Teen at Uni - money?

[Whereissummer24]

Have read a few threads and am wondering if we are being a little stingy. He has a loan - its the min one I think is about 4K for the year and we cover accommodation which is over £800 a month. I figured the 4K split would be enough to live on - I'm expecting them to get a part time job too. Is this too little? They do also have access to a child trust fund acc if needed. Can anyone give me some input?

Yes fine to live on the 4k min loan if you are paying accom. If they want extra they can do part time job. Not stingy at all.

Can they easily work with their uni hours? It really does vary. My friend's course was 4 full days of contact hours plus study.

I think it's not a lot to live on until they find a job. Could you afford more?

Same as what we are doing or at least we are seeing how he gets on. DS worked a summer job, if this and his loan runs out we want him to get a job.

Yes probably, I've sent some clothes etc they've asked for as well. I'll stick a bit away a month i think in case they run low. Its difficult as its a uni with quite a healthy social scene which is not going to be cheap!!

I have 2 at uni (now 2nd and 3rd years) and we pay their accommodation, but don't give them anything extra aside from money for travel home as and when they come.

One is able to work in term time, one isn't (Oxbridge) but his costs are much lower - he's managed to go skiing and pay for May Balls (£250+) without input from us. I would say they should be able to do it - but they won't be living lavishly! My daughter is doing a course with fewer contact hours and parties harder so she is happy to work during term time and holidays.

A lot depends on the uni course.

Obviously some people have to work no matter what course they are on, but some courses have very high contact hours and workload (medicine being the obvious example) while others less so.

Most students get jobs in the summer/over the holidays or do jobs they can transfer back and forth.

I guess it does depend on which uni they are at, how easy it is to get a job, and what counts as basic expenses. It's probably at the lower end of fine, TBH.

That's a lot more than my two get.

Ds gets minimum loan (which is 4,767) but he uses it to pay towards his accommodation. We pay the balance of the accommodation then an amount to live on each week equivalent to what he would get in total if he were on maximum loan.

His accommodation is just under £7,000 per year so he has £3,258 per year leftover to live on. Plus whatever he earns.

So your son is getting approx £1,500 more than mine has.

DD's loan just covers her accommodation. We are giving her £50 per week for living expenses (we will give her this when she's back home during holidays too). She's managing fine with this so far but does cook for herself every night and doesn't drink.

We are planning to top up the minimum loan to the maximum, either in a lump sum (e.g. accommodation) or split over monthly payments through the year.

We plan for 2025:

DD will only get the minimum. We plan to pay the accomodation, phone bill, a hobby and train tickets to come home.

So far we agreed that she won't look for a job immediatley, she has ASD and ADHD and we want her to settle and concentrate on her course.
We hope she can job or volunteer in the holidays and go from there in Y2 and Y3.

If everything goes as foreseen, she will do either a full year or one semester abroad which will be fully funded by us.

We are lucky as our mortgage will be paid off at the same time DD will leave for uni and we put funds away since she started school and our childcare bill reduced significantly.

Depends on what you can afford and what you want to give.
DD gets the minimum loan and her accommodation is £10500 so she starts on around minus £6000, she had about £2000 saved and her Grandma gave her £2000 as well. We are giving her around £800 per month and don't expect her to get a job

You aren't being stingy. We paid any accommodation costs not covered by DDs minimum loan and she works the holidays to make money to cover all her other costs. We give her the odd bit of money for travel home/extra clothes but I don't think it does her any favours to cover all her costs and have her sit around doing bugger all for the 5 months of the year that she isn't at uni. I have too much experience in my family of parents helping their kids out too much and them not being motivated to make their own way in the world and I'm not making the same mistake with my kids. Luckily DD prefers to make her own money and she is very self-sufficient.

I did not want our DC working term time or having loans so they got £1100 to cover rent and everything else
No fees as in Scotland

I topped up DD's loan to the maximum. She has paid accommodation (~£5500) out of what she had and is living on the rest. I am so glad that she didn't get a place at a university where accommodation is more expensive.

Thanks all, yes his course hours mean he can get a job. He was really lazy over the summer post A-levels and whilst did a bit of work he did nothing near to what I encouraged him too. In all honesty that is why i'm slightly hesitant to give him a free ride. He could definitely pick up enough to earn an extra £250 a month so I think i'll hold off any more handouts to try and motivate him a bit!

He can get a pt job term time and work full time summer months. That combined with you paying for his accommodation plus student loan should be plenty. If staying at halls is too expensive, he can rent a room in a shared flat (those should be cheaper). He needs to start taking responsibility for himself - sometimes they need a bit of a push to get there!