Student Loans

[ilikeriding]

I've been quoted a student loan, it matches up to the cost of my course and maintenance for food/drink for the year however accommodation is another 5 grand ontop of that. I really dont know where to get this from!

Anyone been in a similar situation? what did you do?

it doesnt help that the student loans website is f**ked and i get an error on most pages

Edited February 12, 2010 by ilikeriding

[Luke Rainbird]

That's standard. Tuition fee loan to cover the obvious, and a loan of £3000 or so to live off. If you fulfil some of the government's biased criteria you may receive a grant on top of that too.

[Ash-Kennard]

wank innit. virtually nothing to live on forever. now you see why students shop at iceland

[Tony Harrison]

So the stereotype has it. In fact, most of the people queueing for the bus to go on the tuition fee protests in London back in 02 or whenever it was, were wearing nothing but 'designer' clothing, and those that I knew probably went out drinking about 4 times a week. From my experience most students seem to have cash to burn - to be fair I blew a lot on f'ck knows what.

In this case though it depends how much you want it. If you can accept that life won't always mean disposable income, lots of films, drink, expensive weekends, etc, then you'll find a sh'te house-share or live in a tent and live off value food. For a while after university I was employed for f'all pay, and my weekly food budget was £10, which was spent almost entirely on Tesco Value food. It was grim, but now it's nice when I go into the supermarket and can buy whatever I want.

Maybe the trouble is that uni is thought of as one big long Club 1830 holiday, instead of an opportunity to gain some credentials. If you require university as a 'best years of your life' experience, then doing it on a budget may not be worthwhile. But, on the other hand, you can sweat it out, and then ensure that subsequent years are even better than university could possibly have been (unless of course you then decide to blow your hard-earned cash on a mortgage or some sh't like that...).

[Bronz]

So the stereotype has it. In fact, most of the people queueing for the bus to go on the tuition fee protests in London back in 02 or whenever it was, were wearing nothing but 'designer' clothing, and those that I knew probably went out drinking about 4 times a week. From my experience most students seem to have cash to burn - to be fair I blew a lot on f'ck knows what.

In this case though it depends how much you want it. If you can accept that life won't always mean disposable income, lots of films, drink, expensive weekends, etc, then you'll find a sh'te house-share or live in a tent and live off value food. For a while after university I was employed for f'all pay, and my weekly food budget was £10, which was spent almost entirely on Tesco Value food. It was grim, but now it's nice when I go into the supermarket and can buy whatever I want.

Maybe the trouble is that uni is thought of as one big long Club 1830 holiday, instead of an opportunity to gain some credentials. If you require university as a 'best years of your life' experience, then doing it on a budget may not be worthwhile. But, on the other hand, you can sweat it out, and then ensure that subsequent years are even better than university could possibly have been (unless of course you then decide to blow your hard-earned cash on a mortgage or some sh't like that...).

Not been to uni myself, but that post is spot on IMO.

[ilikeriding]

So the stereotype has it. In fact, most of the people queueing for the bus to go on the tuition fee protests in London back in 02 or whenever it was, were wearing nothing but 'designer' clothing, and those that I knew probably went out drinking about 4 times a week. From my experience most students seem to have cash to burn - to be fair I blew a lot on f'ck knows what.

In this case though it depends how much you want it. If you can accept that life won't always mean disposable income, lots of films, drink, expensive weekends, etc, then you'll find a sh'te house-share or live in a tent and live off value food. For a while after university I was employed for f'all pay, and my weekly food budget was £10, which was spent almost entirely on Tesco Value food. It was grim, but now it's nice when I go into the supermarket and can buy whatever I want.

Maybe the trouble is that uni is thought of as one big long Club 1830 holiday, instead of an opportunity to gain some credentials. If you require university as a 'best years of your life' experience, then doing it on a budget may not be worthwhile. But, on the other hand, you can sweat it out, and then ensure that subsequent years are even better than university could possibly have been (unless of course you then decide to blow your hard-earned cash on a mortgage or some sh't like that...).

tbf i could not buy clothes for years and stil not have £5000, or the £15000 that in total i need. Im gonna need like 2 jobs to do this. but i think youre very right

Edited February 12, 2010 by ilikeriding

[Bionic Balls]

tbf i could not buy clothes for years and stil not have £5000, or the £15000 that in total i need. Im gonna need like 2 jobs to do this. but i think youre very right

I literally didn't buy any clothes for a year...I needed Christmas socks! As for my bike...mess

[Davetrials]

So the stereotype has it. In fact, most of the people queueing for the bus to go on the tuition fee protests in London back in 02 or whenever it was, were wearing nothing but 'designer' clothing, and those that I knew probably went out drinking about 4 times a week. From my experience most students seem to have cash to burn - to be fair I blew a lot on f'ck knows what.

In this case though it depends how much you want it. If you can accept that life won't always mean disposable income, lots of films, drink, expensive weekends, etc, then you'll find a sh'te house-share or live in a tent and live off value food. For a while after university I was employed for f'all pay, and my weekly food budget was £10, which was spent almost entirely on Tesco Value food. It was grim, but now it's nice when I go into the supermarket and can buy whatever I want.

Maybe the trouble is that uni is thought of as one big long Club 1830 holiday, instead of an opportunity to gain some credentials. If you require university as a 'best years of your life' experience, then doing it on a budget may not be worthwhile. But, on the other hand, you can sweat it out, and then ensure that subsequent years are even better than university could possibly have been (unless of course you then decide to blow your hard-earned cash on a mortgage or some sh't like that...).

[Luke Rainbird]

+1

I have massive Van Wilder Syndrome

[Ash-Kennard]

gotta love primark for clothes. 2.50 for plipsoles that last a month. 6 quid for jeans i am wearing now, and 2 £1.50 t shirts. thats all ive bought since uni clothes wise.

[Muel]

It's normal, they assume that you're willing to work at the same time.

I'm just saving for moving out next year, then after that year I'm on placement so I'll be able to live off me wages then, I hope...

EDIT: You're paying 5k for accomodation? You've done some wrong calculation there mate. That is unless you're getting a 52 week lease? But to be honest if you're doing that, you've got 3-4 months in the summer to work anyway. Our uni year is only 32 weeks, which would mean you're paying nearly £160 a week in rent...

Edited February 15, 2010 by Muel

[Danny]

My rent in Manchester was £260 a month but 1/2 rent for July/August that comes to £2860 and i think when i was in halls it was about £3200. That was about 3-4 years ago now though so i image its gone up to the range of about 4k but 5k? Really?

Saying that by the time you add gas/electric/water/tv license your probably talking 5k

[Wrayvon]

Mine is currently 62 a week. All the houses round here are around that mark depending how big/close to uni etc.

5k is a bit steep!

[walker]

To be honest, the cost of living aint going to go down much for students, however, tuition fees, thats where the scandal is!! £3200 for a years tuition, what the f**k do they do with it all? You can see why all these new uni building are going up all over the place for bragging rights. Labour f**king government and Tony Blair, wanting 50% of all young people to go to uni, thats ridculous!! There just aren't the jobs for all of these qualifications! It certainly doesn't set you up for life, quite the opposite in fact. How many students actually come out of uni and know exactly what they want to do and go straight into the field of work in which they studied?

One other fact that really grinds my gears are foreign students, or more accurately, the university's favor of them. Without meaning to sound old fashioned and un-diverse, how can it be that a foreign student is worth 4 times as much I am? Fair enough, make some money out of the rich kids from China, but dont treat them as 4 times as special when they dont get off their arse and dont do any work in their first 3 years of studies cos they've been spoon fed all of their life. i.e turn a blind eye when they get caught cheeting on coursework. They're not even british citizens, but they get preferential treatment! Maybe the government should use the extorsionate fees that they pay to fund the educations of the people who belong to this country, so that there isnt a whole generation still paying off student loads well into their 30s and stuggling to pay their mortgage!

Rant over

[MikeCottTrials]

I agree totally tuition fee's at the moment do take the absolute piss when it comes to how much

they are! It wouldn't be so bad if they where more realistic but jesus!

Saying that I'm hoping to get into uni this year

Not had a reply from any of my choices yet though

[Muel]

Tis £3290 now andrew.

Yeh the preferential treatment takes the piss. One lad in my class was born and raised in Somalia, speaks English really well, but can barely write and often misses classes and lectures. The most annoying thing is though that he can't use a computer for shit! Literally stuff like, "Select the images you want, and drag them into photoshop", I ended up doing it for him, because after explaining it 4 times he gave up and just said, "you do it man it's too complicated for me". And we end up carrying him for all the group work, then he gets high marks so he gets by. If it was me in his position, by now I would have at least had a bollocking, all he gets is, "How are you doing, do you need more help? There are english help classes you can go to you know". Maybe at college yeh, but at uni? He's at university doing Web Design, and can't write or operate a computer? It's rediculous, by accepting him they've effectively wasted his time and money, he'd be far better suited just getting a job for a year and going to evening school to learn english and the basics of using computers.

This is where the UCAS system falls down, he had the UCAS points because he went to college, but I went to a different college and did the same course, and it was easier than my GCSEs. I got DDD without really trying, and I still find uni difficult!

Grrr just my thoughts, I totally agree with Andrew on this one. I'm all for having international students at my uni, it makes the whole experience more interesting, but when you've got a big group project and one person fails to turn up to meetings and doesn't put the effort in, it makes it so much harder for everyone else.

The 50% aim is stupid aswell, I think it's because college BTECs have got far too easy now, so the only thing they're useful for is getting onto a higher course, so people need to go through uni to get any kind of decent job at the end of it.

Edited February 18, 2010 by Muel