To ask what your provision is for your DC uni?

Effectively Wales has no upper household income threshold for the maintenance element, with, unlike England, that being split between grant and loan elements, rather than all loan. So in England household income of c62,000 means a DC is entitled to the minimum maintenance loan amount, whereas in Wales they could take the maximum amount, albeit with only a tiny proportion of that being a non repayable grant. The maximum maintenance loan in England has also not kept pace with the high inflation of the past couple of years, so is not far off £2k lower than it might otherwise be. And a similar amount lower than the maximum figure for maintenance that a DC from Wales could get.

I think aiming to save the parental contribution is sensible, so £5k per child per year. So £15k for three years.

Which is roughly £75 per month from one to eighteen, ignoring inflation and any investment growth.

I max out my stocks and shares ISA, LISA pension, and then I put extra money into a general investment account, all in my name. DCs are under 7 so lots of time for money to grow. Haven't allocated specific amounts for uni/wedding/house deposit, but there will be enough for all that.

We live in London within walking distance to the Bloomsbury unis. So those unis would be a cheaper option if the dc wanted to live at home - but I think there's a value to living in a student flat/halls, and experiencing life away from where you grew up. So we wouldn't push for them to live at home, but they would be welcome to if they wanted.

It’s irrelevant what others do. Save what you can for your children. Some will save more and some will save less.

Haven’t saved anything. My son gets full loan and if he wanted more he could work but he doesn’t because he doesn’t need to

DD is going into Yr 8 Indy school. We've decided with VAT to pull her out for Yrs 12+13 so will put the total of those 2 years' fees towards Uni. It won't cover 3 years but if she only has to get a loan for the 3rd year then that's better than 10s of 1000s. She had an investment from my mum dying so instead of paying for Uni that will go towards a first house deposit

We've been saving aggressively since our three were born. We are in the US and have something called 529 Plans where you can save, tax free, for education. We aim to have $120k per child by the time they go to college.

Needless to say, they won't be getting a house deposit from us!

By the way you don't pay back your child benefit (in the sense as you don't get a bill from them), when you do your tax return they adjust your tax for the following year so you pay it back by paying more tax that year.

Sorry not related to the thread but I just want to say I hope they give you an option? I set mine aside and just want you to pay it back (first year) is that usually an option? I don't want my tax adjusted (I've got over £2000 to pay back).

So much could change. Couldn't save a penny when dcs were younger. By time uni for dc2 came up, finances had changed drastically pretty.much overnight and so had health. They got min loan, needed more expensive accommodation and are unable to work due to disability. Thankfully we have been able to get through it. Save what you can but don't scrimp on childhood at possibility of uni....grants may come back, degree apprenticeships could be more available, they could take another career route etc.

Ds starts this year. We are in Scotland so no tuition fees. He'll take out a maintenance loan which will be the minimum based on our earnings. He'll pay that back when he earns enough - just like I've had to.

We will give him what we can - probably £50ish a week. He has saved some money from a PT job and is lucky it's close enough he can continue it when at Uni.

Same for Dd if / when she goes.

We started saving since our daughter was born. Initially it was about 100-ish per month in Cash JISA and as time goes by, we slowly increased it. At the moment, it is about 250/month, split between Cash JISA and S&S JISA. By the time she's 18, hopefully there'll be about 50-60k, which she can use towards living cost while at the uni (if she decides to do it). I am still in two minds about covering her tuition fees or not as things may change by then.

DS8 has savings of £5k in a JISA which we’re adding small amounts to every now and then, but not saving much directly for him at the moment because we’re prioritising overpaying the mortgage. We’re hoping we should have paid it off in about 8 years, by which time DS will be 16, and we’ll then have the mortgage+overpayment money available to save more for DS for a couple of years and cover uni expenses. I expect him to get a tuition fee loan but if we can I’d like to be able to cover his accommodation and living expenses so the debt he comes out with isn’t so crazy high.

We have an only and it’s likely DH and I will both inherit (of course you can’t rely on this), if we do then we’ll use that to give DS a housing deposit.

Or many will be inspired to think about future provision for their kids and consider ways now or in the future to do what they can

What happens if you don’t live near a uni that’s doing your course?

My son is going to uni this year, the nearest appropriate uni doing his course is about 3 hours away so living at home isn’t an option. He wants the whole living on campus experience too, like his brother had.

To be honest if it wasn’t for the fact he’ll be getting a monthly allowance I’m not sure how he would manage as his course is going to be hard work and may not give him enough time to have a proper job alongside it. He is planning on getting casual work though.

Living at home must affect the social side though, doesn’t it?

I do think now though that parents need to start college funds in the way American families do, otherwise it’s virtually impossible to survive there without help especially if you come from poorer families, and for them to save is also a problem. Uni’s going to be for rich kids the way it’s getting so expensive.

We save £200 a month so equates to £100 per child. We will increase this once nursery fees are done with. I don't plan on the kids using this for university, I'd rather they used whatever we have for them to go travelling, buy a house, a car, whatever they want to do with it really. I will expect they will take loans for university and we will give them a top up monthly (hopefully!).

By the way you don't pay back your child benefit (in the sense as you don't get a bill from them), when you do your tax return they adjust your tax for the following year so you pay it back by paying more tax that year.

We're not saving. Ours will take out loans for tuition and will get the minimum loan for living expenses which they can use for day to day spending. We will pay for their accommodation out of our income. I would rather give them a lump sum for a house deposit than paying for uni.

We had our children young unplanned, eldest is 13, so we didn't have plan until recently tbh. I'm about to finish paying off my student loans which cost me about £350 a month, as I'm used to not having that money, we are just going to put it straight into savings for uni which should give a healthy pot by the time he is 18, and we will basically keep topping it up by the £350 until they're out of uni essentially (we have 2 kids, big enough age gap they won't be there at the same time) so that should cover much of it, though we can top up more if required.

No idea if they will go to uni tbh, it wouldn't be my preference unless it is something that will genuinely help them launch, so hopefully it might help go towards a house deposit if they don't go (obviously won't tell them this, don't want their decision to be swayed by cash),

Im in the same situation. Single parent to 3, no means to save for them, eldest didnt want to go to uni and works. Middle starting a local uni and staying at home, youngest planning the same. We are lucky to have 3 good unis close to home, 1 they both prefer as its the uni i attended. They have the choice to go further and leave home, but i couldnt offer any financial support really, so they decided to stay here.

We did save for our kids, but not to fund uni. We saved to give them both lump sums at 18.

We didn’t have the foresight to save for uni costs, but we are lucky enough that we could afford the additional expense and that we had only 2 kids. After 7 years of paying out, our youngest has just graduated. It is very expensive to fund those years, so parents should factor it in to future planning.

We also made it clear we couldn't afford London, Bristol meant living at home and commuting an hour as accommodation is a nightmare - both opted for cheaper cities