Paying for my son's uni fees

The_Drowner

Hi, I know there is a separate student money forum but as I am neither a student nor likely to be in receipt of a student loan, but I AM trying to be debt free, this forum might be the more appropriate one for me to post my question in:

My financial situation is tight - I have large loan and credit card debts and have come to arrangements with all of my creditors. So far so good.

My son is about to start uni and has received funding for tuition and accommodation. But he doesn't get this until he starts at the uni and the funding is released in three blocks (term by term).

Unfortunately we have just found out that the university want 50% of the accommodation fees settling up front so we are now faced with having to find £700 in less than a month with absolutely no prospect of that happening given our financial situation.

I can entirely understand why the uni wants to release the money to the students a term at a time but I have no idea why they don't keep the demands for the accommodation bills in line with that. It seems mad and unreasonable to me. I wish they had told us about this stoopid way of working when we were checking out all of this higher education stuff.

Anyway, anyone got any experience of having to deal withthis sort of thing? I really don't want to let down my son or get off on the wrong footing with the uni but we have absolutely no way of finding £700 in the space of just a few weeks given that all of our spare cash is already promised to our creditors. Any advice and/or experiense in this type of thing?

LilMissEmmylou

have u tried to ring the university and speak to their finance or accommodation departments and telling them your predicament? I see no reason why they wouldnt have others in the same situation and be happy to receive money the day the student loans come in.

RAS

Second the advice above. Personally I think is is unreasonable to want more then one third of the fee at the start of term 1.

The other option is to find out when he can organise his student bank account which should come with a free overdraft so he can pay the hall fees even if the grant/loan cheque is late. This may not be until he registers, as banks have been stung by "students" who do not actually go to university in the past.

Other things to note: it is vital that he arrives with either enough food to last a few days or enough money to feed himself for a few days and pay any transport. Some students arrive with nothing to live off and if the cheque is late, they struggle.


All universities are used to this sort of thing and if the cheque is delayed, he needs to go to Student Welfare and they will give him a temporary loan to be re-paid when the cheque arrives.

Your son may also be getting a university bursary, given your situation, has he checked?

Student Welfare will also be aware of other funds that he can access. In your situation, he may not be able to tap the bank of mum and dad, so he needs to be aware of the various hardship loans and grants that are available.

As importantly, teach him a few good basic meals he can cook from very cheap ingredients and pack him off with some extra crockery, so he and mates can eat in sometimes rather than going out and spending loads, and teach him to budget.

The_Drowner

Thanks for the advice - I must admit I never looked at the students free overdraft route. I was thinking purely in terms of how I could try and help him out. That might be a good option.

As far as trying to speak to the uni is concerned - absolutely - that is the intention but, would you believe, the deadline for all of the paperwork is Friday 29th, the office only opens for incoming calls on Wednesday 27th.... really helpful!

Gemmzie

Definitely the interest free overdraft route, if he has something written with his accomodation costs and the payment schedule, he can show the bank that he plans to use the overdraft to cover the shortfall and hopefully, that will mean they'll give him a big enough one.