents and really struggle. I wonder how many end up using student welfare or food banks or having to drop out altogether. Very sad.

We topped up rent and gave £50 a week for spends (but this was several years ago and food prices have risen since) he used to spend about £25 on food (he is a good cook so didn’t buy loads of convenience food)

His course was full time so he just worked in the holidays rather than at uni, and that money would go on clothes, festivals etc. He wasn’t a huge party animal so wasn’t out clubbing every week.

I’d also buy his bus pass, and send him money for his train tickets when he came home, and when we dropped him off at start of term I’d do him a food shop of all the basics.