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

Bath- £20k, roughly £9,500 fees, £8,000 room, £100 pw food and everything else (as she's home for roughly half the year given how long holidays are). If she needs anything extra her holiday job pays for it

A friend of mine’s daughter took a gap year and worked for most of it full time, saved up and still managed a couple of months travelling with friends in April / may. She then worked over the summer. This was mainly because her parents were not in a position to pay for her. She has had a great year, made lots of friends at her job and has really matured and grown up. I think that’s a great way of doing it.

Logically, yes, those who can afford £25k plus a year are going to be skewed towards the wealthier section of the population and therefore those who are more likely to have chosen private education. Even if numerically more come from the state sector, it will be a smaller proportion of the total state educated.

We saved from birth for house deposits, a small amount each month. With compounding and careful investment both kids will have £100k plus. The house deposit level savings were a given from the day we had kids.

We only decided to privately educate when the oldest was 6 and we have always paid out of income so uni was a bargain in contrast. The choice to fully fund that was about a month before the oldest started.

The school years were not comfortable financially but it was the right decision at the time with the situation we found ourselves in. I accept it still makes us well off that it was even a decision we could afford to make, instead of the failing school we were offered when we had to in year relocate due to a new job. We are far from oligarchs though!

It not even “high earnings”. Household income of ~£70k means minimum loan. So you could have parents on £35k each and you’d only get the minimum.

Our child’s uni halls cost £8k (northern England), minimum loan is £5k so it’s expected that parents make up the difference and that’s before any actual living costs like food, toiletries, transport, socialising etc.

What's the AIBU here?

Yes I know you don't have to earn highly only to get min loan (oh believe me I know – I am an underpaid creative and DH is a very underpaid civil servant and still DS2 got the min). But I was referencing the OP's DH getting a "big promotion" which presumably meant high earnings, that's all.

Daughter third year at Lincoln now in a house. We pay accommodation fees but her Grandad left her money which cover’s tuition. Hopefully won’t leave in debt

Oxford - Fees c£9500 pa
Accommodation c£5000 pa
Living c £100 per week

Plus there aren't enough part time jobs anymore - you can't rely on your YP being able to get one/ enough hours, especially in a University city where everyone is trying to get PT jobs, especially if timetabling means they can only really work weekends. The loan system already assumes a fairly substantial parental contribution other than for the absolute poorest households.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way. Interestingly I have a colleague with a same age student daughter and he chose to fully fund uni but that would mean they would have little or no house deposit whereas we have opted to just pay rent while our DC takes out loans but will have a decent house deposit.

Psychologically I personally think knowing that you have a smaller mortgage (or indeed are able to buy a house at all) will feel better than the downside of having an extra amount coming out of your pay packet each month as most people are only interested in the net pay hitting their bank account rather than the exact split of deductions and will cease to "notice" it.

If it's not distasteful to say so, I think people factor in inheritances from their parents/children's grandparents as well and obviously that can be a huge boost to house deposits (several friends have been able to outright buy a house for their 20s children due to healthy inheritances). I know this isn't the case for me, and my children can't expect any money other than what they can earn or what we can give them. I therefore feel the best we can do is give them as much deposit as we can save and if they want more in their pay packet, it's up to them to earn it.

It's definitely an important consideration. I think if we could only do one it would be house deposit, but as we have 4 year age gaps between our 3 kids none of them should be in uni at the same time. So we're planning to use savings that we've been contributing to since they were born for house deposit then fund uni out of salary as we go. If complications crop up I'd rather they end up with a small amount of student debt and protect the deposits.

We have passive income, which will pay for uni. We're already paying school fees (£25k pa) so see this as a three year extension to that. They may get a job but we're not planning on it being available as an option.

Any inheritance I get will go towards a house deposit for them. Plus we're investing to top up their deposit so they could potentially buy a house outright rather than have a mortgage when they start out. That's the plan anyway! If they want to upsize their house in the future they can borrow or save to do so.

They will also have dividend income from their ISAs as a passive income stream when they hit 18, so that can top up their monthly income at Uni and onwards. We will max out their allowance annually to boost that up as much as possible. They are already learning how to manage this so they can grow it themselves going forward.

Gosh. SO much spoon feeding. I’m astounded that some kids are getting £800 pcm for food and fun etc.

Obviously I expect to pay something for living costs but my kids will have to get a job, any job, and not just for pin money. Granted they aren’t doing nursing or medicine where I think this is challenging.

it’s also a terrible mistake to not work when at uni. Graduating without any work history is a very bad idea these days.

DS2 works when he is home and is super sensible with money so tops up the trust fund. Because of his buying and selling online, it now has more money in it than at the beginning of his first year.
Regarding whether to give money towards uni or for a house deposit is an interesting one.
We will hopefully be able to give money for deposits but only through possible inheritances.

I mean to an extent it’s just part of the inter generational wealth transfer that is going to take place in early adulthood for some YP. Wealthy X’ers aren’t going to make their student DCs live on 30 a week just to make a point.

I do agree with you that they should get work experience while studying but at the same time reading Inheritocracy did make me reassess whether my parents’ approach to me becoming independent ( very much “on your bike”) is really optimal/ fair now and I’ve concluded it’s not. My parents approach was fair in that environment. For me to treat my kids the same would just be me being tight.

There are more students wanting jobs than jobs available in many places and the jobs available often want you to be very flexible. DD knows student missing lectures to go to their job and having to stay in their university town year round so they can hang onto it.
But working across the summer holidays is definitely something that all students should be doing. I agree that no work history is a red flag these days. My niece has just graduated with a Oxbridge degree and expected to walk into a job, but she's not even getting interviews and I'm sure lack of any work experience is the reason. A degree alone (even from Oxbridge) is not good enough.

We fully funded uni which required major budget-busting sacrifices like no holidays abroad, rarely going out, cutting back on food shopping bills and driving and old banger. We also made it clear that if they took out a loan, we'd cut off the tap.

Loans were being hard-sold to so many students who had no real clue about the ramifications. I saw one student say it was "free money which you probably will never have to pay back".

£24k in our case. We’re paying hall fees of almost £9k, plus DS is borrowing c.£5k for food and everything else, plus £10k for fees.

We expect ours to work in the summer but not during term - STEM subject with high timetabled hours, and quite frankly as a first year HE course lead I’ve dealt with too many students missing classes because their employer demands more hours than they should be doing.

Unless you are somewhere very deprived and isolated there is always, always work available for able bodied young people! Yes, it may be slightly out of town or unattractive (care work), you may have to do self employment (dog walking, pet sitting, babysitting, tutoring) but there is always something. Missing an odd lecture here and there doesn’t matter, you can catch up.

I do understand the point about inter generational wealth transfer and agree, but too few students prioritise workplace experience and then wonder why no one will hire them on graduation.

I disagree. My daughter has worked since the age of 16. She actually worked full time for 3 years before going to uni but shen she moved there despite applying for hundreds of jobs she got very few intwerviews and no offers of work. She drives so was not restricted by distance.

There are simply too many appying for too few jobs or they want her to be available when she is in uni. Some of her friends who do work regularly have to miss compulsory lectures and tutorials or they would lose their job.

A fortune. We paid all accomodation , £1500 a month for two for one year at one point. Over three years each, DS1 rent averaged £600 pm and DS2 £900.
We also lent them the equivalent of the minimum maintenance loan each over three years, (GP paid tuition) which will be paid back when in work so another £30k between them on top. So about £84k in total to get them both through over seven years.
Our choice with the maintenance loan though, and could have chosen cheaper cities to rent, but the better courses in their subjects were at the unis they attended.
Both left debt free (except to us!) and worked themselves too for extras.

If you can't afford to run a car (likely if you are a student working to afford essentials) then distance and ability to get to a job is very much a factor. And what's the point of going to university if you are going to miss contact hours (more than just "the odd lecture")? DD's university town is saturated with students; far more want jobs than in previous years and there simply isn't enough work for all of them. There literally does come a point where there isn't any more jobs paying enough hours (the odd hour of babysitting or tutoring here or there hardly is sufficient).

At my daughter’s university they are told not to get a job during term time 🤷‍♀️