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.

it will be very different for my daughter then others on this thread 😬

we simply don’t earn enough/ have spare money to fund her , however she will get middle loan ish (about 6k I think ) and a nhs bursary. That should cover accommodation and fees .

she will have to fund her own food for the main part ( I’ll help where I can )

she currently works nearly full time at a chain pub - so is hoping for a transfer. If not to come and work in the holidays. (Her course is full on and I have been warned she might struggle to work on top - but she isn’t a stranger to working/ placement and college)

tbh I’ll very much miss the child benefit that will end with her being the eldest child.

we pay her phone bill and bus pass now and will continue to.

no family that would consider helping.

the loans seem oddly unfair (I thinks it’s because they haven’t increased as wages have for a long while)

DS is at uni abroad. He doesn’t qualify for student loans. He is lucky to have got 3 scholarships but we still pay £1100 a month for fees and insurance. He has multiple jobs to pay for everything else and he works all holidays. I’ve had to take a second job in order to be able to pay for this. I’m exhausted but he is grateful. Thank goodness I only have one!

At the time my 3 children went to uni, my partner had a well paid job. We paid for their rent and gave them money for food. Just as the last one finished, Covid hit and he was made redundant. He will now work until 67, which was not on the cards. I wish we had put more aside, but that’s life and we alone are responsible for giving our children so much.

My child is two years old so very far off yet 😂 but I only had the option to go to uni in my own city because my parents could never have afforded to pay for accommodation for me. I had a job part time and a maintenance loan.

I pay her rent, phone- £10/ month the odd train ticket and a big shop every term. But pps are right- everyone’s situation is different. Some of DDs friends get more, some less.

We gave them about £350 a month... this was between 2018 and 2024. They had student loans to use towards accommodation and we added the difference to pay the full rent.

For our youngest, we paid all her rent in the final year

That didn't stop the odd request for money here and there.

Both had jobs at various stages, but not consistently.

DS in final year at uni in London. He's had max loans and worked. I give him about £400 p/m.

We paid the rent for our kids and they lived on their loan and part time jobs.

My eldest's 2020-23 experience was very different financially to my younger one's 2024-27 experience.
For one thing the older one studied in a much cheaper city, so that has made a big difference in costs second time around, but even in the original city, private rentals have gone up around 50% on what they were five years ago and the loan hasn't gone up anything like this much. Wherever you go, the sums add up a lot less than they did.

Can’t remember exact details for dc1 and 2, but we did top up their loans every term. Was years ago and I don’t think the rents were so extortionate. Dc3’s rent is more than the loan, so we pay the rent in its entirety (around £2400 a quarter this year) and dc pays bills, shopping and everything else from the loan and savings. None of them worked while at uni, but did in the holidays.

It’s very expensive. I also get really cross with the ‘send them to a local uni’ brigade, as for so many of us who live rurally, this is not remotely an option. Our nearest would be 90 mins away minimum on crappy public transport that costs a fortune, and none of them do the right courses anyway. So stupid argument for so many people.

We use the loan to pay the rent (but I have to top up by about 4k a year), plus I send £75 a week for food / extra. At the moment only have one in uni but next year it’ll be two of them. I have increased my hours considerably to help pay. You do save a little from them no longer being at home all the time (food, water bills, less shampoo etc) but it’s still an awful lot of money every month. In 5 years’ time we will be celebrating!

We had saved £50 a month from when DS was tiny and thank god we did!
This money (started as the government trust fund) pays for the shortfall in his rent and we send him £100 a week for food etc.
He also works in Uni holidays.