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?

Surely it would be fairer if everyone had the option to apply for an accommodation loan, to be paid direct to the provider and then a top up after that.

If I could afford to I wouldn't want my DC's to get into more debt but I don't know I'll necessarily be able to support them. I also don't see what's wrong with a part time job (excluding for actual full time courses like medicine, nursing etc). I did it- it's all about responsibility and prioritising

This is why I think students should take a year out and work before they go to university. They could live at home and build up a ‘war chest.’ My dc is working while doing his A levels. I have told him to save everything he can do that it will make things easier for him when he is at university. Most of his friends work too. He has accumulated a reasonable amount of money already.

I really judge students who don’t get a job tbh. Everyone I knew at uni worked!

PARENTs who say that despite having a good income they can’t afford to top up their child’s living allowance are really saying that the choices they make about how they spend their money are not prioritising the child’s education.

My eldest still has 6 years before uni, but all my kids have savings accounts for this very reason. That will go some ways to helping with accommodation or travel expenses if they choose to live at home and if needed I will help financially with food/essential costs, but I will not be supplying several k a year to fund nights out or luxuries. If they want extra money, they can find a job or work part time for their dad.

Life has changed though. Housing is extortionate now, the middle are ever being squeezed.

Students with parents under 25k or very rich will have a big advantage ie stress free student years with everything sorted. No need to work and an ability to take degrees where working is banned.

It’s a sliding scale from 25 k to joint income of 60k where you are expected to cough up the full 5k per student a year. Most middle income families I know are squeezed and don’t have a spare £30k for 2 adult children. Many parents will have paid out childcare, have a huge mortgage and other assorted bills leftover from child rearing. Judge away, if parents have commitments and haven’t got it they haven’t got it.

The system is shite and other countries do it better.You’d have thought by now we could have come up with something.

Not all courses are suitable for getting paid work. If the student is doing over 30 hrs taught and the equivalent in study it’s unreasonabke to expect term time work. I know many science courses are like this, isn’t nursing also the same now?

blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2016/09/how-much-are-parents-supposed-to-give-their-children-when-they-go-to-university/?_ga=2.105955589.722695467.1561276690-313046568.1561276690

Hopefully the link works haha, but here's the Martin Lewis article on the maintenance loan and parental contribution.

The First OHN
you think it is unfair
however she is working very hard by the sound of things, to earn the money, to put herself through university.
She can be very proud of herself

you dont know her parents financials responsibilities.

Students should be working in their holidays. All the kids in my family work. One had three jobs in his gap year and now has the most money out of everyone!

Can we stop calling 18 year olds kids. They are adults.

Are those maintenance loans over a year or per term?

I was very worried when my dc wanted to go to university, we sat down, did the sums, she worked a lot and has just finished her degree.
not without moaning - but we could not support her, we did the best we could, in her eyes probably not enough, but she can be proud that she has learnt a lesson in life. she is 22, not 12.

We can afford what we spend at the moment which isn’t £400 a month per child. We have 3 and will be able to fund some of the expected amount but not all.

I have spent shed loads on bus fairs, essential trips, books etc over the years. A huge proportion of my salary must go direct to Parent Pay. Thus is exactly the reason we haven’t been able to put shed loads away for uni. So do give over with the not prioritising education. In many cases a parent’s commitment to education is what gets teens to uni standard.

Can we stop calling 18 year olds kids. They are adults.

The bizarre thing is that they are legally adults, but they are still treated as dependents for the purposes of, the loan.

theMichael those are the figures for a year. It's paid in 3 installments.

So the tution fees are paid in full by a loan which doesn't decrease based upon parental income? And we're only talking about the amount of living costs loan reducing? In which case surely the child can continue to live at home and go to a local uni, thus no need for accomodation costs to come out of their loan or their parents pockets?

The whole student loan business makes me so angry. Even more so when MPs argue that it isn't a financial barrier to any student because the loans aren't repaid until they are working. This is why there is a barrier.

The amount of loan given is means tested based on parental income. Both of our children got minimum loans and there was an overlap where they were both at uni at the same time. We're in our 6th year of having a child at uni and have 1 more to go.

It annoys me that only parental income is assessed and not out goings too. We apt their rent plus extras like phone bills, TV licence, any big purchases such as laptops and buy them shopping about once a month. Then their loans are for weekly shops, travel costs, books, clothes and going out.

It's still difficult though and my husband works 60 hours a week to fund this. We've not had a holiday for 4 years now because we can't afford it. On the other hand, we would do anything for our kids and I can't understand those who could afford it but choose not to.

So those without a good uni near them should go to a shitter uni because their parents can’t affird it? Say they don’t get in or if doesn’t do the right course?

What do you think these people are doing with their supposedly "spare money"?

Are those maintenance loans over a year or per term?

Over the year

The bizarre thing is that they are legally adults, but they are still treated as dependents for the purposes of, the loan.

This!

Legally adults but are classed as dependents of the RP for student loans yet the NRP no longer has any financial obligations towards them.

My DD's will receive the full loan amount due to my salary (& being in Scotland there's no fees) but have a father whose household income is over £60,000 but he won't be expected to contribute a penny.

Child support should continue throughout education for both parents or none.

haha and that's what's happening.. but there are issues.

There's an assumption that there is a local uni, that does the course you want and is of decent quality.

This is one of the issues that contributes to the woefully poor social mobility in the UK. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are facing a limited choice which....great if your local university is high quality, not so great if you're forced to choose a low ranking one.

If you live at home, the maintenance part of the loan is even less. You don’t get the same amount as you would if living away. Some people I know have rented out their student child’s bedroom at home to help pay the fees. We can’t do that as my student child doesn’t have their own bedroom at home.

YANBU. My father pleaded poverty despite earning £80k plus when I went to uni over 20 years ago. I supported myself through employment when I should have been studying and took on debts which overshadowed my life until my thirties.

He was always taking people out to lunch etc, on the face of it he was very generous but behind closed doors he was a tight arse

daisy they wouldn't have done that to pay the fees. All students get a loan to cover the fees which is paid directly to the university regardless of household income.