AIBU to discourage uni for daughter, I'm worried about debt without career plan?

Thanks Holidayz, good pointers.

Yes, doable if they are thrifty. However the biggest thing will be cost of accommodation so it's wise to look at this option after grade requirements/course structure/campus/city as not all unis are the same in regards to fees for halls, and also private rentals can be wildly different. An expensive halls might have cheaper housing for subsequent years and vice versa. Some places have the expensiveness of London without the weighting (Bristol, York, Brighton for example) Also be aware that most uni accommodation contracts are for 40-45 weeks, so calculate the weekly amounts on the actual contracts. Private housing and private halls tend to have longer contracts, 50 weeks or 52 weeks.

With uni halls costs can also be lowered if your YP is willing to share facilities such as shared bathrooms.

My advice is really looking into the accommodation costs before they fall head over heels, so you can discount unis that aren't financially viable. Steerage and compromises are needed. Also don't get trapped in the must be a RG university. There are plenty of decent unis in the top 3rd that aren't part of the Russel Group. When picking unis there are lots of considerations based on many different elements and costs should be one of the biggest considerations.

Indeed, many YP are opting to stay local to save on living costs as the difference between min at home and min living away is around a 1K different. Also taking a gap year to work and earn is now also a popular option as they could easily save 15-20k if working full time in a min wage job.

@HappyLemonChickenCurry

Would she be in a position to consider Biology at Imperial, OP?

www.imperial.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate/biological-sciences-msci/

I have a question.

For a student living away from home in England (not London), with parental joint income over £60k, it looks like the maximum loan would cover tuition fees (around £10k per year) plus around £5k towards living costs per year, so around £15k loan per year. I guess this gives the average debt of £45-50k for a 3 year course.

On top of this, parents would be expected to pay around £6k per year.

My question is, does the £5k maintenance loan plus £6k parental contribution (so £11k) cover most of a student's living costs for the year i.e. rent, bills, food etc? Or is it a lot more than that in reality? I've lost track of the cost of a room in a shared house in a student city.

I know people say get a part-time job, but these are increasingly hard to come by.

Our kids are two school years apart, so if they both go to uni we may have at least 1 year when we are paying top-ups for both of them.

Thanks. This is an interesting thread.

You're right.

It's not really classed as a 'debt' plus it's only repayable when she starts to earn a certain amount. Let her make her own decisions!

Well for starters you aren't the posting police so none of your business.

but my opinion is still valid. IF you actually read the OP.

Who defines “half arsed”? Many would consider my daughter’s plan half arsed. I just discussed this post with her and she is very clear that she isn’t very clear at all where she will end up or what she wants to do. She knows it will involve a post grad in something then a PHD. She doesn’t know what in but she has an idea of the area she wants to research. It all sounds very fly by the seat of her pants to me. Unlike you, I don’t consider my element of funding her to be conditional. I am either secure enough in her abilities, drive and ambition to believe in her and back her, or I’m not. If I’m not then I’d consider that a parenting failure of mine. She may not make the best decisions in her life, but she will absolutely make the best of her decisions. I’m behind her 100%. If she fails, she will do it on her own terms and she will learn from each and every mistake she makes. I know she will make a life she considers to be successful, because we have raised her to believe in her own potential and with the confidence to find her own path. We haven’t given her any unsolicited guidance because she just doesn’t need it.

And no, she isn’t off to Oxbridge and doesn’t have a family firm to fall back on, what she does have is the knowledge she can take a risk and we’ll never tell her she has made her bed she must lie in it, that there is no wrong path to get to the final destination.

How carefully?

My daughter looked at one university widely considered to be one of the best in the country. It was in the top ten. It scored highly for research and development, and relatively highly for onward employment opportunities, but was one of the worst ours from bottom) for the student experience and student support. She decided she would be happy to forgo a few percentage points in research and onward employment opportunities to go with her chosen uni which rates near the top of the table for student experience and support.

We sat with our kids to discuss unis, courses and future plans. We were actively involved and not the "hands off let them figure it out themselves".

DH actively sat with DC to prep them for interviews and help them

@BoredZelda you’re interpreting what I mean by plan when I didn’t explicitly state what I meant by plan. I did not necessarily mean a 15 year specific career plan. A plan can be based on keeping options open based on strengths and interests and considering the types of opportunities available.

I will never think it’s acceptable for someone to make a half arsed decision about something as big as university, especially when I need to part fund it, maybe this is the MN bias, maybe you’re all upper middle class with kids that will go to Oxbridge and end up in Uncle John’s accountancy firm. That’s not my world, making a mistake as big as the wrong university course could really hold my children back, I’m simply stating it is a decision that will be taken with care because I’ve seen far too many people from my own background make really poor choices in this area.

🙄

Do they know what the word “statistically” means?

Making sure they understand the implications of the funding model for university is totally different from insisting they have a plan for their lives. At this age they may not even have a good grasp of what type of job they want to end up in, but have a love of a particular subject.

My child also has educated and knowledgeable parents. We played no part in my daughter’s decision on her uni course other than accompanying her to open days that she chose. She first wanted to study medicine but not be a doctor. She has changed her mind for personal and sensible reasons. These reasons are the ones that were in my head as to why she shouldn’t study medicine but I never pointed them out to her, she came to her own conclusion. Instead she has chosen to study anatomical sciences. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with it but she knows she wants her career to be involved with it. She may decide to continue and study medicine later, or, she would also love to be a journalist, she doesn’t know. If she goes to university she will have time to figure that out, in an environment where other people who share the same interests will bring a different perspective to her life. She can grow and mature and formulate her plan. If she left school now and went into the world of work with “a plan” she would be far more pigeonholed into what her life will be. I would never insist a teenager has a plan. It’s far too young to be looking so far forward. If it turns out her decision isn’t the best one in the long run, we are confident enough in how we’ve raised her that she will find her way and we will support her in whatever way she needs to do that.

She is aware of the financial implications, and has done a whole load of research in to it. Despite the noise in the press about it, there aren’t millions of students on the breadline because of student loan repayments. Most of the reporting I see is from students who are higher rate taxpayers, and those insisting it just isn’t fair rather than any issue with affordability.

Apparently there are people here who've had long corporate careers but are out earned by the plumber they hired

I’m in the same position with my dd. All I’ve done is talk her through everything so she understands the consequences of decisions. I refused to tell her what I thought so I didn’t influence her decision.

Statistically, even if she chooses to go to university and never actually use that degree, she will, over the course of her career, earn more money.

This is her decision, it will be her “debt” and nobody should let the current noise about student loans put them off.

psychology is very varied but look into the career path - working as a clinical psychologist requires a lot of extra training and highly likely to involved a masters and some unpaid voluntary work before a doctorate and while there are jumping off points, your income is more limited. If she wants to work in academia, it requires a phd so again lots of unpaid/low paid time. I’m absolutely in favour of higher education when the young person wants it and I would make sacrifices to support my children in doing so - however, thinking through what the end point is would be useful. Wishing her best of luck with her decision.

A clinical psychologist post requires a doctorate and a solicitor also requires post graduate work/further exams - a degree isn’t sufficient for either.

You make a sensible reasonable response

Honestly I'm similar to PP. I wouldn't let my child just study whatever at some random uni. DH and I are both masters educated in engineering and have knowledge of how the world works.

I wouldn't let them waste 3 years doing social work at hull. Do an employable degree.

I have an Economist DC from LSE and another engineer from Imperial.

If you don’t want a rude response, don’t try to tell a poster her children will hate her, especially when you haven’t read what I have written properly at all. I literally used the word negotiation, and you’re being so bold to try to personally insult me?

Let me try again because you seem to be struggling. I said I would not blindly support my children. I said I expect them to have a plan. I said that I expect it to be a discussion. Do you really think any of that is unreasonable on something that costs £80,000+ in some of their most formative years?

My children have the benefit of having well educated, financially comfortable, experienced adults for parents. We will utilise those attributes together to ensure a mindful route is taken. I do not expect them to do what I would pick for them to do, but I do expect them to give the whole thing their full consideration, looking at all the options. If uni is the route that is chosen I expect careful consideration is given to the course, the uni, and the long term potential of the degree itself, which is where the discussion comes in. Look at how many graduates today are complaining about “not understanding this” and “not knowing that”. That will not be my children, at least not on the reasonable knowns such as understanding student loans.

Did you mean to be so rude? I'm presuming so.

So let me get this straight? You'll support your YP through university but only on your terms. Only if you seem it to be a worthy degree choice (and I'm guessing) a worthy establishment? If that's not the case it's definitely how your posts are coming across. Maybe you are struggling to articulate yourself.

However, if you are the decision maker/guider/coercive/controlling parent, Gosh, who made you the oracle of all things uni? What are your qualifications to be making such decisions on behalf of your YP? I feel terribly sorry for your adult children to have such a controlling parent. I'll support you but only if I deem your choices suitable. Do you allow any negotiations or is your foot firmly down?

But what is the point of posting when the whole thread is about the cost of student loans and you admit that you don't know how they work!

She is academic and wants to go because she loves learning,

That's what university is for! And the ability to learn, and hopefully create, new knowledge will be proof against AI.

YABveryU. Very unreasonable.