AIBU To judge parents who refuse to pay their contribution to student maintenance loan at Uni?

[ThunderandPharoah]

Have got some friends who are not going to stump up for their parental contribution when their DD starts Uni this year. Can't help thinking that this is a pretty low thing to do as they are not exactly short of money. Would you judge?

We are budgeting 75 a week for dd to live on. She will have an extra 30 thst she's earnt herself. She's keen to get a termtime job just one night a week so she can have a break from campus and academia more than anything.

One of my dearest friends has a mother that we all knew was bat-shit crazy anyway, but she refused to sign off the student loan forms for friends 3rd year. She didn't have to pay anything, she knew the deal. She just had to sign. She signed the previous two years but refused do the 3rd- no reasons, just wouldn't.

Friend had to use her savings. She did work but didn't earn enough to save much and this wiped out the bulk of any money put aside for her over the years. She is still recouping the loss, never out of her over draft despite earning reasonably well now. All because her DM wouldn't sign off on student loan. Her mum expects huge presents for birthday/mothers day etc and complains if it's "not enough". I've never forgiven the cow for working her Dd into the ground; she doesn't deserve anything.

Friend is about to get a big pay rise, I'm thrilled for her & hope she never spends another penny on her DM.

Do you even get to choose your own hall at Durham considering it is the college system?

You choose a college and while there is no guarantee you would get it they hopefully wouldn't force someone into a catered hall if they preferred self catered and vice versa.

You might think they're 'not short of money' - but it could all be a front.
Many years ago a friend of a friend suddenly disappeared and their very nice 5 bed and a swimming pool house was up for sale. Turned out it was repossessed - they were mortgaged to the hilt and failed to keep up with payments. The nice cars were on lease & repossessed. The holidays, meals out, nice clothes were on credit cards. He had lost his very well paid job and had to accept a lower paid job and they simply couldn't keep up with previous levels of spend. I had no idea.

This means that in practice there are subjects like Medicine (with a heavy workload) that they will not be able to do.

Rubbish. I did medicine and worked 2 jobs, pub in the evenings and a nursing home Saturday and Sunday daytimes. Why should I have relied on my parents?

Some posters have said that you don't know the details of others' finances.

In the case I referenced in my OP, the tight parents who won't pay their assessed contribution to their student DC's living costs had their own mortgage completely paid of by one set of parents. Not only that, but they were each bought a car by the same folks.

Despite being the happy recipients of such immense parental generosity themselves, they are not prepared to pay the parental contribution for their student DC at University. Oh the irony!

In their case it simply sounds as if they are very selfish then.

Bully for you justchecking1
Have you considered that some medical students may not be as super intelligent as you and may need to devote more time to their studies?

I hate this competitive "I managed, so therefore anyone else can". This isn't The Four Yorkshireman sketch

I think this competitive attitude is typical of medicine. There are always lots of doctors saying they worked 100+ hours as junior doctors and it was the best thing for them.

I've been a patient on a ward with a junior doctor who was on duty the whole weekend. He seemed exhausted at the start of the weekend, never mind the end. I was quite glad he didn't have time to make any decisions about my case....

Rubbish. I did medicine and worked 2 jobs, pub in the evenings and a nursing home Saturday and Sunday daytimes. Why should I have relied on my parents?

I don't know any medical students who did that and got good marks. Either you are lucky enough to have a photographic memory or you are bullshitting.

Despite being the happy recipients of such immense parental generosity themselves, they are not prepared to pay the parental contribution for their student DC at University. Oh the irony!

How do you know this? And how do you know it wasn’t the parents digging them out of immense debt?

How do you know their income is high enough to support their kids? Maybe they’ve remortgaged, maybe they have costs or debt you don’t know about.

Have you considered that some medical students may not be as super intelligent as you and may need to devote more time to their studies?
All medical students are super intelligent, they wouldn't have got a place in the first place if they weren't.

I don't know any medical students who did that and got good marks
DD is a medicine student, works both during term time and ft during breaks. A good number of her fellow pupils work. She got honours results in her exams this year. She is super intelligent, but far from the brightest.

You do know the 'parental contribution' is just a notional figure, used for calculation purposes, don't you? No parent is obligated to pay, it's just a suggestion. Some parents will give their child more, some less. Some are able to give only a little, some nothing.

I know there are people who say that parents' outgoings should be taken into account alongside their income when assessing for student loans, but that would be ridiculously difficult to manage, and time consuming for parents to prove, as well as grossly unfair.

DD is a medicine student, works both during term time and ft during breaks. A good number of her fellow pupils work. She got honours results in her exams this year. She is super intelligent, but far from the brightest.

It depends on how much and whether she is only in her first or second year. I work in a university and the medical students are strongly dicourage from bar work etc because it does effect their grades.

I used to teach medical students at a RG uni and they are not all super intelligent. There's certainly a number every year who would struggle and for whom working part time could have made the difference to continuing or not.

You do know the 'parental contribution' is just a notional figure, used for calculation purposes, don't you? No parent is obligated to pay, it's just a suggestion. Some parents will give their child more, some less. Some are able to give only a little, some nothing.

I disagree. If a student is not given a full loan because of their parents income I think they are morally obliged to make up the difference. I wouldn't have been able to go to university if me parents hadn't done that as I received nothing. DH on the other hadn got a full grant because his parents were dead.

No parent is obligated to pay, it's just a suggestion

According to earlier in this thread it’s a legal obligation and can be enforced via courts.

Who knew.

I went to university without a grant because my parents didn’t want me to go, and so refused to support me. I worked in an office as a temp in holidays and Wednesday afternoons when other people did sports. I also worked in a bar in the evenings two or three nights a week. It was a good time in my life. I had friends who sent their grants home and worked because their parents struggled to keep going on little or no income. Inspiring.

What is outrageous is the cost of student rental accommodation - and the fact that it must be funded when the student isn’t even there. Somebody has to pay it - they (and the parents) are just another casualty of our broken housing market.

The long term answer is to encourage more students to study close to home, to eliminate long vacations, cut courses to 2 years and provide more online course material.

Of course all this destroys the ‘meaning and purpose’ of university education and further embeds a two-tier system - there is no way I would encourage my DD to prioritise ‘local’ over ‘best’.

Figment For ds the PITA in his first year was that the let was termly, so his room has to be cleared completely for the Christmas holiday and the Easter one. In his second and third years he has a really good l/l, who charged 10 full months and one half month rent, and was as good as gold at replacing stuff. I made sure I met him, and that he knew I knew what was what, and it was fine.

In his MA year the cost of the accommodation nearly equalled the rent I got from my house in the UK, but he wanted to live on campus again (or across the road, which is where the new post grad houses were built.

Studying close to home wasn't an option, as we are abroad and ds was in UK.

I hadnt realised this having gone when there were no fees and people just seemsd to get more than enough in loans.
Up to £5k per child per year is a lot to suddenly find.
It makes the CB money ridiculous as £15k-20 isnt even given over that time for the first child.
Why exac

CB is approx £20k for the first child over 18 years.

Up to £5k per child per year is a lot to suddenly find.

You don't have to "suddenly" find it. You have 18 years to save.

A cost of £51-68k per student degree doesnt sound very attractive. Why would people encourage their kids to go if it might cost them £15k/child.??
They should never have allowed unis to charge £9k it isnt worth it because of the few contact hours etc.
Only about 50% of the students i know used their degree to be able to get a graduate type job. They were ones with firsts or going into law/accounting.
I poved uni for the social side and independence etc but they are not teaching with a view to employment. We were taught useless IT systems etc/non mainstream.
I think you can now do teachers direct (?) where you dont need the degree.
I think it's important for students to consider their personality when looking at degrees. Can they actually see themselves as a lawyer/graduate scheme. Could they fight it out at interview. Beat hundreds for a job doing their skills tests.
I dealt with a few of the graduates that joined the company i worked for. (I actually went in as a temp). It looked like they were given a medium low team leader role but they had no training or experience and had no idea what they were doing. They were moved around the jobs. It just wouldnt have suited me even if i could have got through the interviews. And the main issue with the interviews was personality/(over)confidence.

Also 40% of students will get a 2:2 which is fime but may have issues even applying for a graduate program.
So parents might legitimately believe 1 or many of their kids are not going to benefit (enough).
And another % will drop out and i assume still be left with a level of debt.
Many people dont have pensions

Is there any correlation between parents not supporting student DC at university and voting for Brexit I wonder?