Many young people and some older ones as well would really love to go to university. However, the problem of going to university is the cost. The course fees are expensive and then there are the costs of the living expenses as well. There are many ways that you can finance university and it is worth thinking about all of your options before you decide when to do your course.

Student loan

A student loan is what most students will use to help them. The loan will cover the course fees for most university courses as long as the student has not already had a loan or grant. There may also be some maintenance loan available for those who come from families that are not high earners. The maintenance loan is means tested and so how much you get will depend on the household income. Some people will get nothing at all and some will get the full amount. However, some students find that even the full amount is not enough to cover their rent, food, travel and other living expenses. This means that, even if they do get one, they may have to find other money as well to help them out. A student loan will also need to be repaid. At the moment the loans are repaid through tax once the graduate is earning above a certain threshold. This should make the repayments easy to manage and something that should not be a cause of concern.

Work and save up

Some young people will choose to work for a while and stay at home so that they can save up some money for university. This can be a good idea but it only works if you are determined to save and if your parents are happy to continue supporting you. You might be able to afford to pay them some money towards your costs, but if you can avoid paying rent then you will be able to save up even more. You will also have to be really well disciplined and make sure that you really do save up before you go. Once you start earning money it can be tempting to start spending money as well. You might feel that you would like to treat yourself to a few things and then this could lead to more and more spending so that you could end up spending nearly everything that you earn. Make sure that you keep your savings goal in mind. It can be wise to even star a new savings account and put money into it regularly. Perhaps moving a big chunk of money into that account every time you get paid could be a good way of making sure that you do not forget to save that money.

Work during course

Some students choose to work while they are studying. This could be achieved by working part-time during a full-time course or by studying part-time while working full-time. You would need to calculate whether this would give you enough money to manage on. Find out how much rent and other expenses will be and how many free hours you will have to work. Then you will be able to find out whether you will be able to work enough hours to be able to cover all of the costs that you will have. It is important to find out how many hours you will be expected to put into the course and how long you will be spending doing formal learning so that you can calculate whether you will have enough time to fit in work as well.

Ask parents for help

Some students end up being helped out by their parents. Whether this is an option will depend on how well off their parents are. As students are probably living away form home, parents might be able to help them out by giving them the money that they would have been spending on them while they were at home. This would probably be enough to cover their food bill and it might be a bit extra as well. Some parents can afford to be more generous than others. Of course, if you are no longer living with your parents anyway then asking them for money may not be an option.

It is more than likely that you will have to consider trying more than one of these if not all of them. It is good to do some really careful calculations so that you are sure whether you can manage using the options that you have decided will work the best for you. It might be best to delay going to university and work for a few years so that you can save up enough money to help you manage the course. Another option could be to attend a local university and live with your parents to keep the costs down.