how much does going to university cost ??

:oMy God £15000 a year at Uni

I don’t know of anyone down here in Exeter who would go through that much cash, and we seem to have a fair few who are rather flush.

My spending for each year, this has changed due to different living arrangements, these figures are based upon our term system of 3x10 weeks or a 10month private rental agreement, I pay no tuition etc.

Year 1

Rent - £60p/w = £1800 p/a (inc bills in halls)
Food- £15p/w = £450 p/a
Car - £100p/m=£1000p/a (Ins+Tax+Fuel)
Social- £40p/w=£1200p/a
Phone- £40p/m=£400 p/a
Clothes £50p/m=£500p/a
Books £300p/a


(At this rate of spending I was a very affluent student compared to the vast majority of others)

Year 2 was slightly more expensive as rent in the private sector is a bit higher and does not include bills etc. I spent £60 per week on rent and another £35 on bills in a shared house, but we had full blooded broadband and cable telly etc with a lot of electronic gismos being used all day. This being said, it would only add another £350 or so to the yearly total, so I would say this year cost approximately £6000. My other massive cost was surfing, which became expensive as I was travelling a lot by car and had to buy equipment, I have ignored this to keep the figures relative to each other but this easily added another £1000 to the year or more.

Year 3 is even more expensive but that is because I am in my own flat, this year my rent and bills are about another £100p/m more than in the second year thus increasing my costs by about that much. Other than that my other spending has probably dropped rather than risen as I am now head down and staying in more rather than !!!!!! my money away in the SU. That said I will probably still spend more this year than last, somewhere around £7000, but this will include all the graduation costs etc like robes and photos as well as places at the grad balls and dinners etc.

Thus the cost of being at Exeter for the last few years has been

Year 1 £5650
Year 2 £6000
Year 3 £7000

Total: £18650

I could not imagine what a student with 15000 a year would be spending it on, even adding in tuition fees and the possibility that your son is paying a London Rent

Hope that you manage to get hold of him and discover where all this money is going

hope i dont upset anyone coming in guns blazing on my first post, but quite frankly penny, your son is taking the P!!!!!!!!!!

if your family is afluent enough that you can afford to give him that kind of money a year, then fine, go ahead....but whip your husband into shape and do it sensibly. give him what he needs to live on, and whack the rest in a high interest account - by the time he graduates he'll then have a nice lump sum towards a car or a place to live...or, god forbid, should he like many other graduates have difficulty finding a job in the first few months after graduation :eek: , he wont have to run up massive debts just doing the everyday things he needs to do to survive.

in one year, and an academic year at that, your son spends what i have budgeted for two. its about time someone taught him the real value of money, because the way your hubby is treating him, he wont have a clue when he graduates. one day, he is going to have to learn to stand on his own two feet. what if something was to happen (not that i wishing it) and suddenly you cant support him anymore? would he have the faintest clue where to begin?

its time for some tough love woman - sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. lay down the law, and sort this horrible mess out


im a first year student at swansea uni. because of my family situation, i am having to support myself though uni. its a horribly complicated story, but my family is poor, and no one gets on. i'm divorced from my parents (to protect my sanity - relations are strained at best), and so i'm going it alone. i get the highest amount of government support that i am entitled to (which i would receive if i was being supported by my parents anyway because my family is so poor lol). so my basic income for a year is

student loan: £4095
fee support: £1150
HE grant: £1000
welsh assembly learning grant £500

i supported myself through my last year of a levels last year, and knowing money would probably be tight, i sat a scholarship exam. i was fortunate enough to be offered a scholarship prize of £400, and a guaranteed place (so my 6 a levels were a bit of a waste !)

this brings my total annual income to the princely sum of £5645 to last for the whole year, not just the 30 odd weeks that term lasts.

i choose campus accommodation with an en suite...sounds a bit lavish at £79.50 a week, BUT it was swings and roundabouts... i needed a 41 week contract as i couldnt bring everything home at christmas and easter, so it was a case of paying £20 a week on bus fare if i lived in the village, or £20 a week to live on campus in a brand spanking new building with my own loo and shower...no competition really was there?! lol

so take my rent out of the equation,

£5654 - £3259.50 = £2394.50


£2394.50 a year on which to live works out at £46.05 a week on which to live, a far cry from the £300 odd that someone calculated your son was living on.

however, out of this sum had to come some other 'inescapable' expenses:

tv license (student rate = three quarters) £90.75
compulsory membership to campus residents society £15
insurance (contents &cardguard) £37


not to mention christmas etc etc etc

as you can see, its not a very big sum. however panic not dear reader, for this is not a tale of woe!! i am in fact, rather affluent for your average student.

i have a (rather well paid, all things considered) job at the public shopping temple that is argos where i am paid £5.39 per hour of my time. i have to go home to work (back to taffy central!) as i could not get a transfer to a swansea store. my boyfriend is more than happy to pick me up from swansea, and drop me off (and i stay with him whilst i am there - weekends are therefore cheap and cheerful). my average weekly shift is about fifteen hours (3hrs fri night, 6 hours sat, and 6hrs on a sunday which are paid at time and a half). the average week, i take home £80 - £100 squid. then over christams, i worked a lot of bank holidays - double time (boxing day - double time at time and a half...i was laughing all the way to the bank!), and i do overtime as and when i can get it.

as a result, because im am more than surviving of my wages, aside from paying my rent, i have not touched my student loan, whilst my overdraft and mastercard (giving me a combined bonus of £1500) are nicely gathering dust.

social life...i am one of those strange people who realise that unis are a place for study, not a club 18-30 holiday lol im not a clubber, much prefer few drinks in the cheap union bar, or better still, get in a bottle and a dvd with some mates. i also read a lot - books from the library/friends/charity shops, which is cheap and keeps me entertained. my one big extravagence is the cinema - i figure i cant be a complete social hermit - is the cinema. orange wednesdays (two tickets for the price of one) at student rate means me and a friend can get in to the latest flick for about £1.25 a head.

study - luckily, my course (welsh and media studies) doesnt advocate many particular books. i already had most of the linguistic ones i needed for welsh, so £60 in term one has set me up nicely for the rest of my course. more often than not, we have to read a chapter here or there - so i get the books out the library and make notes from the chapter - or my biggest sin - photocopy what i need. in some ways, this is a good thing, as a lot of the texts we are expected to use are either out of print, or so small and therefore cheap (normally less than a fiver) that its easier to photocopy them (i have this strange guilt complex that prevents me from writing on books) - photocopies are easier all round. as for stationary, i have accumilated more of the stufff over the years than W h smiths, so i hardly need buy anything other than the odd refil pad (tesco value of course ) here and there.

bringing things up to date, it is now january...i already have £1000 squirrelled away in my ISA (saved since the start of term in sept), and having just paid my rent i am now debating whether to whack the rest of this installment (nearly another 1000) in my ISa too, or to book a holiday with the other half.

im not saying every student has to live as frugally as me. my alcohol intake has plummeted since i've been here, which has certainly saved me a small fortune. if i want to treat myself to cds/dvds/ gig tickets (my main vices) i shop around for the best deals, and then buy - and i dont feel guilty about it. i eat very cheaply - i can feed myself well for about £20 a week, sometimes much less (im currently doing the storecupboard challenge!). mine is far from a hand to mouth existance - as far as im concerned, this is the best i've ever had it. im enjoying seeing my little nest egg build up, knowing that i've earned it and no one else can touch it. im looking forward to putting it towards a car or driving lessons, or somewhere decent to live.

no doubt i've forgotten something - feel free to question my figures, and i'll happily answer questions as best i can. the point im trying to make is that, having covered all the essentials, your son could still be living like a king on a third of what he is now - meanwhile the other two thirds could be setting him up for life.

penny, for his sake, and for yours, please re-assess your actions

as much as i enjoyed university i always found money a problem.

i think unless a students parents can afford to help them out then they will have a difficult time, and will no doubt have to work alongside studying to pay for it.

i came out with 10000 in student loans and an overdraft to boot and i was one of the lucky ones who's parents could afford to help me.

my rent was and still is £177 a month and i share a terreced house with 3 other people. i managed to stay on there with the cheap rent to hopefully be able to pay back some money.

the only way to do uni is to budget and stick to it. and get a job if you can.