to move to Scotland for the free University places?

[weewifey40]

I love Scotland. It's a beautiful country. Bit cold, but you can't have it all!
However, we have 3 dc's.
The way things are now, it will cost them all about 30k in student debt each to get a degree. So 90k for the three of them.
Neither of our parents helped us with the cost of our degrees and it made life very tricky in our younger days.
We'd love to help our dc's towards the cost of uni.
The eldest two are very academic and already talking about what they want to do at Uni, so I think it's pretty safe to assume they're going down that route.
We could get a bigger house for the same money up there. Would want to be about half an hour or so from Edinburgh.
Has anyone else thought of doing this?
Any thoughts?
It also occurs to me that we could move and then Scotland decides to introduce fees!

[scottishmummy]

Thanks euphemia Gosh,never heard of it.

[Branleuse]

i was only being semi serious about the weather. Im scottish born and love the west coast with all my heart, but couldnt live there really. Im in the very south east in one of the driest warmest bits of britain and its still too cold and rainy for me. Most people probably wouldnt be as bothered, and of course without the rain, it probably wouldnt be as beautiful

[MechanicalTheatre]

I never had to pay a graduate endowment and I graduated in 2005.

Branleuse, yes the west coast is rainy. It's not any worse than England in the east though.

[crikeyitshot]

The majority of people didn't know about the "graduate endowment" or the extra fee people had to pay after completing uni. I just escaped it by a year but I was the only one who knew anything about it as my parents read the small print. When it was mentioned during a pre-uni talk no one else in the room knew anything about. The Scottish government didn't advertise it, but did go on about the free uni in Scotland compared to England while failing to publicly mention students would have to pay at the end just not as much as down south.

A lesson in always reading the small print!

[IfYouCanMoveItItsNotBroken]

I see, I just assumed it was some huge well kept secret that no-one spoke about, I honestly never heard of it before or after graduation! Typical that I graduated in the brief amount of time it was in force. I also had to self fund my post grad to the tune of £4500 but think they are funded for the most part and don't cost as much. I'm not meaning to be insensitive to the point of this thread, but it's not all as free as it seems! The post grad costs couldn't be added to student loan either, and it was necessary to practice, not optional.

[MechanicalTheatre]

Hmmmm, graduated in the July of 2005. They did fiddle about with various fees/grants/no fees/no grants when I started, so I might have escaped.

How much is it?

[MechanicalTheatre]

Wow. No, missed that bullet, thank God.

[Enfyshedd]

No tutition fees for Welsh residents going to Welsh universities last time I checked, or I might have missed something.

[ubik]

Hmmm
In terms of teaching it was dire a few years ago, friends say more jobs coming up now as baby boomers are retiring

[expatinscotland]

And you think it's still going to be free in a few years? Haha.

[roughtyping]

Permanent teaching jobs in Central Belt are frustratingly few and far between. I'm a primary teacher and possibly being made permanent at the end of this month because I've 'worked my service' I.e. worked contracts with the same council with no breaks for long enough. Not a fun way to earn a wage though when you could be kicked out at any minute.

[penguin73]

We have just looked at making the move to Scotland as OH has been moved from SE England to NW Scotland to work, but we decided against it as we were advised that the chance of me getting a job (secondary teacher) were negligible and it would be difficult for DS to change to the Scottish education system (currently doing GCSEs). The free uni was an additional motivation to try to make it work (not that any motivation was needed, I've always wanted to live there) but so many people seem convinced that it wont exist in its current form much longer anyway that I wouldn't consider basing a move on that alone.

[determinedma]

euphemia* your first house was in Burntisland. It is as dead as a doornail and has nothing going for it other than views of the Forth.
Please don't think Scotland is the land of milk and honey - high unemployment, patchy public transport, high alcohol/drug/pregnancy issues in teens, lowest life expectation in Europe.summers are wet. Anti-English racism still very rife in SOME areas
Do your homework! And then there is next year's referendum.....

[andubelievedthat]

i would not go to Scotland now , particularly with their independance vote coming up , as said on previous post ,the education is not free ,not even from students not paying at present , its a bill/vote catcher which is an i.o.u. to be paid later> in the capitalist economy, nothing is free

[roughtyping]

determined how do any of us manage to live here

[mrsjay]

Scotland gets lots of English taxes to pay for all of these things. Same with Wales.

Best thing to do is move there to take advantage.

Ok then

[mrsjay]

Bold fail

[determinedma]

I live here too rough. Just adding a note of realism to those with the tartan tinted glasses on. Those expecting wee granny macshugle to be round offering plates of fresh baked shortbread are likely to be in for a shock when what they actually get on their doorstep is a gang of neds shit-faced on Buckie, having smashed your wing mirrors or keyed your car. or maybe that's just found here?