Overpaying Child At Uni?

Daughter going into her 3rd year, last 2 year's we were giving her £200 / month on top of the her grant which is at the minimum. She works in a pub whilst at uni and has almost come out of each year with more cash then she started so we're trying not to give her any extra on top of the grant and we'll see how that goes. She is a politics student so doesn't have many lectures so easy to fit in shifts around those rather than an Med / Eng student who have wall to wall lectures.

When I was at uni (20 years ago mind) my parents said they would help out on an ad-hoc basis if I needed some extra cash but I found that as I only had 6-8 actual contact hours during term time, plus tons of holiday time, there was ample opportunity to pick up shop / bar work for extra cash to buy records and weed spend on course books and rent.

I hate to break it to you but they're not getting grants, they're getting loans... (I suspect you know this already!)

Martin Lewis has a bit of a rant about the assumed parental contribution which is worth a read: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loan-parental-contribution-tool/guide/

Bar Work? It's all OnlyFans now!

My daughters friend funded a year in Australia by selling feet pics! 😬

Are there any bursaries at uni she could tap into?

I think every parent tops up to some degree or other. If not on a monthly basis, with one offs, food parcels, treats.

My daughter is just starting her second year, last year I had to top up her loan by £2000 just to cover her accommodation costs, that was halls, this year she is renting a house with four friends and I will be giving her £200 a month towards rent and bills. For food and social money she works in the holidays and saves up. If I could afford to give her more then I would but there is precious little spare in the household budget as there is and she's pretty understanding about the situation and at least she is learning the value of money and the art of budgeting.

I think a lot depends hugely on what course they are doing. Having had 2 at Leeds, one was able to fund themselves with part time jobs etc, but the other had a lot of contact hours and practical projects that required them to be in the university. They did a year in industry that  helped to top up their money at year 4 or a 5 year course.

The apporach we took was a lump sum gift of around £5k (5 years ago now) that they could use to tide them over the difficult periods (and learn about savings, and sensible spending) and a regular conversation with them to go through their budget and check that they came to us first before their overdraft.

We have then loaned additional sums as required with pretty flexible repayment as needed.

Also £7.5k may not be the most expensive Leeds halls, but it is not the cheapes. Deciding on one of the closer halls comes at a price and the sooner your child learns this the better. Mine were all a 45 minute walk out in the first year, and saved rent accordingly.

+1 on Martin Lewis/MoneySavingExpert view of things.

We have assisted ours at £150 a month, plus we do things like buy them some clothes or a food shop through the year.

TBF they have both worked and as such have more money than I did as a student. One has saved(!) for his house deposit through the year, the other travelled Europe, drank beer and rides a nice bike....

IME being frugal through home cooking, cycling everywhere etc has been far more of a benefit than me finding more money for them.

Grants... yes, sorry, I know they're loans now - I don't want to give away my age but they were grants in my day (and we could 'sign on' and claim housing benefit in the summer too)
OnlyFans - I hope not - I wouldn't want our paths to cross on there!
Bursaries - she may be able to get a little extra as a result of a disability and is looking into that herself.
Halls Cost - yes, there are certainly cheaper ones too - she's already planning to live somewhere cheaper next year but there are distinct advantages to her living closer this year (and that does come at a cost).

I do realise I'm fortunate in being able to help her out with a bit extra but, without going into detail, the reason we have a little extra money in the house is unfortunate.

edit: I'll have a look at the Martin Lewis guide too
also - she is pretty good with money already - she doesn't drink at all or smoke/vape or need the right labels on clothes

My daughter has gone locally to Uni, so get's the lower maintenance 'loan'. She's a 'home bird' so this suits her better, and seeing boyfriend. I top it up with £80 a month.  She's no rent/food etc. Bought herself a laptop and a big graphics tablet (for the course) with her money, and it covers clothes/travel. I can imagine having a child in halls is expensive.

Was wondering about this as well , we’ve paid for halls for daughter, thankfully less than mentioned above, and have suggested that the grant -she gets the minimum which works out at £20 per day for her term length- should be sufficient to cover everything else- food, clothes, entertainment etc. Is this realistic and fairish? She will have long hours and they’re not permitted to work during term, but want to strike a balance between enabling her to achieve, and financing a lifestyle.

I top my daughter up to the full amount of the loan / grant / whatever. She then does a bit of work while at Uni - student ambassador so doing Open days, etc., and also has worked fairly solidly in Winter and summer breaks at her old weekend job at the posh person's supermarket, where they're always glad to see her back and find shifts.

She hasn't struggled that much, has dipped into her savings a bit but isn't a big party goer or drinker, and when they have gone out-out they usually started with a few drinks in their halls anyway. Fake Archers at £8 a bottle goes a long way, apparently, or unbranded vodka (well, Tesco / Aldi - not from some Black Country illicit still)

That said - £7500 for halls!! She didn't go for the absolute budget option and i know prices have risen somewhat but even this year her halls are £4680 - I think was a bit under £4500 last year. Sure she had to share a bathroom and there are far more modern / well appointed on campus, but that's expensive!

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/accommodation/students/cryfield-standard/

Y2 now so in a house with 3 friends. That's a different experience already (see other Uni accomodation thread!)

they’re not permitted to work during term,

Who says this? A university?

not permitted to work during term

You what? Standard Uni or something else.... never heard of that, in fact Warwick have their own employment agency (sort of) for campus jobs - bars, coffee shops, arts centre, etc., which is great because they understand and are built to facilitate someone phoning in at late notice with an essay crisis and do get pissed off like a 'proper' employer would.

“My daughters friend funded a year in Australia by selling feet pics!”

if anybody would like to see mine send me a fiver.

We paid all maintenance for Son1 so as to minimise loan to fees, that included accommodation (typically we paid 3-400 per month for four years, more in Bristol) and living expenses (about £400 per month). He got a job during the summer months for the rest. We're still topping up now as he is on an EU funded PhD, but his rent in Dublin is more than 75% of his PhD stipend!

Universities are now foreign fee collecting landlords that do education on the side. He always rented in the private sector.

<p style=My daughters friend funded a year in Australia by selling feet pics! 😬</p>

Wearing stilettos? Asking for a friend...

Some universities don’t allow you to work during term time, but check the small print on that, as my university said “No term time jobs - unless you’re working for the university”. That meant that we could do bar work in a university-owned bar, or work in the SU, and things like that.
I’m not sure whether the student who regularly babysat for a professor’s children was technically allowed to, but no one ever said anything!

Wearing stilettos? Asking for a friend…

Pedal Pumping pics is where the money is apparently!!

This is genuine BTW - my daughter was talking one night about her friend going to Australia. We asked how she was affording that as we knew her background - daughter casually said 'oh she's been selling feet pics for a year. Made loads of money"!

Can we have some clarity on exactly what figures people are quoting.... as I have exactly the same question as the OP

The OP seems to be saying he wants to give money on top of the Gov + Parent amount:

Total maintenance (gov +parental) = £9978

Whereas StuF seems to be giving £200 pcm on top of the minimum grant, which means the daughter is actually getting less than she "should" be

last 2 year’s we were giving her £200 / month on top of the her grant which is at the minimum

Is that correct @stuF?

Bazz doesn't state whether his £200 is on top of a nominal Grant + Parental, but I'm getting the impression it is not

this year she is renting a house with four friends and I will be giving her £200 a month towards rent and bills. For food and social money she works in the holidays

Jo, Matt, fossy. Am I right in thinking yours are getting less than the notional Gov + Parental?

JonV tops up to the notional G+ P

I was basically going to ask similar to the OP. I think we plan to give our kid £800 pcm on top of his minimum "grant" to take him to the notional value. My assumption was that there is no way an engineering student can live on that amount in Lunn'n and so we need to give him more.
Agree/ disagree.

PS. My questions/ quotes above intend no judgement. I'm just trying to understand what others are doing to educate my approach

JonV tops up to the notional G+ P

I was basically going to ask similar to the OP. I think we plan to give our kid £800 pcm on top of his minimum “grant” to take him to the notional value. My assumption was that there is no way an engineering student can live on that amount in Lunn’n and so we need to give him more.
Agree/ disagree.

Correct on the top point. Actually a bit more but only because I can't be arsed messing around with random numbers, I rounded up to the nearest sensible number.

And then i just remembered, i then give an extra £10 a month on top of that (immediately breaking the keep it in round numbers ideal)  That came about when i visited on my way back from a trip and she made me a sandwich and i was horrified to find she was buying value cheese. Student or not, no daughter of mine is eating value cheddar, so I upped with a cheese surplus. These things are important (I know you don't get much cave aged single herd cheese for £10, but it's enough to stretch to decent supermarket now).

On the second point - remember already that the 'grant' for a London Uni is already at £12,667, not £9706 and while the grant minimum is also higher so is the parent's contribution expected to be. Up to you whether you feel that is enough or not. My only advice is that it's easier to increase it if needed, whatever you give them will probably be spent anyway

And another also. I can't find now due to some firewall issues at work but martin lewis did a really good talk about why the student loan isn't really like a loan, it's an additional student tax and is not as scary as being £45,000 in debt sounds.

If you have the wherewithal to not need it then great, but you shouldn't be raiding other funds just to avoid taking the loan. Watch the video, he presents really well (it's a panel of 100 people so he can divide them as % to illustrate)

why the student loan isn’t really like a loan, it’s an additional student tax

Yep, totally

Been discussing this hugely with the missus. She wants him to use granny's money to pay off the loan asap. I want him to use it for a house deposit

Long video but you can jump to key parts

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-decoded/

My daughter's annual uni costs are as follows -

• Fees £9250.00
• Halls £6725.00
• Subsistence £2340.00

funded like this -

• Student Loan Fees £9250.00
• Student Loan Maintenance £4650.00
• Parental Contribution £4415.00

Subsistence £2340.00

🤨🤔😟

For 7/8 months?

That's like £100 a week isn't it. How the heck are they supposed to ..etc

I wish I had that much but I spend it all on student loans and cheese.

How the heck are they supposed to ..etc

She is quite frugal - 2nd hand clothes, food shopping at Aldi...

The halls are right next door to the uni and both are right in the city centre so no travel costs and if she does go anywhere she has a free bus pass (Scotland).

She has no bills as the halls are all inclusive.

"Subsistence £2340.00"

Yes, very similar to my daughter which when you look at overall 'grant' minus hall fees it come out a little under £2500 which is not a lot for the best part of a year. Hence me wanting to top it up a little.

(and thanks for everyone's varied comments - they all add something and I'll reread later this evening when I'm not trying to work at the same time)

I have two at Uni this year. Son starting year 3 at Nottingham, and daughter a fresher at NTU.

NTU student accommodation is £8500 for my daughter and my son’s accommodation is £6500. Going to be an expensive year as they get the minium maintenance loan. Fortunately my son doesn’t spend much and my daughter has been working over the summer, but we will still be topping them up.

My son's about to start his 3rd year. You'd have to ask my ex what the loans/rental/fees what ever are! I just send the same as I always have since we split up - £220 a month. (direct to the son since uni). It'll be so lovely when he finishes, all that extra cash to me mememe!
Funnily enough he's on holiday abroad with is girlfriend at the mo, so I seem to have done something right/wrong 🤔😂

Yes, very similar to my daughter which when you look at overall ‘grant’ minus hall fees it come out a little under £2500 which is not a lot for the best part of a year. Hence me wanting to top it up a little.

Mine is going on into her 2nd year now. Initially I, like you, wasn’t sure how much she’d need, but after the 1st few weeks we knew how much she was spending on average. I did also pay for lots of other things upfront to get her set up at the start - pots/pans, crockery, bedding etc… I’d never want her to be going short of anything, but she’s seems to be managing fine and always appears perfectly healthy whenever we see her. She has worked a bit this summer so has some savings as a buffer.

Jo, Matt, fossy. Am I right in thinking yours are getting less than the notional Gov + Parental?

Yes.

Our decisions were driven by conversations with out lads - and sitting down with a budget with them and going through it. We continue to monitor, as some costs (energy!) have risen significantly. We keep checking in, and both have confirmed it was lovely and really helpful to do things like a big shop at the start of term so they had a cupboard full of the basics for the term ahead, and we have agreed with eldest to buy him a new goretex jacket for birthday (etc).

We do still insure them on our car and insure their belongings. We are guarantors on housing. We have paid for a big enough cottage on holiday for them to join us - but they both bought pint or ice creams one day...

Ours worked the year before they went (full time, both earned over £25k) and continue to work part time (Tesco shelf stacking, Deliveroo and a Christmas at Gleneagles Hotel for a couple of weeks) with both earning around £6-10k a year each. This year we are not expecting eldest to work particularly as it is final year, but then he effectively finishes in 6 months (April) and has committed to Gleneagles Hotel again.

We do have an emergency fund - it is there in case a computer dies or similar.

While there neither have given up hobbies and significant social life, or travelling to Europe, so I don't think they are as skint as I and mrs_oab were at Uni....

At the end of the day, I have a real issue with Uni being 'available to all' and 'not elitest' yet requires significant parental input. Our family had to sit down and make some decisions around this, and that included the pressure for a longterm ill mrs_oab to have to keep working and the fact that post 18 there is to my mind a need for them to learn independence and the effort that takes. I see so many of their colleagues at uni who are given car, house, £400-800 a month and more - and funnily enough will finish uni having not had a job to put on their CV. While I could break my back and give the lads more, for me it needed a balanced and open approach. I *think* my lads will be appreciative of that, and what they have gained by having to be independent and frugal.*

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*I note eldest has been to the Alps for 5 summers on the trot, has nice bikes and can go to see GF in London regularly...hmmm

pots/pans - she's taken what she wanted from the kitchen and I've got shiny new ones. Everyone's a winner.

Subsistence £2340.00
🤨🤔😟

For 7/8 months?

That’s like £100 a week isn’t it. How the heck are they supposed to ..etc

hopefully they are better at maths than you or are studying an arts degree 😉

like many others here I top up from basic loan to the maximum Scot Gov offer poorest students as seemed they’ve done the maths.  We do also bits and bobs throughout the year whenever it comes to mind.  Grandparents are also fairly generous (not sure how much they throw at him but enough). He doesn’t seem to struggle but he does some tutoring, and doesn’t have a lavish lifestyle and worked all summer.

one thing to consider is if you are going to give them a lump sum, a monthly allowance, weekly etc and if it’s 52 weeks of the year or just term time when away.  I gave my son option and he said split into 52 weekly payments then he knows there’s cash coming rather than doing something silly with it (he’s pretty sensible).  Friends give a lump sum to their son at start of each term then are surprised when the at the end of term he’s asking for extra!

pots/pans – she’s taken what she wanted from the kitchen and I’ve got shiny new ones. Everyone’s a winner.

Most universities have a system to recycle last years pots / pans / crockery - we have always picked it all up for free via Student Union.

one thing to consider is if you are going to give them a lump sum, a monthly allowance, weekly etc

I split my contribution into 9 monthly payments, Sept till May. The Student Loan maintenance is split into 3 payments - one per term.

Yeah, it will be a monthly payment over ten months. She can fund herself over the summer. She's asked me to 'front load' the first few months so she has less pressure to get a job until later in the year.

Who says this? A university?

My lad is at Cambridge and they have a "no term time" jobs instruction. Some ignore it, he does occasional bar shifts at the music faculty, but he does have lectures/contact time most days, sometimes Saturdays. They do have slightly shorter terms, so he has earned extra in the holidays when he's home.

Going into his final year, he's paying £180 for a double room in college. Shared kitchen and shower. I thought that was expensive compared to previous years but looking at figures here, obviously not.

That’s like £100 a week isn’t it. How the heck are they supposed to ..etc

More than I get!

they’re not permitted to work during term,
Who says this? A university?

Yes. like MoreCashThanDash's boy, my daughters going to Cambridge. To be fair, she's got 30 hours of contact time mon-sat, plus prep, study etc so doesn't leave too much time to work.

hopefully they are better at maths than you or are studying an arts degree 😉

It's arithmetic, not maths, but yes you're right that was atrocious on my part.

🙂

We have 2 away at unis in England.

1 entering final undergraduate year of 3.
The other entering 2nd undergraduate year of 3 years.

They get the minimum maintenance loan. We top up to the max loan value.

#1 has ended each year with money in the bank.

#2 ended year 1 and got through most of the summer with no extras.

They chose different accommodation quality based on whatever budget planning they did.

I expect we’d lend them extra beyond what we are giving them if they asked for it and produced a proposal.

@easily I think I’d be prepared to pay more than a fiver to not have to see your feet?

@the-muffin-man

My daughters friend funded a year in Australia by selling feet pics!

Of course she did. 😉

Of course she did. 😉

Her feet were behind her ears....

@MoreCashThanDash - great minds think alike.

great dirty minds think alike.

Going into his final year, he’s paying £180 for a double room in college. Shared kitchen and shower. I thought that was expensive compared to previous years but looking at figures here, obviously not.

Is that per week?
Housing is silly in Edinburgh - eldest pays £600 a month for a room in 6 bed tenement flat that's a dive and they're taking landlord to tribunal over the condition... And I've a third starts at Edinburgh Uni next year...

Is that per week?

Yep.

Knowing how expensive Cambridge is for regular housing I was very concerned when he started applying, but as all the accommodation is owned by the colleges, who have more wealth than most African nations (probably where it came from), its surprisingly good value compared to other unis. They also didn’t pass on the rise in fuel prices over the last two years, just doing it now.

Though it may not feel it when you are in the fourth floor attic room of a single glazed listed Victorian building with an Edwardian heating system, sharing a tiny kitchen which has no oven, and the shared showers are in the basement 😀

i was horrified to find she was buying value cheese. Student or not, no daughter of mine is eating value cheddar, so I upped with a cheese surplus. These things are important

That is first rate parenting right there.

From this i can see that a) Uni got *really* expensive in the last 30+ years and b) you lot support your kids exceedingly well. So well done.

Despite graduating nearly 3 decades ago, i finished with over 15000 in debt, 90% of it spent on food, rent and text books. (My dad didn't top up my 100 quid a term grant at all. And my mum was broke, setting up on her own.)
IIRC typical debt on graduation back then was around 1.5-2k.

I lived on value cheese for 4 years. The baked bean wars were an utter godsend.

On the plus side, i had a couple of good jobs and lived well within my means and cleared it relatively quickly.

Sorry if my value cheese comment was off the mark, I know that plenty of students have to really scrimp no matter what grant and work they do. Wasn't meant to be condescending and equally while I top my daughter up to the full and a bit, that doesn't mean she's rolling in it - she's really learned to budget (that was a parental worry, was she going to be like her mum!) and while she's a good cook she's also developed some recipes that she can knock out for a couple of quid a portion and then freeze two further ones. I did say she should really batch up to 10 or 12 portions and sell the rest to others in her flat for £3 a portion but she wasn't keen.

So while life is too short for value cheese (and bad coffee, this is STW after all) that's another tip and reason why I'd go in low to start with and if they really can't manage top up - the skills of living to a budget and learning not to rely on takeaways and shop bought ready meals are something they should work on.

Lastly - I was one of the last lucky ones, three years in halls, fully catered (and eating in the Great Hall of Durham Castle to boot!) and full grant covered by the local authority. IDK what I'd have done nowadays, 35 years later.

Sorry if my value cheese comment was off the mark

Not at all.

So while life is too short for value cheese (and bad coffee, this is STW after all) that’s another tip and reason why I’d go in low to start with and if they really can’t manage top up – the skills of living to a budget and learning not to rely on takeaways and shop bought ready meals are something they should work on.

That as well. One thing that being broke at Uni taught me was how to turn crap, low quality food into a decent meal. Or several decent meals.

Talking of jobs, my son has got a parttime Halfords job in the bike shop in Exeter. He's been shielded from shit bikes all his life and his now having to sell people Apollos and £600 ebikes. He said to me "I know when they take the bikes away that they will be back in a few weeks with something not working" .. Quite an eye opener for the poor lad 😀

My daughter is off to Uni for the first time.  She worked over the summer and saved £4.5K so it works out as follows:

Halls: £7.5K We paid

Grant/Loan: £3.8K

Savings: £4.5K

She's got the loan for tuition fees as well.

shielded from shit bikes all his life and his now having to sell people Apollos and £600 ebikes.

I think I'm adopting this as the official definition of a first world problem 🙂

We've worked on paying the accommodation, and the basic student loan (restricted for them by dint of my level of income) works out at about £3000 per year / £1000 per term / £100 per week (during term time).

Ours have some work part time, but not the real work ethic that OAB sets out above.

It'll come in time (I hope).

We're always there to be guarantors on flat rental, extra kit (depending on the course requirements), taxi and removals duties, full board catering when back at home etc.

I've had to amend my working / retirement plans recently though.

No. 3 has started a course, but at a performing arts college rather than uni. This means he's not eligible for student funding, and sadly (for me) my income exceeds the threshold for the DaDa grants available. As a result, i've now got £20,000 pa fees and London living expenses to fund, rather than the £6.000 pa ish that I've been paying for the others at uni.  On the positive side, he won't have student loans / debts / tax...

So instead of the expected 3 year cost to me of £20,000 odd, I now have an additional c£75,000 to find. Ouchety-ouch. That's a lot of extra work for me, and additional loans to pay off.

I'm hoping no.4 follows nos 1. and 2, rather than the route of no.3

Halls: £7.5K We paid

When people say this, do you mean because your child only got the minimum maintenance loan, or because they took less loan than than they could have?

Others have said this above, but it's not a proper loan, it's an additional tax on earnings above a threshold.

Most people on average earnings will never pay it off, so it really doesn't matter how much you borrow.

If you as a parent have cash spare, then much better to put it towards a house deposit, or other long term savings.

Martin Lewis has the numbers, bit someone graduating into a £30k job, would pay something like an extra £200 per year in tax to pay back the student loans.

Sorry if my value cheese comment was off the mark,

I honestly didn't think it was off the mark at all, I genuinely approve.

My daughter started at Aberdeen this week, it is our first child at Uni.

We are paying her accommodation and hope to be able to to do that throughout but pinch point will come in a couple of years if her younger sister also wants to go to Uni. For now though, it is £100 per week for halls.

She has a loan to pay for everything else which she budgets for. She intends to get a job as she is pretty good with money and wants to keep loan to a minimum.

So while life is too short for value cheese (and bad coffee, this is STW after all) that’s another tip and reason why I’d go in low to start with and if they really can’t manage top up – the skills of living to a budget and learning not to rely on takeaways and shop bought ready meals are something they should work on.

We have found teaching the lads how to *properly* cook and on a budget has saved a metric shed load of their spends. It is amazing how many students arrive not being able to cook - and certainly not a variety on a budget. Eldest and a couple of flat mates are really getting into cooking now and all appreciate that while they are not living on steak, there are some wonderful, tasty, cheap and varied meals to cook. They also have 'cake baker of the week' going on and every week bake two cakes or tray-bakes for the flat...But yes, some things still need to be quality.

Edit: I do remember having to chat things through with eldest when he was caught sneaking too much Tenants into Switzerland last summer as somewhere in 'burgh was doing a cheap deal. We had to discuss 'standards' around food and hydration....

From this i can see that a) Uni got *really* expensive in the last 30+ years and b) you lot support your kids exceedingly well. So well done.

Universities' raison d'etre changed.  They are now about income generation.  When fees came in there should have been a competitive battle to see who could attract students with the best pricing, discounted halls, better teaching, courses aligned to industry need / job prospects.  But actually, none of that has really happened.  HMO rules that were intended to stop landlords exploiting people like students in unsafe accommodation actually seem to have change the supply model and now there are massive businesses extorting student rather than lots of dodgy little guys.

Though it may not feel it when you are in the fourth floor attic room of a single glazed listed Victorian building with an Edwardian heating system, sharing a tiny kitchen which has no oven, and the shared showers are in the basement

The house is probably worth best part of £2m in central Cambridge!

Universities’ raison d’etre changed. They are now about income generation. When fees came in there should have been a competitive battle to see who could attract students with the best pricing, discounted halls, better teaching, courses aligned to industry need / job prospects. But actually, none of that has really happened.

Yes, it was another example of the Tories hoping that if you waft the phrase 'free market' around a bit, everything will automatically become amazing.

In reality a) if you make it so more people need degrees (ie for nursing & teaching) you increase demand and thus remove the need for universities to compete on price, and b) if you fix fees and then let fiscal drag do its thing, uni's will start making a loss on £9k fees and thus you remove their ability to compete on price.

Which is why all the Russell group unis are going balls-out to attract international students with their higher fees, and everyone who can afford it is building student accommodation to subside the fees.

There is going to be a massive crunch in the next 10 years and it's not going to be pretty.

Sorry, bit off topic!

My niece has just started in Bristol and is paying £700/m for a room in a shared house. That's more than my mortgage 😭

Sandwich Jr has just returned to his SALT masters. His accommodation this year is £12.5k!! He has expensive tastes and has self-funded through nursing work earnings during an enforced absence due to Bells Palsy last September.

During his first degree we topped up to the loan max and said anything more had to be through earnings. He did a fair few care-worker shifts at residential nursing homes in his Learning Disability speciality. He's now on bank work for the local hospital to keep his loan drawings to a minimum. Those doing nursing have the ability to work as care-workers after the first year and are in high demand due to their better than average skill-sets.

Which is why all the Russell group unis are going balls-out to attract international students with their higher fees, and everyone who can afford it is building student accommodation to subside the fees.

They've been doing that long before fees.

I remember Reading Uni winning the Queens award for export back in the late 80s for attracting 1000s of overseas students (when we still had grants).

Universities’ raison d’etre changed. They are now about income generation.

I am currently taking a break from typing up an invitation to a university to work with us on an evaluation of a project.
It is eye opening what a daily rate the university is expecting staff to be charging - on top of which is another third of facilities and university central costs...

Edit: I do remember having to chat things through with eldest when he was caught sneaking too much Tenants into Switzerland last summer as somewhere in ‘burgh was doing a cheap deal. We had to discuss ‘standards’ around food and hydration….

As you said in your post above, the lads doing a lot of cooking 😝

TCL

Eldest is off on 22nd of the month for her first year at Aberystwyth.

She has 10k saved from a year out working which is spread across 2 ISAs that mature this and next November plus a grand in her current account. We will top her up regularly with £150 and month plus ad-hoc as required.

She gets minimum maintenance which is think is c. 4.2k. This is more or less break even on her accomodation costs.

We've bought all her stuff and helped her with her first car. Running costs are her responsibility but we'll help her her with unexpected repairs and the like.

I've worked all year with her on fiscal responsibility and showing how having cash in savings makes her more cash. She's planning on working for the uni (max 15 hours a week) and is pretty tight, so I think she'll be alright.

In fact, our financial planning indicates she might come out the other side with a few k if she's moderately careful.

Being able to work is the single biggest factor. Even 10 hours a week makes a big difference to the float.

Then she'll be paying extra tax for the rest of her working life.

desperatebicycle

Talking of jobs, my son has got a parttime Halfords job in the bike shop in Exeter. He’s been shielded from shit bikes all his life and his now having to sell people Apollos and £600 ebikes. He said to me “I know when they take the bikes away that they will be back in a few weeks with something not working” .. Quite an eye opener for the poor lad

I'm sure this is tongue-in-cheek, but a mate of mine & real bike nut at uni worked at Halfords in Hayes, W London.
He sold me an Apollo Equito which I put 1000's of miles on, including taking it over to Germany when on my 6-month student placement in Bavaria.
Only issue in the 4 years or so I owned it was putting a large tree branch through my rear mech, which was fixed with a replacement mech for about 30 Deutsch marks.
It was still going strong in my final year, but got nicked out of the bike shed one evening - some blokes in a van pulled up & emptied the whole shed.

Amazed with some of the accommodation costs people are banding about! I was at uni a long time ago and seem to remember the grubby 1st year halls with shared loo/shower etc. was £45/week while the posh final year halls with en suite bathrooms were £80.
When I used to live in Cambridge (got a job there after graduating), the most I paid for a shared house was £340/month for a large 3-bed semi-detached, sharing with 2 others. That was a 10 min walk from the centre, near the Beehive centre for those who know Cambridge - it's probably not called that anymore.

Since my daughter was born, we've had an ISA for her that we intend to give to her when she's older, or use for university/ towards first house deposit, depending on where her life takes here. Just wondering now if we should be putting more into it than we currently are 🙂

She’s asked me to ‘front load’ the first few months so she has less pressure to get a job until later in the year.

Ooooh, risky! I was a klutz with money at university (and girls, and studying, and everything else basically, it's a miracle I escaped with a degree!) and ended up working through most of my study leave (for a mechanical engineering degree, not exactly ideal). If anything I'd be end loading the finances so she can focus 100% on exams etc. at the end of the year.

This is from a Southern Ireland perspective and a middle income earner.  We are mortgage free so this helps a lot We don't have government backed student loans and I earn too much for her to get any financial assistance.

My daughter is in University (entering her 3rd year and final year but dropped out of her first course before this) and she narrowly missed doing medicine by a few points.  She lives at home and commutes there by bus.  She works part-time but most of that money seems to be spent on her  non-education interests such as travelling and keeping online shops in business and her old Fiat 500.  She doesn't socialise that much but that's another story.

We pay her fees of €3000 PA, her private medical health insurance, we typically pay for her medical related costs that aren't covered by the private health insurance (including all prescription medicines).  She lives rent free, doesn't contribute to food or utility bills, . We'd sometimes pick up the tab for some of her car expenses.

For the previous 3 years we were also paying €300 PM to our son who was in a London university but that's finished now.

We also pay €110 PW for her horse but my wife likes to use the horse so I guess it's not single use.  Having said that, the use of the horse per cost ratio is pretty crap IMHO.  There are also other horse related expenses such as shoeing, medical, dental...  It costs a lot more to run a horse than a mountain bike (and an eBike at that)!

Having done well in a recent GAMSAT exam, she hopes to have enough points to do medicine next year.  This is where it becomes really expensive.  Medicine costs €16000 PA (4 years) and we have agreed to pay €12000 PA so she'll have to work for the other €4000.

At 56 years of age, everything we pay for her means less for our retirement but medicine is a dream of hers since she was a kid so I don't begrudge her.  We joke she is our pension but in reality we don't expect anything back from her.

That was a 10 min walk from the centre, near the Beehive centre for those who know Cambridge – it’s probably not called that anymore.

Still called that, but not for much longer, Railpen (who own it) are planning to demolish it and change the whole site. Original supermarket burnt down maybe 25 years ago and been an Asda ever since they rebuilt it.

Ooooh, risky! I was a klutz with money at university (and girls, and studying, and everything else basically, it’s a miracle I escaped with a degree!)

I guy in our halls spent every penny he had on booze on the 1st day arriving and had a massive party in his room - a sackbarrow was used to get the cans back from the off-licence. Interesting strategy....

Amazed with some of the accommodation costs people are banding about!

Indeed. Eldest_oab's landlady has owned the flat for 32 years and gross income is £36,000 annually from it. She owns just short of 50 properties apparently.
It is on 100 year old windows, boiler is now 18 years old, and the bathrooms and kitchen were installed in 2003. As far as they can tell, the flat has not been decorated since 2011 as there is graffiti on a couple of door frames. Currently the owner is refusing to do anything in case of the new energy standards coming in being changed in the next 3-5 years...
It is galling to know how much money she makes - and yet shows so little interest in maintaining the property to a reasonable standard as a home.

First year he was in halls owner by uni, on their own site, in one of the older halls. IIRC the halls had been built in early 1980s - are basically painted breeze block walls, plastic 'caravan' like bathroom, plastic school table and chair etc. I know the uni provides security, cleaning of hallways etc - but how the heck the justify also charging £6.3k a year x 1700 hall bedrooms (assuming they have paid the capital build cost off already) is just staggering. Surely if a university is a charity to provide education to all, the halls (and tuition fees) should reflect how *low* they can keep the costs, not how much they can match market rates?

....Ireland....We pay her fees of €3000 PA....

I digress, but isn't it interesting that the fees there are so much lower than the UK...

Not taking a full loan was one of my big(ger) regrets from Uni, I only took a loan in year 1&2, on advice from parents who were dead against any form of borrowing, apart from a mortgage. I’ve paid it all off now but, on account of having to work to live in my third year, I don’t have a degree…

This is where it becomes really expensive.

I'll see you Medicine and raise you commercial flying. We've given Son 2 £300 per month living expenses on top of his fees for two years of flying school. He paid the fees for the year at Uni in Ireland, we paid the accommodation and living expenses. And no loans available. He's finally finished now (and will graduate) and is currently on a TWO MONTH course, where the fees are TWO YEARS of medical school. Let's just say the practicals are not cheap. He's going to repay those final fees from his salary eventually.

My daughter has just finished uni in London. Basic maintenance grant barely covered accommodation. We topped that up with £550 per month and she worked part time.

Pinch point for us was when she had to do two terms at UC San Diego. We had to pay her accommodation up front (about £3k) and then about another £3k for her to live on. £6k in 6 months.

My son is about to start uni about 50 miles away. He has a part time job and will get a minimal maintenance grant so we will be subsidising him by £550 per month again.

I won't know myself with the spare cash when they are both finished studying!

I have twin girls. They both went to university.  They borrowed the max all the time. I gave them £600 pcm each. Amy did a medicine degree and a BSc in a year so was there 6 yrs.  Her sister was a nursing degree.

It was very very hard for me, but id had no financial help from my parents for my degree and i remember how hard it was.

I would 100% rather go without, than make my daughters' youth shitty with scraping around for money as an undergrad.

Im hoping they elect to put me in a non abusive care home when the day comes

Ian