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.

GPs kindly supply £500/term spending money; it evaporates ...
I give DD £50/week for food shopping; When I take her back from hols, we often do a big shop which I sponsor.
DD pays for her tuition and accomodation from inheritance (it will run out, I will chip in for the last year) Her accomodation is about £190/week, will be more next year but still no worse than renting in that area.
DD works in our local during hols to have spending money for social life/extras

As you will have seen, the loans can be a sad trap - the interest starts accruing instantly!

We pay the rent (£1100 a month) and she lives off the minimum maintenance loan. We pay for her phone and car. She works so has money on top but she comes home every 4 weeks or so (only 90 minutes away by car).
Oldest one is now home having graduated and we had the same setup, her rent was even more expensive and we had one year where they were both at uni so that was fun. Very much looking forward to it all being over tbh!
although we had been saving since they were small and if they hadn’t gone to uni they would have more for later in life. Planning on doing the same for dc3 in a few years.

My dd1 is also due to start uni in Sep 2027. I think the only way we will be able to afford it is if she stays at home and commutes. But luckily, we live in greater London, so that should hopefully be feasible.

Does your DC have a transferable job, like in a supermarket? If not student jobs are like hens teeth these days. My DD and most of her friends haven't got jobs despite trying hard. So it can't be counted on sadly.

I don’t know how helpful this is as I am old now! But I would get a full time job every holiday and use that to save for uni. Often with a temp agency, one time I worked at a haven as they need extra people in school holidays.

We feel that it’s not fair that our income means that Ds gets less so we top up the amount of his minimum loan to what maximum would be.

He then works to earn any extra.

we previously supported Dd through private dance college but she decided to go back to uni as a mature student. As we hadn’t accounted for the fact of having two at uni together combined with the fact her independent status means she gets maximum loan we don’t give her anything.

My two youngest are almost two years apart in age but ended up going to university at the same time. They both had a year living at home with no expenses to work and save, then had to optimise their loans and get jobs because there's no way I could have funded three households at once, neither of them was doing a degree with a definite career path, and one had turned down the offer of a well remunerated apprenticeship locally in favour of the university experience. I gave them each £150 a month plus the occasional trolley of shopping when I visited.

We have a dc starting in September (Bristol) and are currently discussing finances.
DC would prefer to only take out the tuition loan. We will pay for catered accommodation.

Dc thinks they’ll be ok as they’ll want to find a weekend job. And thinks that as accommodation and meals are taken care off, they won’t need that much extra. We as parents are not sure if it’s realistic. Ultimately it’s their decision as it will be their loan but I’m finding it quite difficult to predict what they will need.

Thank you for all the comments/replies. We also have younger children and big mortgage still, so will take all the tips shared and go through our monthly budget with a fine tooth comb to prepare!!

DD will be taking the tuition loan and maintenance loan - otherwise totally unaffordable for us.

Oh my word as a lone parent on an average wage this thread makes me want to boke! I cannot get over the difference between loans and cost of accommodation etc. How do single parents or low Income families do it?! There's absolutely no way I could take on the cost of essentially a second mortgage!

We have three DC and have paid their rent and topped up a bit when they’ve run out of money. My child free sister also gave the £100 per month. It’s been very expensive! DD 1 did a foundation course at Drama School which had no loans so we paid their rent fees and accom between us - about 10 k each - I had to take out a loan for this. We then paid 3 years rent in London for her English degree. DS2 did 4 years in London- had to re-do 3rd Year owing to Covid mental health stuff and DS 3 is currently in final year in Birmingham but is doing MA next year. So that’s 12 years’ worth of rent plus DS2 came to live with us for 2 years post uni to pay off his debts. I don’t dare add it up!

I pay my DD’s rent and travel to/from home (flights). I also take her to do a ‘big shop’ when I visit once per term or so. She makes the most of it and stocks up on pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, EV olive oil, lots of chickpeas and lentils (she’s a vegetarian), good shampoo and conditioner, etc. and it usually runs to about £150, so she only needs to top up with veg and milk every week or two. She works in a bar one day a week and that’s her petrol and going out money. She gets minimum maintenance loan. I’m not looking forward to her brother going to uni soon. It’ll be a tight couple of years!

It’s very hard. I don’t understand why the maintenance loan does not at least cover accommodation costs. They end up paying back the loan plus interest anyway!

@Magicisuponus - based on my experience not realistic at all . I would really encourage them to take the loan - not that easy to find jobs in Bristol.

I’m always amazed by these threads 🫠🤣 My parents told me if I wanted to go to university it would be all on me 🤣
I can’t remember what my bursary/loans etc came to now but it wasn’t enough to cover living expenses. I was on a reduced amount due to parental income. Thankfully I’m in Scotland so had no tuition fees.

I was in uni 9-5pm mon, tue, thurs & fri, and 9-2pm on a Wednesday.
I worked 6-10pm 2 nights a week, 3-10pm on a Wednesday, 8-6pm on a sat and 1-6pm on a Sunday 🫠 for the majority of term time. Then full time in the holidays.

And still managed to find time and funds to go out at least 3-4 nights a week 🤣🤣 thank goodness for 99p drinks in the student union 🤣

Ds1 gets the maximum loan plus he works in the holidays. We pick him up and drop him off at the beginning and end of each term and we do his food shop twice a term.

That was the same when I went to uni!! Got through with no help. But costs are higher now and there seems to be a larger gap between the loan and accommodation costs unfortunately.

I'll pay my ds' halls room. He'll pay food & clothes from working as a pool lifeguard. Between us we hope we won't need the maintenance loan.

The dc lives on nothing and is happy to continue to do so 😅 (they also have savings from weekend / summer jobs so am not too concerned)
I’ve not read up on student finance yet - can you ‘up’ the loan halfway through the year if they decide not to apply for maintenance but when it’s clear they can’t find a job, that they then apply for maintenance?

Does your DC need to go to a university away from home? Our DD elected for the ‘local’ one which means she lives at home and only takes the tuition loan, and I think totting it up, she’s actually more weeks ‘on holiday’ than weeks in attendance! Currently (year 2) she attends approximately 10-12 hours of lectures per week and they tend to be clustered into same days fortunately. It’s a more creative subject so lots of effort needed outside of lectures but she’s very motivated plus she also has three jobs to keep her afloat. It just made more sense to her than paying for accommodation for the whole year and the cost that entails. It’s about a three hour round trip. If she wants to stay there overnight, we’ve got friends close by so she gives them some money on a night by night basis. However, she was away at sixth form college and worked for a year in a live in role in between so felt like she’d done the spreading her wings bit which I know is a big part of the university experience.

The children of low income families get more.

my daughter gets a full loan & it covers her accommodation & living expenses. Granted she turned down a place at Brighton in favour of Liverpool as Brighton rents were eye watering but she preferred Liverpool anyway.

Often universities give bursaries to those from low income families too. Dd gets an extra £500 per year.

@MerryRedBiscuit Yeah I always feel like I was at uni 2 minutes ago and then remember I graduated in 2012 so it wasn’t all that recent 🤣

We plan to give £400/month to live off & put some extra into child trust fund this last year so there should be enough for accommodation over the 3 years along with the maintenance loan - there is around £5500 to last the 3 years from her CTF. She has been working & saving up. Hoping to find a part time job at uni but judging by these comments that might not happen. We will probably help with a food shop & train tickets.

There was a thread on here a while back & someone was critical of parents who didn’t encourage their children to go a long way from home. But some of us can’t afford £200 petrol plus a hotel stay at start and end of each term/academic year. We steered a bit towards a city with slightly cheaper accommodation too. It’s still a great uni. We can’t all afford the same things!

My Mum has been giving a bit of pocket money plus £20/month into CTF so I think that will become £40/month pocket money which will help.

We will lose child benefit at same time as having to pay all of this - so any hope of working less is unlikely.

DH and I send DD £40 a week maintenance and she gets the minimum loan. We paid for her phone and kitted her out for moving into halls. We also support with lifts to/from holiday job so she earns when home and she is waiting to start a job locally to uni during term time.

Her bio father (who lives abroad, only has himself to worry about, earns an incredibly good salary and had €50k+ in savings when I left him 17 years ago) made such a performance when I asked him to contribute to accommodation costs and provided all the ‘proof’. Told me all about the appointment with his bank manager and the ‘exceptional loan’ he was supposedly going to take out, pestered the university to be allowed to pay it directly (nope) and was so difficult and controlling, I told him not to worry about getting himself into debt and that her stepfather and I would sort it.🙄 He’s given her a bank card for one of his own € accounts, so she limits its use as he likes to scrutinise her spending. Anything other than simply send her some money!

In reality my mother has stepped up and is paying accommodation (she is well able to afford it.) I am also an undergraduate at the moment and have gone very P/T, so money is tight!

I think she is doing quite well though and is actually managing to budget and even save money.

My dd is wanting to go to university this year. She only wanted to apply to 3 universities too far to commute, so we pushed her to apply for one within commuting distance. She is adamant she wants to move out. But we are not paying for her accommodation. She has had that money and far more as she needed to go to private school for the last few years to be able to access the education. She would be better off at home. But like most teens, has decided otherwise. Her CTF will pay for halls and we will give her as yet an undecided amount. It won’t be loads. If she were to commute, we’d possibly pay for that for example and she’d be expected to fund the rest.