If you are fully supporting DC through uni - how much is is it really costing?

Because we weren't willing to bet against our children. You start repaying from virtually minimum wage level and only the tiny proportion of very high earners clear it quickly enough for it to not impact them. For the vast majority of solid middle earners, the debt will accrue faster than they can clear it, and they have a noose round their necks for their whole working life. Life is already so much harder financially for GenZ and below than it was for us.

And if parents can afford it, why wouldn't they choose to support their children rather than keep feathering their own n'est?

In answer to OP, it is around £20k a year, under half the absolutely ridiculous cost of private school fees in this area. He is in a low cost accommodation city and we give £500/month term time and £200/month in holidays. He has a part time holiday job to top his account up.

I am laughing my head off …. £30k to fund university for children who couldn’t be arsed to empty the dishwasher. No chance … get a student loan like most other students!

Am I the only one who didn’t even consider fully funding them despite being able to afford to easily? I haven’t given it a moments consideration. I pay for accommodation and top up the loan for spending money and they have the fees loan and minimum loan. I’d far far rather I added to their already significant house deposit. I put aside about £10k Pa to do this. My husband felt very strongly that their loan was them investing in their own future

Student finance hasn’t kept up with rising costs. Even the max loan wouldn’t pay rent in a lot of places, never mind the minimum loan. And what part time jobs? They are as rare as hens teeth now. I’m a lecturer and many of my students are desperately searching for work, applied for anything and everything but companies aren’t recruiting and when there’s an occasional advert they are inundated. I think most jobs go to a friend of an existing employee.

Are people paying the fees up front?!

That's very generous what some of you are doing

Dd gets the minimum loan but we are having to pay her rent. Which is 1k a month but includes bills. So she has her minimum loan to live off and I then top her up with an extra £30 a week as she couldn’t live off her loan. She doesn’t drink, doesn’t party, I did want her to be able to out for a meal with friends occasionally, etc and not live like a pauper. I also pay her phone, Netflix, prescription annual charge and contact lenses. So probably another £80 a month. So £1200 a month really. If she didn’t have her loan we’d need to find another 5k approx a year.

She doesn’t come home in the holidays so it’s all year round. So 15k a year with her loan, would be 20k she would need without her loan.

The vast majority of people still get student loans. I suspect there would be more students who have been fully funded at Cambridge than say a Birmingham uni.

Being fully funded actually makes them feel
a bit of place. Mine have lied about it.

No one is making you. Plenty of students stay at home and attend their local uni which makes things much cheaper.

After 3 years around £90k.

How the actual fucking hell are parents expected to cover this??

My son is 16 - actually shitting myself about this in 2 years time. It is completely unaffordable.

Are you 100% certain that your DC won't take the maintenance loan and not tell you? I went to uni when it was cheap, lots of my friends were fully funded by parents but secretly took the loans to have extra spending money.

How about they take the loans and you pay them off at the end of the course? It'll put them on a similar footing to their peers and you give more flexibility as to how you use your money. Maybe they'd rather repay the loans but have the money as a house deposit.

The maximum maintenance loan no longer even covers their rent.

We gave ds £15k a year because that is roughly what we paid for his school fees (and had got used to paying it). It covered his fees and most of his accommodation but we expected him to find the rest… he could have got a maintenance load but was fortunate to be transferred to his Uni town to continue his part time job. I think that paid nearly £1000 a month which saw him through and he graduated without loans.

if we had covered everything, I agree, it would be about 25k a year.

I saved into a JISA for DS for a good number of years to fund his uni. It was worth nearly £65k when he got it at 18, and it needs to fund his entire years as there's no more where that came from. He's just starting his 3rd year and has plenty left for this final year, so each year is costiing a little under £22k in total.

It's so sad that university is becoming for the well off elite again. Ours is at a university she loves, but which is hugely expensive. We are paupers, so she gets full loan, a small university bursary and works as much as she can part time. Rent is slightly cheaper now (year 3) but for the first two it was crazy prices. We still get her big shops when we can and raided some pension money to keep her going Her peers with wealthy families who get everything paid for (and my god, I wish we could) seem to have little idea of the reality of costs ). She has know several people have to drop out due to not being able to afford to live. It's a shame it's turning against the poorer student. Yes, a lot work for a year before going, but it seems wrong that it's rarely though choice now for the poorer ones.

-Because I don't want my ds to have to pay an extra 9% tax for 40 years.
-Because the actual amount paid back can be absurd
-Because I'd like him to be in at least the same position I was when I graduated, which was £4.67 in the black 😁

And yes, I know it's not 9% on all earnings but even so....

I've retired and my income is less than £25k pa but if I can clear ds' debt for him, I will.

Similar for us.
We funded accomodation and living costs for DD in year 1 and 2, the accomodation was about 8.5k (ensuite room in private halls for 41 weeks iirc - there were cheaper options) which was split into 4 payments.
Then gave her 400/month for living expenses.

In year 2 she had a job. We paid accomodation - a daggy student house (£680ish/month with bills for 12 months) and then topped up her wages so she had a budget of 400/month.

Next year she's getting a maintenance loan as we need to be sure we can do the same for DS.
Have never considered paying for the tuition fees.

For those expecting their kids to get pt jobs straight away, thats not a certainty either. DD applied for about 70 before getting a zero hours job.

Because they don't want their dc to start adult lives with massive debt hanging over their head.
It took years to clear my student debt I'm delighted that we can afford to make sure our dc don't have to have that.
Also having paid for private school it isn't actually anymore expensive which I understand is a very privileged position.

I’m not getting involved with student loans. We should have the money, if we don’t, then I would rather take a lower interest loan myself and pay it off then saddle DD with massive debts.

Because for most people their kids won’t get anywhere near the full maintenance loan (need an household income less than £25k for full loan) and the system assumes parents will top up.

Because we wanted to avoid student loans partly because we had the means to do so and partly because it felt wrong to use taxpayers money when we didn’t need to. We were used to paying school fees though so just an extension of that. It has meant that my kids have been able to earn without deductions.

I'm paying ds' halls room, and he is covering his own food/travel.

His halls room is £8k per year. Ds expects to spend £75 a week x 40 weeks = £3k for the year. He doesn't drink alcohol or drive, and knows how to cook to a budget so I don't think this is unrealistic.

He also hopes to work during termtime - he's an experienced pool life guard with a reference/DBS so that may be possible.

We will take the £10k p.a. tuition fee loan, but I'll start nibbling away at that, and hope to have cleared most of it by the time he graduates.

This isn’t that helpful to @QuandryQuaint tho. High earnings mean minimum loan which won’t cover accommodation at most unis.

Agree they could take out a fees loan; if not then that’s £9-10k a year.

Ds2 got min loan in the end and worked PT a day a week; I paid his rent (about £7k, fairly cheap tbh) and his loan plus job came to about £6k on top, so about £12-13k a year. Good luck finding a it job that pays £8k.

But as others say it so depends on the uni. Friend’s DD (or rather, friend) pays £10k Pa for house share in Bristol. Bath, Edinburgh, Exeter also ££.