To ask what your provision is for your DC uni?

That isn't true actually. Some of the universities in real trouble are higher ranking ones.

Edited - I might have misunderstood here. Not sure if you were talking about which universities are potentially going to go under

It will be local lower prestige ones that are not really giving value for money in terms of getting a degree that will take you places. The extortionate accommodation ones are typically London, Exeter, Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh and St Andrews. There are plenty of London and home counties wealthy private school parents who are fine paying the accommodation costs for their DC to go away to university. Locals can choose those universities too and save paying for any accommodation at all.

Stem has many different types of courses though. It would be like doing History but you only wanted to specialise in Ancient Chinese History. Yes some will do it, some won’t, maybe the commutable ones don't (just a very vague, not based on fact, example).

Lol not just Durham! Absolutely ridiculous costs

Extortionate accommodation fees

Thinking of Durham by any chance? 😄 @twistyizzy

Which is why there is no one size fits all solution. But in other countries it is normal to go to university close to home. Significant numbers of kids do it. We really need to start thinking of this as the norm rather than an exception if we want to reverse the spiral of debt.

Nobody is saying those doing very specialist courses couldn't go further afield, just that it's creating a system where kids leave university with absolutely enormous debt. Now that the rules around student finance have changed most of them will pay off the debt itself plus all of the interest (which is significant).

Even previously, the mantra of "a significant number don't ever pay off their loan" was only true because the interest on it is phenomenal.

I found this thread really interesting actually because our DD is 14 months old and we're making moves on saving for her future.

We recently opened a JISA which we put £1000 into and will put £20 a month in. Not loads, but the bank thinks there'll likely be around £10k in there by the time she turns 18. We are wary that we don't want to put too much in there, as we don't want her to have control of too much money at that age!

We also have a savings account for her where her child benefit goes which I think is around a hundred a month. Considering her age, she doesn't need that much, so some family/friends have given money at Christmas/her birthday etc and we just put all that in there. However, we don't plan to give this money to her when she turns 18, I think we'll use it to support her instead (so we'll maintain control of it to pay for things like driving lessons, uni support etc).

We're also conscious that whatever we save for her we need to be able to match for future siblings we hope that she'll have!

The nearest uni for my son’s course is 175 miles away. It’s not feasible for him to commute even in years 2 and three. If you’re doing History, English or Business type courses it’s not such a problem as every university does those. More stem type subjects are not so easily available at all universities.

My son has already resigned himself to a lifetime of student loans but the path he wants to go on demands a degree and I’m not well off. Thankfully he should get a good career with good money (eventually) from it.

The degree my DD is doing is 20% time in university. I balk at paying nearly £10k a year for that, and it seems pointless to wrack up more debt for living somewhere for such small face to face teaching time.

No, I suspect more kids will just walk blindingly into it like they do at the moment. Instead of tuition costing just under £10k per year and the tuition loan set accordingly it will go up to £11k or £12k with a larger tuition loan.

Tuition fees have to increase. Its isn't sustainable at this level.

(or universities could cut back provision but they won't do that)

Then it’ll just be for the rich.

The "full university experience" is all well and good if you're happy to pay for it. In some places where accommodation is expensive its costing £10k in rent and £5k to live.

If you can't afford it then it's quite possible for a significant proportion of the population to commute to a UK university. A hybrid arrangement also gives the best of both worlds. Live in halls in year 1 and then at home in years 2 and 3.

Costs need to change. Commuting back home just doesn’t seem the same as the full Uni experience.

Not everyone wants the 'full Uni experience', my DD doesn't. She just wants to get her degree so she can follow her chosen career path with minimum debt. Luckily we're in easy commuting (ie less then 30 mins on a train) distance of at least five universities.

The DC both have savings accounts in their names, DS4 has no idea but DS8 knows about his and that "it's for important things like driving lessons and university"

They are both also eligible for EU passports so I occasionally mention to DS1 he might like to go to uni in Italy (if his premier league football career doesn't work out 😄)

They could also stay home for uni if they wanted, my brother did. He stayed home for one year with my parents and then into a flatshare with a friend he already had from school.

We have one child in private secondary school.

Some years ago when buying our house, our mortgage advisor convinced us to get critical illness insurance. It was set up to pay out the balance of our mortgage and £15k per year for 15 years to cover school fees for DS, given the assumption he would go to uni.

I was diagnosed with cancer (now stage IV unfortunately) so we have £15k coming in each year. Right now it’s not enough to cover private school fees which are currently ~£18k per year, but it’s a huge boost and will cover uni for DS. Plus there is some peace of mind now we’re mortgage free.

Not all universities will be here soon as many are in dire financial straits. It will be interesting to see whether it is the local, lower prestige ones that go first ie the old polytechnic which serve the local area, or the higher prestige ones where students have to pay extortionate accommodation fees.

But cost are going up not down. We lose thousands in every Uk student we take on. We need the fees to go up to about £11k just to break even

Costs need to change. Commuting back home just doesn’t seem the same as the full Uni experience.

But with blind recruiting becoming the norm the concept of a “Better University” is likely to shift somewhat.

in places where kids go to the local university the expectation is that if you live in x you will probably go to x university.

I wouldn’t have wanted my DC going to a local Uni f they could have have got into a better Uni

The reality is though that there are many many universities now and so most people will live within commuting distance of one.

if that became the norm then more kids would pick courses run by their nearest university.

it works in other countries and frankly our system is broken so something needs to change

“Most” - not all

Nothing at all. DS will be eligible for the maximum maintenance loan due to my income. If it's not enough he will have to work part time.