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Borrowing for university

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited March 27 in Work & Study
Apart from tutition fees, maintainence grant and maintainence loan, how else do students borrow money? Or do most find this covers all costs, because I've done my figures and I'm over £1000 short :nervous:
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There's something called hardship fund I think.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And there's something called "getting a part-time job". I left with no student loan/debts and in fact a profit through working when at uni.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Part time job and holiday jobs.

    If you're really struggling then you may be able to get a hardship grant from the uni.

    Generally you put the fees to one side, as you don't have to deal with those as such. Your maintenance loan should just about cover your rent and then some combination of maintenance grant/parents/jobs/scholarships/sponsorhips cover your day to day living costs.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Part time job and holiday jobs.

    If you're really struggling then you may be able to get a hardship grant from the uni.

    Generally you put the fees to one side, as you don't have to deal with those as such. Your maintenance loan should just about cover your rent and then some combination of maintenance grant/parents/jobs/scholarships/sponsorhips cover your day to day living costs.

    My maintainence grant and loan don't cover my accomodation costs though, for that I'm about £700 short. The only accomodation left when I applied was the more expensive stuff. I've had a part-time since i was 13, so I'm happy to get another one at uni. Are they relativly easy to come by? I guess there's a large demand for them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    My maintainence grant and loan don't cover my accomodation costs though, for that I'm about £700 short. The only accomodation left when I applied was the more expensive stuff. I've had a part-time since i was 13, so I'm happy to get another one at uni. Are they relativly easy to come by? I guess there's a large demand for them.
    Yes there's part-time jobs everywhere for students. £700 is only 3 weeks full time work over the summer.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If you don't mind me asking, how much is your accomodation? And what kind of accomodation are you getting?

    Assuming you're not on a vastly different system to me then you should be getting at least £3k a year maintenance loan.

    If you've got something posh in the accomodation lines at the moment and it's looking like things are going to be tight then get in touch with the accomodation office now and ask to be put on a waiting list for something cheaper. Room availability changes a lot mid August.

    How easy jobs are to find depends on where you're at uni, what you are after and what skills you've got. Most uni's have a job shop type place which is a good starting point, and then you can also go around town applying for jobs and putting your CV in places like any non student would.

    The key is to do it as soon as possible, if you've got time over the summer get CVs sorted now for bar work, shop work and general temping (and anything else you may want to do) then you can apply as soon as you get there and try and beat the majority of people.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And look for holiday jobs well in advance, don't wait until you get home.

    I get just under £300 a week (once I get the tax back) for my summer job, that quickly makes up the short fall. To get that though, I looked for placements and internships and summer temp jobs in Feb/March.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Ricardo R wrote: »
    Yes there's part-time jobs everywhere for students. £700 is only 3 weeks full time work over the summer.

    That is presuming one does not have to pay rent and bills. Not all students can go home and live rent-free in the summer.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katchika wrote: »
    That is presuming one does not have to pay rent and bills. Not all students can go home and live rent-free in the summer.
    Well I get impression she's about to start uni so is at home for the summer. Like 90% of people will be living at home with parent/s rent-free before starting uni. And even if not you can rent most places for like £60/week, with all bills etc still earn that £700 in 4 weeks.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If you don't mind me asking, how much is your accomodation? And what kind of accomodation are you getting?

    I'm having to pay roughly £4,700 for a shared-ensuite in halls. Which seems a hell of a lot to me. I did apply for a standard study bedroom, sharing a bathroom with 5 other people, but they were all taken, so I ended up with my third choice. At the time I applied, I called my uni's accomodation office and asked to be put on waiting lists etc, but he said it would be unlikely that they would change me. Which doesn't really make sense, as I'm sure that after the results lots of people will be changing their first choices :eek2:

    I suppose it's worth calling again really.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That's very high rent, and while I appreciate you can't necessarily do anything about it, it's worth asking again, and making the point that your problem is financial and you will relaly struggle to pay the rent at that level.

    Is that catered?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yep, it's in halls so that includes everything: 3 meals a day, bills, bedding etc. Is that higher than average? Because I thought it was, i was expecting something around the £4000 mark tops.

    My second year won't be in halls, and will hopefully be cheaper...hopefully.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Halls can just be the room rent and bills, not many are fully catered.

    If it's that much including all bills and food etc then that's not so bad.

    From my reckoning, for a shared ensuite in fully catered halls thats not outrageous. By being fully catered and having the shared ensuite things are a lot more expensive than somewhere self catering with a shared bathroom would be.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Ah ok, that makes me feel a bit better, if I'm not paying over the average. It's just more than I wanted!

    So other than the maintainence grant and loan, the only other way really of paying for this is by getting a part time job? Which I was planning on doing anyway, I just don't want to miss out on another form of income that's available.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yup, pretty much.

    Remember that if you get a student bank account you usually get £1k of interest free overdraft, although if at all possible I'd try not to use that long term as you'll probably find you'll need it to pay your rent etc when they ask for it before the loans come through.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh, what course are you doing? If you're doing something vocational it's worth having a good hunt for sponsorship.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I just hope it covers all my costs, it's stressful already and university hasn't even started!

    I'm doing English, so there's nothing really available related to my course because it's so popular! An overdraft sounds good; I need to look at my bank's student packages.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh, and thanks for all the advice! I just hope it all works out!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No problems, do keep asking.

    My uni were daft enough to give me some training on various things to try and make me useful to 6th formers and am involved in doing Access work as well as having gone through it all myself.

    When picking a student bank account, you want one with a reasonable big interest free overdraft, that has a bank on your campus and that the bribe will be of some use to you.

    Much as I hate them, NatWest are pretty popular, the free railcards are handy, they tend to have branches most places and the over draft limits are usually some of the best.

    Do also remember that while you may have to get you loan paid into your student account, you're not then obliged to use it much if you're happier to continue with whoever you use at the moment.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No problems, do keep asking.

    My uni were daft enough to give me some training on various things to try and make me useful to 6th formers and am involved in doing Access work as well as having gone through it all myself.

    When picking a student bank account, you want one with a reasonable big interest free overdraft, that has a bank on your campus and that the bribe will be of some use to you.

    Much as I hate them, NatWest are pretty popular, the free railcards are handy, they tend to have branches most places and the over draft limits are usually some of the best.

    Do also remember that while you may have to get you loan paid into your student account, you're not then obliged to use it much if you're happier to continue with whoever you use at the moment.

    Ah, well it's been tres helpful! :thumb:

    I don't have a student account at the moment, just a regular current account, which I have used the details of to fill in all my finance forms. So my loan/grant will get paid into my current account. Can I just change all that in September, so it goes into a new student account? Because I think it'll be easier to keep all my money in the one place.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Check the requirements on the student accounts you're interested in.

    They can be useful for the overdraft, and some insist you pay your loan in, others don't.

    If you can find one you like that does it, I'd get a student account with a nice big free over draft so you have a kind of 'buffer zone' and then use your current account for everything else.

    Another thing that suits some people is to use their student account for uni expenses, and their 'proper' one for everything else. Can make it easier to budget and keep track of money and where things are going.
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