Query on performing arts degree costs

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jlt4
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Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by jlt4 »

Hi,

I'm very new to all this, but I have read through this forum and I'm still confused.
Our family income is enough that we would hardly get any of the DaDA award for diplomas so I was looking at degree courses in musical theatre for my son who is absolutely determine to follow this path. I was staggered to find that not only do all the courses in London cost around £14k, you can also only get a student loan of £6k as they are classed as private colleges so not subject to university restrictions.

My simple question, is how does anyone ever afford it! We feel reasonably well off but could not find £8k plus maintenance costs (£6k on top of loan?) per year even if we didn't have any other children.

Do people take out extra loans? rely on family support? ask your DD/DS to take a gap year and work to build funds?
Apologies if this is stupid question and I've got the funding all wrong (here's hoping!)

We were looking at Laine's and it appears they only offer the diploma so we would be looking at funding the whole thing there and £24k is completely out of our reach and presumably most people's unless they get the DaDA award. I don't feel that we earn massive amounts of money and with dance/drama/singing/instrumental lessons we haven't managed to save nearly enough for any of this.
lyndahill
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by lyndahill »

Unless your family income is above £90k then the DaDa awards I think are quite generous - I guess you could be in the higher bracket though. Income of up to £70K states that you would only pay between £1275 to £2675 a year towards the cost of a Level 6 Diploma, which I would have thought is achievable, however, that doesn't include living costs which could be quite high dependent on where your DC lives. Take a look at http://www.cdet.org.uk , it should give you a lot of information on there including the DaDa scheme. I went to the CDET conference on Sunday and was given a lot of useful information. Some colleges only get finance of £6000 but for many you can borrow £9000 and I guess then the parents help for the rest, many students get part time and evening jobs to fund the difference (on Degree courses only). The level 6 diploma course at some colleges can be topped up to a dgree at the end of it - which the student (or family) would have to pay for, but that could be an option to avoid the high debt!. Dada's you must remember are given on talent and do not go to all students that get a place. This was stressed so many times at the conference - the most talented students will receive the DaDa offers. Good luck, it is an expensive industry for training but well worth it at the end, (I think).
collieni
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by collieni »

We are not very well-off, so DS got a full student maintenance loan which was a help - it just about covers his (very frugal) living costs in London. There is a shortfall of around £7K per year for tuition fees, which we have managed to scrape together for the first two years. He did loads of fundraising - concerts/raffles/Go Fund Me page; he worked every hour he could around his college course and during the summer holidays; I took on extra part-time work. We applied to every charity and bursary we could find; wrote to local business; did radio interviews appealing for help; sold stuff on eBay and at car boot sales. Relatives and friends were very generous, as they know how much it means to him to follow his dream. Even strangers donated.
He's currently in his 1st year, and loving every minute. He works weekends and is permanently exhausted, but I have never seen him so happy! We still need to find the funding for his final year, but have two years to do this (buying lots of lottery tickets).
Funding for the Arts sucks :(
jlt4
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by jlt4 »

Thanks lyndahill - perhaps we will manage then. I had seen the £90k cut off and assumed that it slid down to that quite quickly but perhaps we would be ok (just).

Wow collieni - I'm impressed by the lengths you have gone to to make sure your DS dream comes true. Food for thought, but scares me too thinking of the creativity and energy that is needed.
carriecrafts
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by carriecrafts »

This page has really clear info about the DaDAs and income bands:

http://www.dadainfo.org.uk/income-bands/

DD was offered a DaDA but it just wasn't possible for us to find the extra money for London rent. Even though the amounts look generous for those in the lowest income bands, with income so low there isn't any wiggle room. DD was also offered degree places so took that route instead. Her Tuition Fee Loan is £9,000 (the fees are over £12,000 but the school gave her a bursary to cover the extra) and her Maintenance Loan and Grant just about cover her living costs. Working weekends means she is fairly comfortable, if tired.

I'm sure there was list somewhere on this group of college degrees that you can borrow £9,000 for (Bird, Urdang, GSA, off the top of my head). With the others that charge £12,000+ your ds can borrow £6,000 and you have to find the rest. Your ds can also take out a Maintenance Loan of over £5,000 (if in London) or over £3,000 elsewhere.

Best of luck.
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oscar
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by oscar »

Student loan and maintenance money almost make up to the cost of the fees. It's then a matter of tightening belts to cover living expenses and ds working in the holidays to help out. The days are so long a part time job during term time would be very difficult. Somehow people get by. Take a look at GSA that's completely covered within funding. It's hard , but after the hard work and determination to get in you don't begrudge it.
acsbj14
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by acsbj14 »

My DD is in her 2nd year at London studio centre. She can borrow 6K towards her fees. We had to remortgage our house to pay her remaining fees. She gets a student loan to live on and we have topped her up by another 5k a year. This essentially is enough to live but she has taken on 2 jobs for the extras she spends on. Mainly trips to the theatre. Hope that helps.
lbm1e14
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by lbm1e14 »

Couple of points to add. Specific to Laines, from memory the fees there are more like £17,000 if I remember correctly from last year and there is only DaDA I think. Generally re DaDA how much you get is not just down to how much you earn. Each establishment gets a DaDa pot and they decide who gets it usually after separate funding auditions. We didn't get involved in this personally last year when DD was applying so am basing this on what we were told at parents briefings, on this forum and what friends told us. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
lyndahill
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by lyndahill »

I went to Performers College open day on Friday and they said that they don't do DaDa recalls - they offer places about 2 weeks after the audition and if you have applied for a DaDa at the time of applying, they will let you know at the same time as confirming place, whether a DaDa has been awarded. Much better I think as you're not left waiting for a decision. Each college gets a different amount given, may be to the size of the colleges, not sure.
carriecrafts
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by carriecrafts »

Re DaDAs, under the old system each college was given a specific number of DaDA places (for example, at Laine in 2012 I think we were told they had 27). These were awarded purely on ability and weren't means-tested for the fees element, only for the maintenance part.

The system changed a couple of years ago. Each eligible college now receives a sum of money. The college ranks auditionees in order of ability/likelihood of succeeding in the industry (I guess they use their own scoring criteria). DaDAs are then allocated to each person in turn in the order they are ranked, with the amount dependent on the family income. So, if the first person on the list has a family income of above the top threshold they receive £0 (in reality the applicant probably wouldn't have requested DaDA funding as they would know they wouldn't receive any, but it serves to illustrate how the system works). The college then allocates to the second person and moves through the list allocating the funding until the pot is empty. My understanding is that, where the remaining money is not enough for the final person reached, the college can choose whether to offer a partial award or to hold the money until the next year.

Waiting lists for DaDAs are used because talented applicants often receive funding offers from multiple colleges, so once they make their decision the other colleges remove them from their ranking, the allocated funding goes back into the pot and the next person on the waiting list gets a lovely notification \:D/

Just thought this might be useful for those who are new to the audition/funding process.
jennifer1972
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by jennifer1972 »

lyndahill wrote:I went to Performers College open day on Friday and they said that they don't do DaDa recalls - they offer places about 2 weeks after the audition and if you have applied for a DaDa at the time of applying, they will let you know at the same time as confirming place, whether a DaDa has been awarded. Much better I think as you're not left waiting for a decision. Each college gets a different amount given, may be to the size of the colleges, not sure.
Thanks for posting that. :D My DD has her audition there in Jan and as we live abroad, just to know that if successful, she wouldn't have to fly back over is great. I just assumed that they all did funding auditions. Did you find it useful going to the Open Day? What was your impression of the place?
lyndahill
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by lyndahill »

jennifer1972 wrote:
lyndahill wrote:I went to Performers College open day on Friday and they said that they don't do DaDa recalls - they offer places about 2 weeks after the audition and if you have applied for a DaDa at the time of applying, they will let you know at the same time as confirming place, whether a DaDa has been awarded. Much better I think as you're not left waiting for a decision. Each college gets a different amount given, may be to the size of the colleges, not sure.
Thanks for posting that. :D My DD has her audition there in Jan and as we live abroad, just to know that if successful, she wouldn't have to fly back over is great. I just assumed that they all did funding auditions. Did you find it useful going to the Open Day? What was your impression of the place?
We both thought it was a good Open Day - got to sit in on 3 classes. The college has it's own Gym, physiotherapist, which is good. The staff seemed really nice and we was very impressed by the performances that we saw at the end, including some students that only started 7 weeks ago. I think it will be on my DD's list to audition for next academic year. It is in a strange area (I thought) as no where near anything really, except houses, not that it matters as all the students are probably so tired as apparently the day is from 8-8.30am until 6.00pm and even later when you get to Year 3, you don't need to be near anything I guess. We both liked it and I talked with the Principal, one to one, she was very nice. One thing to mention is that the principal said that no DaDa awards will be given out before the end of March as they are not told how much of a pot of money until early March.
martint
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by martint »

Regarding student loans for degree courses:

At some colleges you can only get a loan of £6000 but at others you can get a loan of just over £9000. Does anyone know which colleges offer which and why the difference?
Katymac
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by Katymac »

For those at Performers Open Days last week - my dauughter was dancing......but I don't know which dance she was in!!

Hope they all looked good!
ajbew
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Re: Query on performing arts degree costs

Post by ajbew »

I think any that you apply through ucas (often as well as a direct application) can get £9000 towards the fees. This includes Urdang, Bird and GSA. I know Bird only charged £9000 in 2015 so was much cheaper than any others my DS applied for and would have been fully covered by the loan. Mountview, Arts Ed and London Studio can only borrow £6000 as they class as private establishments. Also the courses at Mountview and Arts Ed fulfill the criteria for both a degree and diploma so you can choose which to go for. If the student is offered a DaDA they can do the diploma and can also convert it into a degree for a one off payment (which I think is about £400). Otherwise they can do the degree course with a student loan of £6000 towards the fees, but also with the maintenance loan. They only take students from 18 while most places offering diploma take from 16. They don't differentiate between degree and diploma offers. If a student is offered a place they can choose which route to go depending on their income and whether they are offered a DaDA or not.
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