to consider leaving my children for a year to study?

[secondcity]

long-time lurker here. I am braving AIBU and am bracing myself for the onslaught....

I live in New York with my husband and children, We have been here almost two years and everyone is very settled......except me!

I have been offered a (fully-funded) post-graduate course in the UK in september 2011.

If I were to accept the course, I wouldn't bring my children, but I would aim to come back once a month, and they would obviously come to me for all the holidays. My husband is very capable and we would probably get some part-time childcare sorted (secondary aged kids)

I swing between thinking it would be absolutely fine, (their father used to work away for up to 2 months at a time!)to thinking what kind of mother would contemplate leaving her children.

Anyone have any experience or advice? Thank you

NO it's ok - I'm still posting, waiting for folks to come and show me all these courses that non working, non resident applicants can get fully funded places on....

I don't think I could do it personally but a girl i was at uni with left her son with her mum for a year so she could go on her year out as part of her degree. She saw him every few weeks and as far as I know, their relationship wasn't affected. He was 4 at the time though so the age thing was probably a factor.

Just for you Northernlurker : overseas fully funded scholarships

Blimey - who'd've thought?

I'm going for this one - d'you think there'll be much competition?!

PhD Studentship
Emotions and the Home in Modern Britain
Queen Mary, University of London - School of Geography and School of History
Placed on: 27-01-2011 Salary: £15,590

I'm going for the Nuclear Fission Research.
< If only I could get the link to work >

You have to know the equations to make the link work

< Ponders >
D'you think I could crack it if I stayed at home studying for 10 years?
(Don't answer that question).

i considered doing it and my children were very young 4 and 2.

at the age yours are i would definatly go, theyl love getting to visit england on holidayand its only a year. Isnt it more like 9 months anyway?

thats hardly anything, go youl love it and only regre it if you dont

Well I broadly agree with posy and northernlurker, the OP was about being offered a fully funded scolarship after 10 years as a SAHM supporting her husband (which was what she posted), we are supposed to believe that higher education is in a financial crisis our children face decades of debt to do their first degree (even if fantastically useful to the country and some degree of tie in to the NHS ie medicine) so we should be questioning whether this is a good use of taxes.

It might have helped if the OP had stated that she has been ofered private funding then the subject would have never arisen.

If the OP had also started with I am a xxxx working/reasearching yyyyy for the last 10 yrs and have been offered zzzzz again a completely different outlook.

I'm guessing that there is a degree of financial happiness with the talk of monthly flights.

Buzz whether you were entitled to treatment as a visior depends on what for where you had come from etc etc too many variables, lots of GPs don't check hence the increasing profile of NHS fraud.

posy chinq wow do they speak Chinese? I'm in awe of people who go to very linguistically different places to live work etc.

FWIW if they get a UK state pension I think *they are netitled to treatment on the NHS but Im not sure whether emergency only I think not and I'm not an NHS overseas patient officer so I'm not sure worth looking into though (benefits enquiry line/DHS might be able to tell you)

For my part I'm really curious to know what the course is.

MOAD I couldn't get the link to open (my computer not a broken link) but some of those weren't fully funded though also a lot looked quite competative we were originally given the impression that OP was a SAHM of the cupcake variety not SAHM hard nosed researcher with long puplication record who happens to have 2 kids (oh I'm gonna get flamed )

I agree FWIW this comes over as more about difficulty settling etc on OP's part which I guess makes it more likely to lead to probs? maybe.....

Sorry Posy that was China I can spell just can't work my keyboard!

It really didn't occur to me to state my source of funding in my original post, although to be fair only 3 people seem to have an issue with it.

Thank you all so much for your input, it has been helpful to hear both sides, I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of people saying to go for it! I thought most would think it an awful thing to do. I have taken on board all the negative aspects and these are things that I had considered (except of course scamming the British tax-payer )

I have a little while to decide, will keep you posted.

secondcity I think it is an amazing opportunity for you and for your partner and children. They are older and sounds like you will see them relatively often what with holidays and you coming over once a month - but then only you know your children.

Read my post I didn't accuse you of scamming the taxpayer, I mentioned lack of undergrad funding for first degrees (quite naturally my dcs will leave uni with huge debts and it is a worry for me)
I had also taken form your posts that you were very much a SAHM of the cupcake variety (since I wasn't banned from mumsnet the first time I used it I will use it again you know what I'm trying to say) rather than had been working in this area for yrs I would have thought it pretty difficult for cupcake mum to get postgrad funding from anywhere after 10 yrs(again since I've totally misread a property description involving the words large flat and garden to find a place with a 1m grass rim and a steep wooded slope I'm quite able to see I was wrong.)

Do you feel UK taxpayers have no right to question where the money goes? If it's not relevant you just say so and they can move on to another thread. If it is wrong that you can just pop up from overseas and get a fully funded UK gov place it's prob fair to point it out on the thread wouldn't want to mislead others.

'....to be fair only 3 people seem to have an issue with it.'

There might be many more having an issue with but we don't know if it is an issue as you haven't said where the funding is coming from (apologies if you have and I've missed it).

FWIW, I thought n1n2's post yesterday was an excellent precis.

Ok, lets puts things clear:

• The OP can travel across the Atlantic and back once a month. I know people who has done it, they are all members of very affluent families. So I assume with that that the OP family income is higher than most of us around here.

• I think she is right in not revealing here her source of funding, or what she is studying. She would be very easy to identify by tutors/students if she did.

And before you start on that is not fair that people with money should not take advantage of scholarships... well, unfortunately, post graduate studentships are -very-rarely granted on financial need, they are awarded on the basis of academic excellence.

I don't think anyone here is under the illusion such studentships are somehow means-tested and given to the most deserving person - obviously they are quite rightly granted to people who will make the most of them and push the area of research.

Some people are pondering the issue of UK taxpayers' money funding someone who isn't based in the UK or paying tax here, and may not ever use the skills or knowledge the qualification gives her to the advantage of said taxpayer.

< I'm not necessarily one of those people - just think it's an interesting question and worth considering >

I'm really not trying to be rude saying this, but whether you like it or not, its the way it is. Foreign students have always had opportunities in the UK, some of these funded, and I don't see that changing no matter what cuts or made. These are usually the people who contribute to important research, they are the people who show promise.
I think its a good thing. But then I would!

*are, not or.

Are most research grants funded by the taxpayer anyway? Surely industries fund a lot of them in the science/engineering/tech areas... And I don't see how anyone can predict whether a person's contribution to quality of life can be gauged by whether that person stays in Britain upon graduation or goes away. In a global economic system, where you live and pay taxes sometimes have very little bearing on who your work helps or damages. Bill Gates doesn't live in Britain afaik, but look at his impact -- how many people draw a salary and pay taxes because of Microsoft?

post grad courses usually start in October and finish in June, so you wouldn't be away from your children for a whole year. I think it will be fine. I went to boarding school and only saw my parents in the long holidays and didn't miss them at all. I thin it would be similar for your children. Whether you could cope with not seeing your children for several months at a time is another thing. However emails and skype will help.

As far as I am aware, it is not that the tax payer is subsidising international students, it is more that the international students are subsidising postgraduate programmes in the UK. Honestly, they are the ones that make many of these programmes financially viable. (and paing 4x in fees than home students, it is no wonder.

paing=paying