Will our contribution be enough?

Alikay

kr15snw wrote: »

Seeing as rent is normally around £3000 (well it was when I looked) so why not pay for that? Then she cant blow her money and will have to support herself!

Trust me if she thinks £3k is not enough then she needs a slap (well you know what I mean, im not being nasty honest). My parents couldnt help me atall so I have no choice but to live off the grant (which I know shes not getting). Bit I dont use the loan which she is getting.

Get her to support herself with you paying for the rent, shell soon realise she has to get a job and start saving!

Her rent will be £4000, which is more than we're planning to give her -she'll pay the rest from her loan. We won't (and can't!) give her the £3000 in a lump sum - it will be paid in installments: We have a large mortgage and two other children to support.

She is not an indulged spoilt brat -she has a Saturday job which covers her fairly modest needs.

I only wanted advice as to whether the amount will be sufficient. OH and I did not go to university, and neither have any friends children, yet (we started breeding earlier!). All we have to go on is the info that the unis give you on what the costs will be - which in my opinion allows far too much for entertainment, books and stationery. We don't want her to have a job in term if it can be helped as her course is only 29 weeks (including freshers and reading weeks), so when she IS there its pretty well 9-5. She will work full-time in the holidays (which are longer than most uni's) so that will raise a reasonable amount.

Thank you all for your help and comments.

Money_saving_Martyn

Hi

I support myself at uni (but get nothing because supporting yourself doesn't make you financially independant (grrr))

I earn £85 per week and budget accordingly. I work extra over the summer hols to pay for fees and to get some saving for the year - and find time to go on holiday!

pinginal

Alikay wrote: »

Her rent will be £4000, which is more than we're planning to give her -she'll pay the rest from her loan. We won't (and can't!) give her the £3000 in a lump sum - it will be paid in installments: We have a large mortgage and two other children to support.

She is not an indulged spoilt brat -she has a Saturday job which covers her fairly modest needs.

I only wanted advice as to whether the amount will be sufficient. OH and I did not go to university, and neither have any friends children, yet (we started breeding earlier!). All we have to go on is the info that the unis give you on what the costs will be - which in my opinion allows far too much for entertainment, books and stationery. We don't want her to have a job in term if it can be helped as her course is only 29 weeks (including freshers and reading weeks), so when she IS there its pretty well 9-5. She will work full-time in the holidays (which are longer than most uni's) so that will raise a reasonable amount.

Thank you all for your help and comments.

Out of interest what course will your daughter be doing? I'm at uni now and don't know of any courses that are actually 9-5. I was worried that I would be too busy to get a part time job but there really is plenty of time for it. Especially in the first year. I don't get any bursaries so just have the student loan for my tuition and accomodation. I'm living partially off my savings and from my part time job, I don't get any handouts from my parents. I personally think you are worrying too much, which is easy to do. £3000 is far too much in opinion. Your daughter is in catered halls, so she won't have to buy food, which is my biggest outgoing. My department is also 1.5 miles from my accommodation and it's only a 20min walk. It's normal for students to have to walk this far, and many walk further, I wouldn't say your daughter should have to spend money on travel each day. As for books, there is a lot of talk about the cost of books, but you don't really need to buy that many. I'm doing a history degree and the reading list is huge, it would be ridiculous to buy all the books as we would only use them once, the library is there for this reason. When looked at this way £3000 is a lot for stationery and going out.

kr15snw

My costs for uni are:

£5.00 a week for parking / bus
£20 - £30 a week for shopping (this is for me and my boyfriend mind you)

£35 a month for petrol
£10 a month for lunchs while in college

And the rest of my grant goes on materials (Ive just paid £100 on a set of pencils!), car insurance, car tax and helping my brother with things like TV liscence (if hes skint) and other things for the house.

Also someone mentioned the hours Im in Wednesday 2 - 4, Thursday 9 - 4 and Friday 9 - 12. I know its mainly because Im on an art course and I still have to do a full day - 2 days work outside of uni. But I doubt shell be in every day, I dont know a single course that does.

Alikay

Crisis is now averted. Our daughter visited Durham for a 2 day post offer "open day" last week and just didn't feel that she'd fit in.

She's now planning to go to Birmingham (despite school's rant that she's not "stretching" herself enough). Birmingham is nearer, cheaper (in that there is more S/C accom and shops like Lidl/Aldi whereas Durham had a Waitrose!!) and has loads of jobs. We won't need to give her anything like as much financial support.

It also means she only has to get 3 B's in her A levels (which are virtually in the bag) instead of the A's she'd have needed for Durham.

There would have been much less opportunity to work in Durham ( it's a tiny city with over a quarter of the population being students, and very little industry) and much shorter academic year. Also the higher entry requirement had us all worried that the academic standard would be much higher, so she'd have had to work much harder to keep up (so not a good idea to work if struggling)

Birmingham is much more diverse with more working class students and I'm sure she'll be happier. I just wish school would see the whole picture instead of pushing for her to go to Durham because it's perceived as better.

pinkshoes

I went to Durham (finished 2 years ago) and quite liked the self catering colleges as you pay all your money upfront for the term, then really don't have to spend another penny on food. I would recommend applying to a hill college as there's alot of working class students there. (Hatfield and University college are rather posh!!). You can easily get a job working on the bar staff/pizza kiosk/shop, and giving your child £3000 a year sounds ALOT of money. I found I could easily live on £25/week in Durham which did include alot of going out! Being broke makes you work harder!

Text books may be expensive, but the library at Durham is fantastic, so I didn't really need to buy many books at all.

I made some fantastic friends at Durham Uni, so I wouldn't rule it out completely, and although there are alot of rich kids there, I went to a rough comprehensive school and fitted in just fine!

Timmne

crazy_guy wrote: »

Cor £3000 from my parents, that'd be nice!

I've been at uni and had a weekend job for the last 2 years (during summer i saved up enough money during summer to survive my final yr)

I've been pretty well off aswell, it has made me independent, i am now more financially aware than my parents and i am careful with my money....i'm infact glad that my parents said upfront they couldnt assist me. I've also been able to save my money and during my time at uni i have travelled to dominican republic, over europe and intend to go further this summer.

The people who were given loads of dosh by their parents, in my infinite wisdom (hmm) were generally lazy, had nothing to do most of the time and wasted their money on the latest clothes (i lived with 2 last year)

Sure give her some money if you wish, but you could always buy certain things for her such as her course books if you would like to help her out. Uni doesn't just give you a degree, its also a trial of real-life without mummy and daddy to wipe ya bum....

If her course is really demanding then as you say she can live off the money she earnt during summer. My parents are also not rich but not skint so i was given near enough a basic loan. I dont know what course shes doing, i'm doing law and coped - no reason she can't

Just read over what i wrote, bit of rant but theres my advice...enjoy

Cheers for typing this, it's saved me a whole lot of typing!

My brother worked his 4ss off all summer every summer (except a week or two for his annual holiday) doing 50 hours a week picking, packing, sticking and stacking for a good rate of pay and earned a heck of a lot to prepare him for each year. My parents paid his tuition fees but that was it - he was never poor either, nor did he want/need any handouts.

This didn't affect his degree though; he got a 1st at York in Politics, phlosophy and economics. He's not a natural genius either, so I don't think expecting someone to put some serious work in to save the money up is unreasonable.

I think as kind as you are, your daughter will do better in the long run with minimal input from you as parents - let her build up an overdraft and take a student loan - as long as she's a rational person she'll manage it carefully and not lose sight of where money comes from.

cupid_s

Believe it or not most students I came across at uni and most of my friends got nothing from their parents, despite some of them being ridiculously wealthy. I was one of the lucky ones, as was my DH. We got 2k a year each off our parents but that was more than most. There weren't such high fees then but then loans were less also. I worked 9 hours a week in the first year of uni then gave up to do more uni work, OH never worked at all during term time. We managed fine and graduated with enough money left over to pay off over half our student loans straight away.

Your daughter is lucky you're helping so much.

And I can't believe durham is classed as better than birmingham by her school. Brum is a russell group uni and is a pretty campus though obviously the course you take dictates what uni is best to go to.

Oldernotwiser

Alikay wrote: »

Crisis is now averted. Our daughter visited Durham for a 2 day post offer "open day" last week and just didn't feel that she'd fit in.

She's now planning to go to Birmingham (despite school's rant that she's not "stretching" herself enough). Birmingham is nearer, cheaper (in that there is more S/C accom and shops like Lidl/Aldi whereas Durham had a Waitrose!!) and has loads of jobs. We won't need to give her anything like as much financial support.

It also means she only has to get 3 B's in her A levels (which are virtually in the bag) instead of the A's she'd have needed for Durham.

There would have been much less opportunity to work in Durham ( it's a tiny city with over a quarter of the population being students, and very little industry) and much shorter academic year. Also the higher entry requirement had us all worried that the academic standard would be much higher, so she'd have had to work much harder to keep up (so not a good idea to work if struggling)

Birmingham is much more diverse with more working class students and I'm sure she'll be happier. I just wish school would see the whole picture instead of pushing for her to go to Durham because it's perceived as better.

I'm glad the you and your daughter are happy with her decision.

On the other hand, I don't think you're being fair to the school. They must think that your daughter is very capable so it's right that they should be encouraging her to aim for the best (not that there's anything wrong with Birmingham). I would expect that the academic standard would be higher at Durham but the point of a university education should be to challenge and stretch students, not to give them an easy ride. You surely don't expect a school to encourage its pupils to make their university choices based on where the cheap shops are, do you?

I would, personally, encourage any child of mine to aim as high as possible and to make as many demands on their intellect as they're capable of. Perhaps your lack of belief in your daughter's abilities is sapping her confidence in herself and has made her choose the less demanding option? Of course, she's probably a nice kid who's worried that the financial demands on her parents are too great as well. I really hope that she's making the right choice.

Alikay

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I would, personally, encourage any child of mine to aim as high as possible and to make as many demands on their intellect as they're capable of. Perhaps your lack of belief in your daughter's abilities is sapping her confidence in herself and has made her choose the less demanding option? Of course, she's probably a nice kid who's worried that the financial demands on her parents are too great as well. I really hope that she's making the right choice.

No, the decision is not financial, though that is a very definite bonus!! Our children all go to an inner-city comprehensive with huge social and ethnic diversity. Its a bit rough and has its problems, but the staff and management are brilliant, so on the whole the pupils do well...some very well indeed. Our DD has been very happy at the school.

That diversity was missing from Durham. I know they have overseas students but there was little home-grown diversity, particularly at the college she was accepted by (which wasn't the S/C one she'd applied to, and not a "hill college"). She felt it had a rather claustrophobic small-town feel to it, which had not been evident at the shorter pre-application trip whilst Birmingham seemed more vibrant and cosmopolitan.

She still wants to get straight A's at A level, because that's the kind of girl she is, and will do her very best wherever she goes. No university could ever be more demanding than our daughter is of herself! Birmingham is a Russell Group uni that does a vast amount of research, so hopefully school will accept her decision soon: their current disappointment that she won't be going to Durham is what's shaking her confidence in her own decision-making, not her mum and dad.

I think your suggestion that we lack belief in her is pretty outrageous and uncalled for: I simply asked for advice about financial contributions in this thread in advance of her 2 days in Durham, so she could go secure in the knowledge that if she wanted to study there, the funding would be adequate: NOT to have my parenting methods, or my DD's perceived spending habits ripped to pieces by people who have assumed far too much.

Thanks to all of you who've offered constructive advice, it was very helpful.