UK Government Expects Parents to Give Students at Least £5,700 for University Cash

Within the recent investigation, it was found that students who are not able to follow the government’s parental contribution guidelines should receive at least £5,700 a year. Today any student knows that the loans are means-tested. It means that the government decides how much money you will need each year from loans. And the decision is mostly based on how much money your family earns. In this post, the Typical Student team will tell you more about it! 

How To Receive The Full Maintenance Loan?

The thing is that today only learners whose parents have less than £25,000 a year can receive the full Maintenance Loan. The same situation is with the grants for students, who entered universities before 2016. 

What if your family earn more than £25,000 a year? In this case, you will get less. To sum everything up, the more money your family gets the less money you receive. And the government that your parents will give you at least £5,700. According to them, all students are receiving the same amount.

The System Doesn’t Work

Needless to say, the perfect situation the government imagines doesn’t actually work. There are some students, who don’t want to take money from parents. There are students, whose parents can’t provide them with such money for cash. Looks like financially penalizing such students is unfair.

To make a long story short, any person has an individual situation. That’s why students and would-be-students should not be treated the same depending on how much money their parents ern.

How Exactly They Calculate The Student Loans?

There’s a real calculator tool, which is based on the formula the government uses to assess the loans. Thanks to it, students can figure out what they should be waiting for. How to understand how much money your family is expected to contribute?

Today, Maintenance Loans are calculated with the help of the next points:

• how much money your family earn on the whole,
• whether a student chooses to live in your the house of their parents during tuition or away from home,
• the age of a student, (in case you are older than 25, the total income includes not just your parents’ salary but your money too)
• the place you would like to enter and the location you are going to live,
• whether you are the only child in the family (in case your parents have any other children that are entering a university, the government reduces the household income figure by a nominal £1,130 per additional child.)

What Is The Maximum Maintenance Loan?

For UK students, the max Maintenance Loan is £8,700in case you are studying away from your hometown anywhere outside of London. Also, it’s £11,354 in case you decided to move to London for a university. For those students, who decided to stay home, Maintenance Loan is £7,324.

Looks like the government wants to cover students’ living costs for the academic year. However, lots of students say it’s not so. According to the stats, many students try to earn extra money for tuition with the help of:  

• sex work, 
• gambling, 
• and drug sales.

What About The Students That Do Not Receive Support from Parents?

To sum everything up, students who do not have support from their families (when the government assumes they do) could be missing out on as much as £5,700 a year in case they study within London. And it's £4,646 for students who study outside of London.

Here we can see a real problem because the government states that “parents are not legally obliged to supplement the loan.” Still, even such parents are expected to give money to students. It is nearly 6% of their money towards their children’s living costs at an institution.