Advice needed for Daughter applying to Uni

Maybe you haven't heard of that thing that people in the real world do. What's it called again? Oh yes - paying taxes.

Someone earning £70k doesn't see anything like that, and the £6k you're talking about has to come out of disposible income.





Unpleasant, rude, unecessary and showing a complete naivety and lack of understanding of life. You really got to grow up.

As much as I don't understand the whole 70k household but unable to support daughter, let's just try and be productive here and go with it.
student finance gets you tuition fee loan and the maintenance loan of £2871. (correct me on those numbers of necessary)
I don't know where the £100 for food estimate came from, middle class uni students eat at £50, if not £30 a week. She shops at tesco from now on, and until she works out financing properly, she does not drink or otherwise waste her money. If she's not capable of this self control; then she's not ready to be independent.
Depending on where your daughter is going affects the living costs and accomodation.
London based unis have high accomodation costs. A friend of mine who is attending RADA (however you spell it) is actually staying at a girls only youth hostel. I'm just going to assume its less than regular out of london accommodation. Because there is no way in hell you're going to pay the 6k regular accomodation of london unis. If she argues then she takes out one big loan or she doesn't go to london, its simply not do-able otherwise.
outside accomodation maximin is around 4.5k. (Yes a maximin, that's not a typo)
so you need 1.8k + living costs (hypothetical numbers), just to get started (going by each year)
However the only initial costs for university is the first in bulk payment for accommodation (the first side of the 3 month contract) going with the 4.5k - we'll call it 1.5k; as well as all the school books and equipment, gym pass, bus pass and so forth and finally as a safe provision, 3 months worth of food money. that comes to about 2k, give or take £100.
your first initial 3 month installment of your maintenance loan comes to £900 ish.
so she need 1.1k every 3 months extra to be safe and comfy.
So you can give her 1.1k near enough and tell her to get a job during the first 3 months of uni (get to the accommodation the earliest possible and get job hunting / look up the market now and apply)
or she can get that 1.1k start up cost by working through the summer holiday / out of her own savings.
now for the next three months after that, again I'm just going to carry the 1.1k - because its late, I'm tired and the information is very vague (seriously PM me all the exact costs, which university and preferences for jobs and any further questions and I'll plan it all out)
so 1.1k every 3 months
rounding it up for comfort - £400 a month (dat rounding tho)
that's £100 a week.
minimum wage is 6.50 ish. She works 16 hours a week as a part time job and she's perfectly fine for every 3 months thereafter.

option 1: front her £1100 - I dunno how viable it is. She'll get a job within the first three months and job's a goodun.
option 2: she raises £1100 by herself from summer holiday jobs and then send her packing and she get's a job within the first three months and job's a goodun.
option 3: persuade her to take a gap year, if she works just 20 hours a week at minimum wage for 40 weeks. that's 5k. she'd have a much easier time of all this, plus her CV would shine even more and she'd find it easier to get employment at whatever place she's going to uni. (this will be the best option if she's absolutely dead set on a London university and won't stay in a hostel.
if you say funding 6k is out the question each year (and quite frankly even if I had the money I wouldn't fund them every year) she's getting a job during university. If she rejects this idea, she's not ready to go to university

This is probably the haziest set of figures I've ever had a look through but they're a rough idea. I'm effectively assuming she'll live on 6k a year here (which looking back through is what you listed it as, which is somewhat reassuring)
Again PM me with more exact details and I'll try and make this as accurate as possible.
I Hope this helps - seriously, this took half an hour at 1AM.

Jesus the post on here are really horrible!! What people need to understand is 70k after tax won't be 70k anymore. Especially if that's a one person's income or if one person is paying the 40% tax (can't remember the cut off)
Then add living expenses etc which in some part of the country is quite hefty and I doubt there's a lot left!!

OP would you consider taking a loan? My mum was talking about taking loans when I started talking about university and the bank says they'll probably approve it. Ofc it's hefty when you start paying but maybe your daughter can work and pay it slowly? It gives her some time to find work.

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Your student finance numbers are off. It's more like £3500 per year. £1100 in September and January and £1200ish in April.

And I am middle class and I frequently do food shops for £20 per week. It's about being smart with meals and buying stuff like packets of mince where you can get multiple portions of food out of a single packet. The only time I ever get near £50 is when I'm buying food for people coming over or something or when I'm restocking the cupboards and freezer.
The first shop will be expensive. But the ones after shouldn't (replenishing stocks of huge bags of rice and pasta aside).

Otherwise, looka good.

You get extra for London as well don't you?

I'd stick with 30 a week, the girls going to want a social life and I think assuming she isn't going to drink is not going to happen.


Also, you can get a good grands overdraft interest free on a student account, so that frees up another grand.


I think the gap year could be a really good idea though, I worked through a large portion of my year out and earned about 6 grand.

Yeah, More in London (but I'm not sure how much, and I'm assuming it's not there for OP daughter).

Everyone is entitled to a higher loan in London.



I didn't have to use mine but I know a lot of people that did and it was fairly easy to pay off afterwards.

I meant (and I know it didn't come across right) that I'm assuming OP's daughter isn't going to London. I'm assuming the OP would have mentioned it given that we keep saying 'well if it's London, go further north' and 'it's always going to be expensive in London' and stuff like that.

And yeah, I would imagine they're easy to pay off. But there's no point having one if you don't need it imo.

You really don't understand how tax works do you?

It is graded. So they will pay 20% up to and 40% on anything over 32000. Even if one person was earning they'd take home just around 50 grand, around 47 with a pension factored in. That's an awful lot of take home, and the op seems to suggest it is combined income rather than one person, in which case they will have a lot more.

I do know how it works, thanks. I was working on the assumption that 70k was a one person earning. So yes 47k or maybe slightly less after some other company stuff. That's not really a lot after mortgage/rent especially in the South. Then add the usual bills (council tax could be quite a bit) and somehow I doubt there's a lot left. Especially if OP has more than one kid.

Now I've also divided that 70k into two so 35k. It comes up to 53k for the two people. That's higher than above but again working in the assumption OP lives in an expensive part of the country, it's most likely to be just enough.

Until we know completely what is OP's financial situation then we can't really judge. Easy to say that as a family they should have plenty to spare but we also have to remember 1. Bills are a bit more expensive in some parts of the country and 2. They might have bills that are outside of the 'normal' ones (care home, supporting other family members etc)

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Hi I am looking for a little advice, My Daughter in wanting to go to Uni starting 2015 which I have no problem with at all, the problem starts with how it is all funded we have a household income of £70k per year so she is only entitled to the loans I have looked into all accommodation and living cost and so on and have worked it out that it will cost me round about 6K a year to send her.

So this is where is is difficult,,, I can not free up that kind of money at all so what am I to do? can we are parents refuse to support her ? meaning that more funds are available ? or do we have to just say sorry no you cant go ?

Any help and advice would be great.

Thanks.

They are in the top 10% of household earners ...

I do know how it works, thanks. I was working on the assumption that 70k was a one person earning. So yes 47k or maybe slightly less after some other company stuff. That's not really a lot after mortgage/rent especially in the South. Then add the usual bills (council tax could be quite a bit) and somehow I doubt there's a lot left. Especially if OP has more than one kid.

Now I've also divided that 70k into two so 35k. It comes up to 53k for the two people. That's higher than above but again working in the assumption OP lives in an expensive part of the country, it's most likely to be just enough.

Until we know completely what is OP's financial situation then we can't really judge. Easy to say that as a family they should have plenty to spare but we also have to remember 1. Bills are a bit more expensive in some parts of the country and 2. They might have bills that are outside of the 'normal' ones (care home, supporting other family members etc)

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Maybe you haven't heard of that thing that people in the real world do. What's it called again? Oh yes - paying taxes.

Someone earning £70k doesn't see anything like that, and the £6k you're talking about has to come out of disposible income.

Hi I am looking for a little advice, My Daughter in wanting to go to Uni starting 2015 which I have no problem with at all, the problem starts with how it is all funded we have a household income of £70k per year so she is only entitled to the loans I have looked into all accommodation and living cost and so on and have worked it out that it will cost me round about 6K a year to send her.

So this is where is is difficult,,, I can not free up that kind of money at all so what am I to do? can we are parents refuse to support her ? meaning that more funds are available ? or do we have to just say sorry no you cant go ?

Any help and advice would be great.

Thanks.

I'm not trying to judge the OP but unless there are extra unexpected costs then 70k is enough for a family in all but the most expensive parts of London. My dad earns £45k gross and from this he pays the mortgage on a 3 bed semi in London, all bills and shops in Waitrose once a month. He's single so has no partner or wife to help him out. On top of that he gives me a generous university allowance, owns several cars & motorbikes with the associated costs that come with that (insurance, MOT, spare parts, petrol) and goes on holiday in the UK and abroad a few times a year. He's going on his 4th holiday this year soon. Now admittedly he only has me to provide for but were he to have other children he could easily cut back on holidays/cars to provide for them.

Again as I said there may be expenses that we don't know about since OP probably wouldn't just post the problem if there's a way to support his/her child. My parents earned about 150k a few years back and because of extra expenses like looking after elderly parents and sending some money abroad to family, they struggled. So I can totally see where OP is coming from.

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