To think the government needs to something quickly to help families financially supporting children at Uni.

[Fl0renc3]

Mortgages are going up( ours will by 300 when we remortgage v soon), energy bills will be going up hugely, ditto food, petrol etc…. Already making all the savings we can.

We have got to start paying our child £500 a month to live on from October on top. It was already going to be a squeeze.Her bills will be rocketing too so who knows if what we were planning to give her will be enough.

We don’t have a money tree and have 2 other children due to start Uni in the next few years. I know the poorest and the richest will be ok re funding for their child at Uni but there is a massive band in the middle who won’t. Whether or not you can go to Uni shouldn’t be decided on parental income( thanks Tories) but those already there and just starting are going to be in dire straits as are the families supporting them.

OP if you feel that you will need to contribute £6000pa to living costs, this suggests that the chosen university is in London?We were very honest with our student offspring when they were applying that we couldn't stretch to subsidising a London cost of living and our 3 chose their universities accordingly. I hope all goes well for you and your daughter.

@Icanstillrecallourlastsummer but you can become an aerospace engineer without spending four years at university through degree apprenticeships - des.mod.uk/careers/defence-aerospace-degree-apprenticeship-scheme/

The job I did a four year degree for, rural land surveying, is now available through a five year degree apprenticeship which leaves you a qualified surveyor at the end, having been paid to do it and no debt (mines around £60,000). If it was available at the time I’d have done it in a shot. The graduates from it are far more employable than somebody who has just done a degree with no real world experience.

The degree apprenticehips still involve going to university plus there are comparatively very few.

@dianthus101 yes, I am aware. The poster I was replying to was mocking the idea you could become something like an aerospace engineer on the job with part time hours.

That’s really bloody ableist of you. He can study (and was predicted top grades in all his GCSEs) but it’s been exhausting for him. I’m paying for a PRIVATE psychotherapist for him to help with his anxiety due to his autism. He’s taking time to work on that. Autism means that one full time activity is more than enough. He didn’t choose to be born like that.
He’s gifted in coding and will do a degree in CS which will be a job he can excel in. Doing a degree will wear him out. He won’t be able to work in a bar or whatever as well, due to tiredness from focusing so hard in a world which doesn’t operate in the way that his brain does. To imply that he can’t do a degree because he has disabilities is sickening and shows an unbelievable lack of awareness.

Students who don't work at all have nothing to talk about in interviews even for graduate jobs.

DS looked up his interviewer on Face Book. They lived in our neighbouring town. He talked about her hobbies and her town. He got a job, one of nine going for a thousand applicants.

Her loans will only cover her accommodation. Hospitality is going to go down the drain. There will be no jobs.

This is nonsense. You can walk down practically any street or shopping centre and there are A4 printouts in the window with STAFF NEEDED. Tried to collect a prescription today from a well known national chain and they were closed because they don't have enough staff to cover breaks. Go on any local facebook group that allows job postings and it's post after post looking for cleaners offering previously unheard of wages with immediate starts and any hours you want as they're so desperate. Are we actually living on the same planet?

I agree with you in principle that the system doesn't work right now, but imo far, faaaaar to many people are going to uni for things that either do not or should not require a degree, or a degree which leads absolutely nowhere. It's 2022 for gods sake, the internet is basically an unlimited source of information and Universities should be reserved for professional and highly skilled jobs like doctors, lawyers, social workers etc. Nursing should be apprenticeships. Software the same, or self-taught online with a coding school. Teaching should be career + 1 year course. Marketing should be on the job training.

The system is basically a pyramid scheme at this point, and the only people benefiting are the gatekeepers. Used to work in an engineering firm with 3000+ employees and almost every manager I worked with would prefer to have a 3rd year apprentice than a uni graduate. In nearly all cases they climbed the ladder quicker and progressed further, and the only debt they had was their mortgages while the graduates were still trying to find flat shares so they could move out from their childhood bedrooms...

I hope your DD is doing something that'll result in a professional, highly paid role. If she's there for shits and giggles, tell her to get a job.

Actually just checked the rules and saw the threshold for minimum (£5k) is over £62k income outside London and £70k inside London.

I'm trying to find some empathy and coming up short...

Like on what planet is this something the government should be stepping in to help with when there will be people losing their homes and unable to keep their children warm 🤔.

Squeezed middle? This phrase needs to die a death. The squeezed middle household income is £30k a year 😂😂😂 if your child is getting minimum maintenance you are in the top 15%.

He was fortunate there.

Stalking isn't a good look in an interview.

Stalking isn't a good look in an interview.

Looking someone up once is hardly stalking! Sitting outside someone’s house and following them around for weeks, because they are obsessed with that person is stalking!

There are degree apprecticeships, only for certain subjects, but well worth looking into. If I was going to Uni now I’d prefer to get my degree this way.

You could go straight into work, and do a degree in your spare time, or you may get an employer to pay for the costs, as I know people in the past who have done that. Not sure how common it is now with all these increased fees.

Hang on...social workers are highly skilled like lawyers and need a degree , but teachers don't?? Right.

@cloudygreyskies agreed. Some of the best lawyers in my team joined as apprentices... They have zero student debt and earned throughout. Not the easy option, but a great alternative

I agree to avoid London. DS1 starts 2nd year next month. I am guarantor, ie payee of his monthly rent of £1075. He does not get the full allowance from his Liam either. DS2 wants to go to London, too, in 2023. Am trying to deter him, and doing my best to encourage his applying to the furthest northern universities. Apprenticeships would be better - must look into these.

Why should the taxpayer fund someone to swan off to uni but that same someone can’t be bothered to help themselves by getting a PT job due to so-called mental health ?
I worked PT from 16 and took extra hours in summer. I see far fewer teens doing this now and it’ll be to their detriment and likely fuelling so-called MH issues (I think often it’s a fear of adulting, enabled by helicopter parents)

@Tha i agree there’s loads of job adverts around but not sure what is going on as my kids has applied for 10s of jobs and not heard a thing. Maybe there are also lots of jobseekers? The example you give isn’t really a student job as pharmacy staff have extra training and qualifications and obviously the pharmacist has a 4 year masters degree and a further year on the job to qualify…
unless you work on the job I don’t think you really know what training or qualifications are necessary. Nurses are expected to triage, to prescribe, to manage long term conditions. It’s now a degree level profession, those below that level are nursing associates or HCAs. I’m not sure why social work is identified as needing a degree when I’d say and nursing not? A teacher really should have a higher qualification than the student, I don’t see how a career is going to help you understand algebra enough to teach a level.
degree level apprenticeships are great. They are also very labour intensive for the employer so there aren’t many places. Those that get them are often mature students who have worked and who are selected from a large pool. So it may not be so
much that the apprenticeship is better but that they attract very well qualified and committed people..
i think it’s a great injustice if the expectation is that only well off students can go to certain cities (where coincidentally many top universities are). University of London is just for the well off, overseas students and a few who live nearby now? That’s not progress

Sorry Op but she needs to get a job no excuses. A family member is younger and at college doing a part time job saving and has had a very very terrible couple of years and is still holding it all together determined to get to Uni saving like crazy. I don’t know how they do it after everything that has happened but I’m definitely inspired by them. I worked had a child and a husband when I went to Uni it can be done as long as your organised. Nobody hands anyone anything for free you earn it.

@Siameasy
“due to so-called mental health”

you should be ashamed of this comment. Do you read the news about the state of teenagers mental health and the inadequacy of mental health services to deal with it. It’s not ‘imagined’ these are serious conditions. And caused in part by the cut backs in services, support and school funding. There is so much more pressure on teenagers these days, the amount of school work has increased. It’s also been made very difficult to work prior to getting a NI number. And teens can’t leave school at 16, a point where many used to start full time work, they’re now still
in training. Nonetheless I don’t know many over 16s not working this summer, do you honestly not see teenage workers when you go to a cafe or a supermarket or a shop? 😆

thing is, plenty of teens have mental health issues but it just seems very convenient that that impedes them from working but not doing things like going to University. Mental health is not another term for ‘cannot work’

I worked PT from 16 and took extra hours in summer. I see far fewer teens doing this now and it’ll be to their detriment and likely fuelling so-called MH issues (I think often it’s a fear of adulting, enabled by helicopter parents)

Thats akin to saying smugly, I can do 5k to someone in a wheelchair! I am not sure what it proves?

@TheSummerPalace

What your son did was not stalking it was innovative. In my old job as en employment specialist it was one of the best techniques to find an interview (trying to get through the back door as opposed to the front).

I know young adults who fit your description. Their helicopter parents do not want them in lowly supermarket jobs or lowering themselves in other typical teenage jobs. Of course they’ll be at a disadvantage further down the line without a very basic work ethic.

I also know a lot of teens who are struggling to obtain jobs so it’s definitely a tough market out there. This thread makes for an interesting read.

No it doesn’t, that’s ridiculous. It’s saying that I’m not sure enabling all these excuses is doing young people any good. By all mean keep pandering to it. It does no one any favours, least of all the afflicted person.

thing is, plenty of teens have mental health issues but it just seems very convenient that that impedes them from working but not doing things like going to University. Mental health is not another term for ‘cannot work’

See @Mistlewoeandwhine about her DC with ASD. Many students battle with hidden disabilities such as ASD, ADHD, ME, dyslexia, etc, which means they have to work twice as hard to achieve the same as “normal people” - but often depression and/or anxiety go hand in hand, with these conditions, due to feeling a failure in a society set up by and for neuro-typical people.

They can either work full time on their education or they can work full time in a job; what they can’t do is full time education, taking up all their waking hours and energy; then work part time on top.

I am amazed how some posters, who do not appear to be psychiatrists, seem to know at a glance, better than mental health trusts, with all their teams of professionals?

Why are there now so many anxious teens and teens with “issues” precluding them from normal life? Where were these teens in the 90s? We’ve invented this issue. Any anxious child, you’ll see an anxious parent enabling it. Saw it over and over with Covid anxiety.
There’s a middle ground between 70s style “get a grip” and nowadays pandering to absolutely every emotionally fragile person. A bit of reality no?

@Siameasy

Agreed. Pretty unpopular opinion though on here. It seems even the adults don’t want to take responsibility for their MH so their kids certainly won’t either.