To think it's going to be a struggle to send DC to university now?

[coffeerevelsrule]

DC a couple of years off this now but it's beginning to worry me nonetheless.

My finances are as follows: I'm divorced and earn about £52k. Ex husband contributes nothing and I have to pay him £10k when youngest child reaches 21 as part of our divorce settlement. I have just over £21k in savings. I usually manage to save about £100-£200 per month - this is quite a bit less than a couple of years ago just due to rising costs and having to replace my car when it died last year. My mortgage is currently just under £700 per month and I also have about £5k other debts (low - 0 interest - unavoidable at the time).

Martin Lewis website said last time I checked that I should expect to contribute about £7k per child per year. This would have been a struggle anyway but now looks pretty much impossible. My mortgage is fixed for another couple of years and my fuel until next year. Both will rise massively just as dd1 is due to go to uni. What the fuck will happen?

AIBU to think that if inflation/interest rates stay like this they are going to have to look again at the thresholds for parental contributions but AIalsoBU to say they won't and university is going to become unaffordable for many?

Both dc’s could take a gap year very easily and work even at minimum wage role would bring in £20k full time ( minus tax of course) but plenty enough to support themselves plus they can work during the holidays if not term term. Plenty of students do. My dd works 12 hours per week without too much difficulty or much of an impact on her ability to study.

What did your dd do that generated the money to live in in a few hours per week?

A supermarket as a supervisor. She also had the maximum loan, worked full time during the holidays and I paid her fees.

So not entirely self supporting then.

My son is at uni right now and only gets the minimum 4k maintenance loan - his rent alone is 5k!

He worked in a bar all summer and squirrelled away £3k to cover additional costs this year. He could have carried on in term time but has elected to focus on studies.

Get your kids working now and saving every penny.

A friends son was at Cambridge and a very smart cookie. He covered most of his fees by entering and winning multiple competitions run /sponsored by the uni. Not sure how many universities offer this though.

It's shit that our kids have to get into so much debt, but there's can do about it.

I don’t think I claimed she was, did I?

My point was it’s absolutely fine to work through uni.

So now you’re blaming the government because you don’t earn enough to finance your children?

You can’t really work unless you’re at oxbridge or something like medicine. And Oxbridge is cheap to go to anyway. My eldest works 15 hours a week on 3 x 5 hour shifts and is at an excellent uni. He doesn’t need to work but had expensive tastes and the £150 a week is not to be sniffed at. You aren’t being realistic, his work takes him away from a couple of lie ins and an evening playing fifa. I hardly think that 2x 7am -12pm shifts on a Friday and Saturday and a 5-10 shift on another day is going to screw up his degree

They'll have to work. Like.the majority. This is only really an issue if they want to study something where they'll have placements.

I cannot to help my children. My eldest is now doing his degree at the local FE college where his degree will be awarded by a university. The class size is tiny. The degree itself has all sorts of gold/platinum awards stamped over it. He works at least 25 hours a week and has been promoted at work to supervisor. My contribution has been the roof over his head. Don't get hung up on 'prestigious'. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

For me there was never an option of my parents financially helping me when I went to university nor did I expect them to.
I stay at home, worked a part time job and went to a local university.

Encourage them to get a part time job it really will stand them in good stead. It’s not just about the money but the life skills they learn and the fact that they demonstrate how they can manage their time.

We were in much the same position except that I have only one child. He got the minimum maintenance grant which gave him £100/week to live on and I paid halls 1st year and rent and bills 2nd and 3rd year. Yes, that was about £5k paid out to him but it was offset against: no pocket money or clothing, lower petrol use, lower food bills at home, lower energy/water bills etc so I worked it out to be approx £2.6k difference in reality. He also worked summer holidays and built up a nest egg to go back with every year.

I don’t know about Oxbridge entrance exams…I wish people had to take an intelligence test before they’re allowed to post on mumsnet 😳

I think you need to get past your want of them not working. Then you will be fine.

You've got £21000. You only need to top up under £4000 and you've got a couple of years to go.

Me neither. I left home, got a job and studied at uni. I was no longer my parent's dependant and when I got to uni and found people's parents were paying their rent I was shocked. I started my career at 18 and had a good time of it, trying out different things, earning my own money.
What are these people going to do when they graduate? Move back home and try to compete in an over-saturated jobs market with zero work experience?

Our earnings are slightly higher than yours but probably similar bracket. My dc got 6.5k maintenance loan which covered accommodation and left about £75 a month over. I gave £100 a month for food and they worked part time earning 600-800 a month which covered social life, clothes etc.

My DS got a job at McDonald's as soon as his A levels finished, so June time. He had saved 1500 by the time he left in September for University. They keep his contract open so he can work Christmas and Easter too. He has minimum loan.

Not self supporting then

Ffs please quote where I said she WAS self supporting!

I said working through Uni didn’t hurt her.

Christ on a bike.

Your experience only.
My halls experience was everything. Best year of my life. Met all my forever friends and my husband there.
Living at home it would have just been like school. Living in halls gave me a safe place to learn my independence and living somewhere else away from ‘home’ for the first time.
Worth every penny and more of what my parents paid and I worked for.

Not self supporting then

That poster didn't say her child was self-supporting. She was saying her dd worked and still got a good degree.

The OP's child won't be self supporting either. The OP will need to top her loan which will be about three thousand.

If you can overpay your mortgage at all now then do, it will give you a cushion and you might be able to spread it over a longer term later if needed to reduce the monthly payments.

We give my DD £3k per year, she gets maximum student loan because we both retired early, and she works full time in hols to top up but doesn't work term.time, she manages fine

Thank you! My god. Unless genes miss a generation I think there’s going to be some people on this thread who aren’t going to have to worry about uni costs. 😀

Can they not stay at home and go to a local uni? My parents were poor and the only way I could make it work was to go to a local uni and work in Dixons on a Saturday and McDonald's on Thursday evening and Sunday. Luckily I didn’t have to pay rent as I stayed at home but it wasn’t easy. I had to darn my trousers as I couldn’t afford new ones and didn’t get to party as I didn’t have much money. However, my focus was on getting at least a 2.1 and changing my prospects which I did.

DH was in a similar situation. Nevertheless, although we didn’t go to Oxbridge, it worked out. We’re both high earners now.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.