If you could afford to how many years of education would you fund for your children

I could afford it but i wouldn't.

Undergrad but it’s 6 years (medicine with interc year)

I changed careers.

I think it depends. Both my masters have helped me tremendously step up in my careers.

I think you need to be led by them - I have seen plenty of kids who were funded lack motivation to work hard - then again they might have been like that funding or not. I think it’s not great for personal development to be wholly dependent on your parents into your late 20s - it feels like delayed independence, I can’t help feeling that it’s not great for the feeling of self worth you gain from not being reliant on your parents into adulthood.

Given that they all seem conscientious (eg picking up summer jobs) rather than taking the mick, I'd carry on as you are.

It's up to you what you spend your money on

@LoneAndLoco my kids only have me too. Their father is feckless and hasn’t contributed for a decade. He was an emotionally abusive idiot so I prefer him out of the equation tbh, but yes it is tough at times.

Probably four, but I only have one. My colleague did undergrad for all, any further studying was on them. I think that's reasonable, but obviously depends on what you can afford. I think having them pay some of the costs, ie through a summer job is fair.

I agree @LoneAndLoco - and it's staggeringly expensive. DS1's rent (does include bills, but even so) is £205 a week, and that's the cheapest tier of student accommodation at his place, no meals included in that. "Cheapest" doesn't mean "rat-infested hovel" either, it's very nice, he shares a bathroom and small kitchenette with one other first year, and his room is decent.

I’m a single parent, good income but it’s a struggle supporting student DC.

DC1 did 4yr degree. I paid for accommodation, he had a loan for the fees and some savings gifted by GPs for living costs. He was frugal so it worked OK.

DC2 is also doing 4yrs - on same basis. But she is a spender and this is a worry. She also had GP savings but I think is burning through them too fast. I pay for rent. She has tuition loan and has now also chosen to take a maintenance loan. Her degree is less prestigious and I worry what the future holds. I also worry that having been gifted money she doesn’t realise the value. She tends to think I am being mean.

My own bugbear is that their father isn’t obliged to pay anything, and doesn’t. In fact since he walked out on us seven years ago they haven’t seen or heard from him, which obviously hurts but that’s another story.

OK, so I am the reliable one, they have me and I am supporting them as much as I can. But is it fair that the law says they are adults and parents don’t need to fund them yet in reality they couldn’t study without this financial support?

I agree - our car was in the garage and my kids wanted to get a taxi home from an activity - so I gave them the cost of the taxi and said - you choose, we can get a taxi home with that money or we can walk and you can split it between you. It didn't take them very long to decide to walk.
People make different choices when they are spending their own money compared to spending their parents - I expect my kids to spend my money the way they'd spend their own and they are very careful with their own money. Having money gives you choices - they have to learn to make good ones.

It isn't just about education or setting them up materially for me. Ultimately I just want my kids to thrive and be happy.

If the child that has suffered from severe depression chooses to do something that isn't academic that makes them feel happy, secure and grow as a person that money will have been just as well spent as funding my other child's studying. They're just as academic but not as mentally sturdy.

I have kept a spreadsheet to make sure all of them have the same spent on them. One did a second degree, another used money for a deposit on a house. Their choices but treated equally.

I plan to support mine as far as they want to go. I have one dc who will probably thrive from the challenge of struggling a bit. And another who is likely to need a higher level of support. It is what it is. My job as parent is to do my best for them, as they are, not necessarily the same.

My dps have put their hand in their pockets for me and my siblings in different ways and we don’t compare. They were there when we needed them.

So I agree with you that it would depend on the business ..

But for me it would also depend on the degree

What I am not sure is fair is saying that you would fund any postgraduate degree but with a business kickstarter, it would depend..

Well for me that would depend on what the business is. I am a business owner myself and of the view that if you can’t start and grow a business with minimal investment/ overheads it’s unlikely to work and/ or too risky.

But that’s just my view.

So it’s not necessarily comparable to me. Because it’s a whole different kettle of fish.

ie. If you also add the business investment kickstarting then what if sibling who has had 7 years of education also wants to start a business.

A more comparable is my parents helped my sibling and I on the property ladder. I didn’t need much. 10k to top me up to match my partners contribution and buy property in the midlands. My sister has a very high earning partner and they are based in London. They gifted her 60k to top up to match partner contribution. Do I begrudge that no. At the end of the day we both have houses where we want them to be and both have what we needed at the time.

I funded my own PhD and my career is entirely related to it.

They didn't get special allowances, whatever those are, but they got recruited onto the fast stream and found that lots of the other recruits on their training days had similar academic backgrounds. So I meant more that it probably helped them develop the sort of profile that gets you in - which they might not have done straight out of their first degree.

I think the fairness angle is along the lines of:

One sibling is getting money to get them set up in a career via a postgraduate degree being paid for

But the other sibling might need something non education related for their career - maybe they need a capital sum to set up their own business for example

If the parents take the line that only education is worthy, sibling 2 has lost out

We’re a divided household in this one - DP wants us to fund the kids through Uni, which we could do but at the cost of other savings, pensions etc- and I’m of the opinion that we pay fees and they sort the rest with loans/jobs.

We haven’t even thought about postgrad but as they’ll be adults by then I would hope they’d be paying those costs themselves and have a pathway to work rather than just undergrad for the hell of it.

If money is no object then what they require.

I don’t get the fairness aspect. The other children could have done a 7 year course if they wanted. But they didn’t.

I would be quite disappointed in my children if they took umbrage with this. Surely they would want their siblings to be enabled to have opportunities even if they don’t.

Ignore the relative imo.

It hasn't been for a long time, I think - I know someone in his 70s who did PPE at Bristol!

It would depend for me on what the courses were, what the child is interested in doing or aiming for. I wouldn't have a blanket rule. DS1 is currently in his first year as an undergraduate, and we are paying his fees, he's taken out some of the loan for living costs (£2,000) and we sat down with him and worked out what he'd need for rent in his college (bills included), food, toiletries, all the rest of it, and are paying him a monthly allowance during the academic year. If he wants to do post-grad, I'd certainly be open to the idea, but it would depend on what, I'm not writing any blank cheques for pointlessness.

My parents were very generous with my siblings and me - I was in the last year of no-fees-for-uni, but they paid my living costs at uni, and I did two post-graduate qualifications (LLM and vocational qualification to practise law) and they paid the fees for both. They paid undergrad fees and living costs for my younger three siblings (as fees had come in by then, although a lot lower than now) and two of them did post-grad courses too. The costs weren't probably the same for all of us, as we did different things in different cities, but I've never thought about the difference, and I don't think my siblings have either.

If I could afford it, I would do the same as you OP.