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Ask a current Bristol student

Original post by Random_PC_Errors

Did you go to Harrow/Eton/Charterhouse by any chance?

I had money before arriving that I'd made during Sixth-Form that I used as a security float in case the loans didn't come through in time. However, if I didn't get my job whilst as University I would have been bankrupt by the end of the second term. The £3,600 maintenance loan is pitiful when your accommodation costs £5000 year.

Right... you had some money. I don't see how you can have no money? If your parents earn under the minimum wage, then you got £30 a week EMA in sixth form. Unless they cut that? Then the money earned from a part time job.

Most people's parents set up a savings accounts for them, right? Like a college fund that they pay £10 into every month until you are 18 and then you get given it? Parents who can, want to give their kids some security at least.

Why is that so out of touch? It's normal to want to set your kids up. Parents buy their children cars during sixth form and driving lessons (which costs thousands): why is it so extravagant to assume they would provide their kids with some money to begin their life before they are completely self sufficient. So many people have daily evening jobs during sixth form: you can save from that. I didn't think people went to uni relying 100% on the loan. I didn't know this.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1061

Random_PC_Errors

8

Original post by arty

Right... you had some money. I don't see how you can have no money? If your parents earn under the minimum wage, then you got £30 a week EMA in sixth form. Unless they cut that? Then the money earned from a part time job.

Most people's parents set up a savings accounts for them, right? Like a college fund that they pay £10 into every month until you are 18 and then you get given it? Parents who can, want to give their kids some security at least.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I don't know what is better, this or the person in the other thread moaning that someone else won't cook their food.

EMA was scrapped five years ago, for better or for worse depending on your politics. You clearly haven't gone to a state school, you didn't even need to receive it just to witness the upset it caused when it was removed.

In terms of £10 a month: (£10 x 12 months)x18 years only gives you £2160. Which is about a third of a years rent for most people, it's not even going to make a scratch on your living costs over three years.

Personally, I think those in the worse financial position are those from families on middle-incomes. These people don't come from families that can provide full financial support and get naff all from the government and won't be entitled to any bursaries. You see a lot of them posting on here with threads such as ''How am I meant to have the time of my life at University when I've got to survive second year on £3.25 a week''.

This does happen, and in Universities where the social-economic background of undergraduates is overwhelmingly from low income families drop-out rates are staggering.

''Parents buy their children cars during sixth form and driving lessons'' easy on the sweeping generalisations. All it takes is for one person to stand up and anecdotally say they didn't get a car for this to be flawed.

I'm still convinced this is all satire though.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1062

arty

12

Original post by Random_PC_Errors

Personally, I think those in the worse financial position are those from families on middle-incomes. These people don't come from families that can provide full financial support and get naff all from the government and won't be entitled to any bursaries. You see a lot of them posting on here with threads such as ''How am I meant to have the time of my life at University when I've got to survive second year on £3.25 a week''.
.

I completely agree with you. It's not fair on people coming from families whose parents earn over the minimum but that doesn't make a bit of difference to the children if their parents aren't supporting them. The low income kids get thousands of pounds of free support. The middle and upper kids get nothing. Harsh.com

Count your blessings you are getting colossal bursaries from the government guys - you lucky people!

Reply 1063

arty

12

Original post by Random_PC_Errors

I don't know what is better, this or the person in the other thread moaning that someone else won't cook their food.

EMA was scrapped five years ago, for better or for worse depending on your politics. You clearly haven't gone to a state school, you didn't even need to receive it just to witness the upset it caused when it was removed.

In terms of £10 a month: (£10 x 12 months)x18 years only gives you £2160. Which is about a third of a years rent for most people, it's not even going to make a scratch on your living costs over three years.

.

Also, when I said money to take to uni, I meant some back-pocket money saved up to use in emergency for a month's food etc (which is what people were worrying about on here).

I meant £1000 or £2000, not a whole year's rent.

I don't think it's so deluded to assume a lot of people have at least that saved up before they go to Bristol.

I still don't think many would go with £0 bank balance.

Reply 1064

misteltain

16

Original post by arty

Also, when I said money to take to uni, I meant some back-pocket money saved up to use in emergency for a month's food etc (which is what people were worrying about on here).

I meant £1000 or £2000, not a whole year's rent.

I don't think it's so deluded to assume a lot of people have at least that saved up before they go to Bristol.

I still don't think many would go with £0 bank balance.

You are so out of touch with reality that I'm embarrassed for you.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 1065

Nmys

17

Original post by arty

I completely agree with you. It's not fair on people coming from families whose parents earn over the minimum but that doesn't make a bit of difference to the children if their parents aren't supporting them. The low income kids get thousands of pounds of free support. The middle and upper kids get nothing. Harsh.com

Count your blessings you are getting colossal bursaries from the government guys - you lucky people!

Free support?! I wish it was free. Yes those receiving the maximum support and grant from the government have more money to survive off - do not forget it also means that more debt is owed, and that ultimately more money will be paid over their lifetime than those that received less due to their parents' better financial circumstance. I guess the assumption is that if a student's family income is more than £42,000, then the parents can afford to support them financially in some way, even if it is just a little a week or month.

What would be fair - that everyone receives the same amount? Of course it would, but due to our lovely government who doesn't care the slightest about students that is, unfortunately, a fair idea that will never happen. This is the most they will do for us students, and even this will change with the soon to go maintenance grant. So we should all be thankful that we are starting uni now and won't be subject to this stupidity.

Reply 1066

arty

12

Original post by misteltain

You are so out of touch with reality that I'm embarrassed for you.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I am a person. This is my experience. This is my reality. Yours might be different.

Why am I so wrong? You're saying almost everyone won't have £1000 saved up as back-up cash when they go to uni? Explain plz.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1067

arty

12

Original post by Nmys

Free support?! I wish it was free. Yes those receiving the maximum support and grant from the government have more money to survive off - do not forget it also means that more debt is owed, and that ultimately more money will be paid over their lifetime than those that received less due to their parents' better financial circumstance. I guess the assumption is that if a student's family income is more than £42,000, then the parents can afford to support them financially in some way, even if it is just a little a week or month.
Ack.
What would be fair - that everyone receives the same amount? Of course it would, but due to our lovely government who doesn't care the slightest about students that is, unfortunately, a fair idea that will never happen. This is the most they will do for us students, and even this will change with the soon to go maintenance grant. So we should all be thankful that we are starting uni now and won't be subject to this stupidity.

That is a ridiculous assumption. The parents might not support them anymore than a family on a £20,000 a year income would. They are not obliged to.

I am talking about the maintenance grants that are free money. They don't have to be paid back.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 1068

Anonymous_0749

15

Of course many will have saved up money but I wouldn't say as high as 1k? Even if they have 1k when they start Uni they will have much less as you need to buy stuff in advance surely such as cutlery, clothing, bedding etc. ?

Reply 1069

Edwin Okli

3

Original post by arty

I am a person. This is my experience. This is my reality. Yours might be different.

Why am I so wrong? You're saying almost everyone won't have £1000 saved up as back-up cash when they go to uni? Explain plz.

I definitely didn't. My savings account was long dormant by the time I had to open a student account for university. I was delighted with the amount of money in there, even if it was only something stupid like £70, because I hadn't often had my own money to spend.

My financial situation in first year was definitely difficult but also better than some people who were living on a pittance a week and having their parents indulge them once in a while. The difference was that my mum would remind me constantly that if I ran out of money there was no way that she would be able to help me out.

So yes, there are people who come to university with (next-to-)no money. I'm actually staggered by the people who have savings.

Reply 1070

Random_PC_Errors

8

If I had known how lively this thread would get I should have brought popcorn.

My monies still on the fact that this is all satire.

Reply 1071

arty

12

Original post by Edwin Okli

I definitely didn't. My savings account was long dormant by the time I had to open a student account for university. I was delighted with the amount of money in there, even if it was only something stupid like £70, because I hadn't often had my own money to spend.

My financial situation in first year was definitely difficult but also better than some people who were living on a pittance a week and having their parents indulge them once in a while. The difference was that my mum would remind me constantly that if I ran out of money there was no way that she would be able to help me out.

So yes, there are people who come to university with (next-to-)no money. I'm actually staggered by the people who have savings.

This is interesting. I had always assumed that people who had a part time job since they were 15, had at least a few thousand saved up. Guess not. :/

Reply 1072

Random_PC_Errors

8

Original post by arty

This is interesting. I had always assumed that people who had a part time job since they were 15, had at least a few thousand saved up. Guess not. :/

I want to do Bristol's two year MA in law. It's currently £16,000 for tuition plus I'm looking at spending £4000 per year on living expenses. Even when you take into account David Cameron's £10k master loans and personal savings I still need to magic up 8k in three years.

I spend more time at work than I do at University.

We're not all sat on massive piles of cash.. although I wish I was :')

Reply 1073

Arkv2

Hello guys. I wanted to ask something unrelated to the current discussion. I am an international student and while doing all the registration, checklists, etc, I read that the University recommends getting the activity pass ( :tongue:

of course). Are the sport facilities worth it or should I wait to arrive in Bristol and look elsewhere? I just want to use the gym and maybe a pool for some light swimming. 24/7 is something I greatly appreciate and the UoB facilities have a pretty tight Schedule.

Reply 1074

Anonymous_0749

15

Original post by Arkv2

Hello guys. I wanted to ask something unrelated to the current discussion. I am an international student and while doing all the registration, checklists, etc, I read that the University recommends getting the activity pass ( :tongue:

of course). Are the sport facilities worth it or should I wait to arrive in Bristol and look elsewhere? I just want to use the gym and maybe a pool for some light swimming. 24/7 is something I greatly appreciate and the UoB facilities have a pretty tight Schedule.

hey there buddy I am in the same boat as you but I think the gym uni is qute expensive (works out to be 25 pounds a month), I will just use the gym (and not swimming pool) so I am looking at PureGym and TheGYM which are just under 20 mins walk from the Uni and one is open 24/7 while the other is open till late and both cost just around 17 pounds so this might be an option to you :smile:

Reply 1075

Inazuma

20

Original post by cfahy311

Any second year law students selling books?

There will be plenty to buy from once you get your reading lists - some of the books may have changed or been updated.
Join 'Bristol lawyers (UBLC)' and 'Bristol Lawyers 2015-2018' - people will be posting in these two. And the earlier years groups if necessary (2014-2017)

Reply 1076

Rubgish

13

Original post by arty

This is interesting. I had always assumed that people who had a part time job since they were 15, had at least a few thousand saved up. Guess not. :/

From the sounds of your posts, you almost certainly come from a very privileged background. Now you may well say that you aren't really rich and you don't think you are very privileged, but that's not the type of privilege I am talking about. What i'm talking about is in terms of the area you grew up in and the expectation of the people around you.

I'd venture to guess you went to a pretty decent school, nearly all of your friends had both a mum and a dad around, you went on holidays every year to nice places, your parents have a modern car, you were expected to go to university and get a decent job afterwards. To you, all of that is considered normal. It applies to you, to your friends, to everyone you meet. But in reality, it doesn't apply to a lot of people.

You spoke of parents saving money for when their kids go to uni, a lot of peoples parents won't have ever expected their child to go to university. You talk about getting a weekend job and saving the money from that, but there are plenty of families where you are expected and required to pay your own way from that weekend job, because the family literally doesn't have any money.

As an example, lets say you worked 40 hours a week at minimum wage. You're a single parent with 2 kids. Try making a budget for living in bristol and see how much money you have left over. You won't have any.

Honestly it's probably not your fault that you don't know this kind of thing, it's just an aspect of the bubble you grew up in, but it's something you're going to have to get over pretty fast.