More than half of parents are helping struggling students by giving at least £200 a month towards their child’s living expenses, a new survey has revealed. 

Students are now increasingly choosing to live at home or work a part-time job while studying due to growing living costs.

However a growing number of parents are feeling the financial strain from their children’s studies.

One in 10 parents is contributing more than £1,000 each month towards their child, findings from the National Union of Students (NUS) show.

The survey, run by Survation, of 1,012 parents found 86 per cent said they were providing financial support to their child while they were at university.

More than a third (36 per cent) said they pay rent directly to their child’s landlord or buy food for them.

Almost half (48 per cent) said they expected their child to work while at university. 

The rising costs have led to a record number of students starting this year planning to live at home, particularly those from poorer backgrounds.

Alex Stanley, NUS vice president for higher education, said: ‘The notion of students not having much money is nothing new but, considering the alarming levels of debt facing those studying, a maintenance system that works should not be too much to expect. But decades of neglect mean that isn’t the case.’

Parents have been expected to fill gaps ‘regardless of their own income’, he added.

NUS are calling on the Government to reform the household income thresholds that determine how much maintenance support students get.

Students qualify for the maximum level of maintenance loan if their family earns less than £25,000, a figure which has been unchanged since 2008. 

The value of the maximum maintenance loan rose slightly from 2016/17, but then fell substantially in real terms in both 2022/23 and 2023/24, a House of Commons Library report last year found.

Students previously received maintenance grants until 2016/17, but the Government has announced it will reintroduce them for students studying certain subjects in 2028/29.

NatWest’s Student Living Index in 2025 found the average monthly student rent had hit £562.67.

For 2025/26, the maximum a student living away from their parents outside of London could get in maintenance support is £10,544, meaning a student receiving the maximum could spend more than half of their loan on rent.

Save the Student warned in 2025 that students in the UK were facing a ‘never-ending cost-of-living crisis’, with many facing shortfalls from their maintenance loans on their actual costs.

Last year a think tank revealed that students need up to £56,000 to get them through university even after taking out student loans.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) found rising expenses are increasing the burden on families of sending their child to study away from home.

A family hoping to support three children through degrees would have to find up to £168,000.

While everyone gets loans to cover the full cost of tuition fees, maintenance loans for living expenses may only cover as little as a quarter of the cost.

It means families need to start saving early if they want their child to be financially comfortable during their studies.