SO, according to my boomer mum, sending a child through uni these days is the same as it was in the 90s

[PotteringAboutIn]

Because apparently they didn't have the wages back then

Ffs
Drives me nuts

What when uni was free, accommodation wasn't anywhere near as expensive and you even got a grant

@PotteringAboutIn See, if you’d just used mum instead of boomer mum, your thread might’ve gone better….
But then, I’m not sure you wanted it to?

Me too, I was born in 1964 and I'm lumped together with the demographic born just after the end of WW2. Why is there less and less time between generations? At this rate there will be a new one every year! Sorry off topic.

I can tell you cos I remember the early 90s.

£450 term for halls (term-time contracts).
second-year house was £100 per month (4 students)
third -year was about £125 per month (4 students)

Just done sums for DD first year at uni. She will leave year 1 £16k in debt.

That starts to accumulate 3% interest.

She will then have a 9% tax until she pays it off or it is cancelled at the age of 60. So we have to decide will she ever pay it off? And broadly we think no.

Add to that when boomers were buying houses they were 3 average wage, I believe they are now 10 average wage.

It's a tricky one as no single boomer is to blame but the low tax low social provision political choices they've collectively made have made it very very difficult for young people. Wealth has been entrenched in the old making it increasingly difficult for future generations.

It is also very depressing when they brush it aside as it was hard in their day too. It's like Trump calling himself "self made" when he inherited 68 million or whatever it was.

Write to your MP, while there are vulnerable old people who need help the majority are very comfortable in their mortgage free homes.

I'm 61. My parents are in their late 80s. Their contribution was means tested with no account taken of the cost of any siblings still at home. I got a tiny,tiny grant from the government. The rest was paid by them. I went from 84-88. The mortgage rate on the family home was 17%. They really struggled.

I'm in my 60s and went to university at the end of the 70s on a full grant.

Yes, I agree things are bad now. I could bore on for paragraphs about how cruel the system is for university students now in many ways - not just financial but the raising of unrealistic expectations, degree courses which provide few employment prospects etc etc. I think Tony Blair go it very wrong.

But also - please remember that in those far-off days, only about 10 per cent of young people went to university. The universities were much more elite then.

Personally I think the polytechnics and colleges were doing a great job in providing more practical and technical courses for students which usually led to useful qualifications and a clear career path for able, but not necessarily intellectual, youngsters. But they were turned into universities and everything became a degree...and very expensive.

In reality very few people are really suited to university - and the universities have adapted and expanded to suit a much broader intake, and not always with great results.

You can't have half the population going to university AND have a grant system. That's only sustainable if it's still a minority of students.

Whether she was a stay at home mum or not, having children has always been expensive! Many women stayed at home cos there was limited job opportunities and childcare

All of this. My mother became pregnant with me in 1964. As soon as the pregnancy was revealed to her employer ( The Electrcity board in Luton) she was given a letter confirming her leaving date. No maternity option with a possible return. Rerurn to work after a baby was unheard of unless you had grandparents nearby which we didnt. No breakfast clubs, no after school provision. The law only changed 50 years ago to allow a woman to have her own mortgage. My mother didn't stay at home with us because she wanted to . She did it because there was no option.

Did she give up a full time salary, promotions (or the chance of getting a better job) and maybe pension contributions? Over 18 years, that costs quite a lot?

Agree, 60-something here and it wasn't as expensive when my milennial children went in the 2000s as when my Gen Z children went recently! Can't speak for the '90s. Yes wages were less but tuition fees were £3k a year compared to £9k a year, and accommodation wasn't as expensive.

it's interesting though, as us 60-somethings aren't so much Boomers as "Generation Jones".

According to Google:

Generation Jones (born 1954–1965) is a distinct micro-generation sandwiched between Early Baby Boomers and Generation X. While traditional Boomers experienced the optimistic 1960s counterculture, Woodstock, and postwar economic expansion, "Jonesers" came of age in the 1970s marked by the Watergate scandal, high interest rates, and an economic downturn.

so maybe that's affected our thinking!

No, very different. They get very little contact time, very little 1-2-1 with tutors/lecturers, far bigger unis, far greater number of students, basically they’re graduate factories rather than learning centres, students are a file number not a person, support services are stretched and often poor, lots of clubs and societies barely function, there’s a huge divide between the drinkers and non drinkers, etc. students find it hard to make friends or find where they belong due to the changes in unis and societal changes.

Likening offence levels of being called a Boomer to a black person being called the N word is offensive in itself. Your apparent age suggests you would know full well the origins of the N word. Meanwhile Boomer is offensive because it suggests that the age group is close-minded and out of touch clutches pearls.

The younger generation are often accused of being snowflakes and here you are likening being called a Boomer to the N word. Get a grip.

1985 midlands £22 a week for our share terrace house.

My children are young so uni is quite a distance away. With much of the comments on here, can I ask, is university actually worth it? What are the benefits? It doesn't seem to do much to get you ahead as it seems many people go to uni these days. It's the norm. You aren't guaranteed a decent (or any) job at the end. So what's the point?

I dread to think what the csts will be in 10 years time when my eldest is of age to go.

I was a SAHM by need so we lost my full time wage, which was a hell of a lot of more than £4k.

I agree, closing the polys and colleges was a huge mistake that will blight several generations especially as the politicians havn’t worked it out yet so aren’t even trying to reverse the disaster caused in the 90s and 00s. It wasn’t just trades and manual and semi skilled work, they did professional courses too such as accountancy. Most didn’t need to go to unis as they had loads of options locally close to home. Colleges and polys also did part time evening and day release for workers to get qualifications whilst working. The obsession with degrees has partly caused today’s young/employment issues. But reversing the mistakes means politicians were wrong and they won’t like to accept it. The rich who benefitted from the expensive student flat blocks won’t like losing their incomes either.

All of this. Plus all the women on here who work because they couldn't cope with being at home with small children all day ,every day with their husband being the only earner. Do you not think that women of your mother's generations felt the same? My mother certainly did. She was bored out of her brain but her options were totally limited. She didn't learn to drive until I was 14. In our area very very few women drove or had access to their own car unless they were a farmers wife ( increased her usefulness to the farm business) None of my friends mums worked or had cars. It wasn't because they liked being at home all day or dependent on a man its because they had no choice.

I went to Uni in the late 80s. I got a grant (33.3%), my Dad covenanted a third (ie applied for tax relief) and his company gave a third. So it didn’t cost my parents a bean. I think Uni accommodation was about half of the total grant (which was about £700 a term). Private rental was £15/week - it was minging, no student would stay there now!!! And we could apply for the dole during the long summer break if didn’t get a job.

Only really if it’s part of a long term career strategy. Not if the student is taking a mickey mouse degree with no obvious route into decent employment just because they like the sound of the course and think it’ll be fun! Very risky to take a random degree and just hope for the best as you’ll be one of many similar graduates all going after jobs that any graduate could do. Far better career opportunities generally for stem subjects, especially maths which is almost always a good route into a decent career/profession.

The system back then was that a student was given a maintenance grant based on parental income. If parents had higher income, there was no grant. There were no tuition fees. However, there were also absolutely no loans. No bank would lend to a student because they had no income.

So parents on higher wages but with a large mortgage or higher outgoings or debt, had to pay all accommodation and living costs as they arose. There was no way to push the problem into the future.

I was a student in London in the 80s and I worked 6 nights a week in a pub in my first year, just to survive. In year 2 I worked as a motorcycle courier which was dangerous and dirty work. I also worked all my summers.

Try to understand OP, things were very different then.

Its schrodingers university these days. Not worth it if you go and can't get a job afterwards and are in loads of debt. Also not worth not going and being excluded from employers requiring a degree for jobs that could be done in the past without a degree.

What a world my poor kids are entering...

I find the expression "Boomer" to be as offensive as a Black person would find the N word.

What? This site never fails does it?

I hate these terms , particularly the word Boomer (which is most often used as a slur )as if we are all the same and can’t have had different experiences & lifestyles and therefore all think & behave the same way
I’d never insult my children by calling them Gen Z or Millennials. They have minds of their own and are as different from other people of their generation as I am from mine.
If you need to give context around when they were born just use their age

If she is over 80 doesn't that make her part of the silent generation and not a boomer at all?

Yes but back then a degree was a real investment in yourself and graduates usually got far better employment opportunities. It was niche because so few people had degrees. Nowadays you get into massive debt for bog standard degrees that may mean you earn little if any more than non graduates because it’s nothing special anymore. It’s become the norm so is devalued.