I think an 18 year old is an adult -AIBU?

[Drdoomish]

They can get married
They can live under their own steam away from parents
They can take out loans and get into exceptional debt
They can fight and die for our country
They can become an MP or councillor
They can legally get pissed in a pub
They can get their own tattoo
They can sit on a jury
They can leave education
And do all the things that adults can do...

So why, WHY, do the government use a parents income to decide how much living cost loan they will lend to an 18-24 university student?

YABU - An 18 yr old uni student is still a dependent
YANBU - An 18 yr old uni student is an adult in their own right.

The maintenance loan is income based on household so being a single parent is neither here or there.
The cost of accommodation in Brighton or elsewhere is the same for everyone working, student or unemployed. The £6k required for halls leaves £3k disposable income -£76 a week for the 39 weeks they study.
I take it the parent was reasonably well off so didn’t get the full loan?

No, the parent earnt approx 20k per year plus has a younger child and £6k accommodation is what he’s paying in Sheffield. Brighton was between £200-300 per week minimum (well over £8k per year). It was London prices without the London loan weighting.

Being a single parent definitely makes a difference. I am a single parent and SFE didn’t take it into account initially for my DS, he queried it, they revised it and he gets a much larger loan now.

When you say they didn't take it into account at first do you mean that they also took the income of the non resident parent?

SFE works on household income so a single parent might be a very high earner and so their child will get minimum loan, they may have an ex who is a high earner but that income won't count so their child will get a higher loan amount. They may have a new partner in which case the step parent's income will be included in the assessment (this causes problems for many as the step parent may or may not be willing to contribute which is a whole other can of worms)

A single parent on £26000 is enough to stop child getting a full loan. That’s not well off.
I understand the thresholds haven’t moved for years so previously more would qualify for full loan.
Meanwhile loan rates haven’t increased at same rate accommodation costs have.
We had done the save a bit every month from young age and dc will have £9000. I’d naively calculated £3000 a year would be plenty!

Its incremental though. I was on £28K and it was pretty much the full loan minus a couple of hundred. which was made up for by a Uni bursary

@comefromaway there's 7 halls between 6 -7 K and one thats 5K

Our halls (brighton.ac.uk)

I said it was in Brighton. I didn’t say it was Brighton a university itself. And even if it was you have to think about 2nd & 3rd year accommodation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66922452

Who would have thought it?

But now it is all loans-based with pretty high interest rates, why make them means tested?

Because loads of loans don't get repaid, they get written off, at cost to the government. So no, we don't want to subsidise the offspring of rich parents at taxpayer cost

@TheLightProgramme Everyone seems to forget the huge expansion of the uni sector too. Millions of DC would not have got a grant years ago because they would not have got near a university! In the 70s, around 10% went. Now 45% plus. There clearly had to be rationing of funds.

It’s an interesting scenario that parents don’t want to pay for their Dc to go to uni but are happy for those who didn’t go to uni and get the salary uplift to pay. I do believe we have to accept paying but being told much earlier about costs so decisions can be made in good time.

The uplift isn’t worth the cost anymore.

People don’t want to pay because it isn’t worth it.

Its good people are finding that out and alternatives are emerging.

We seem to be well ahead of America on recognising this.

The scheme has changed this year so more will repay though. It kicks it at £25,000 and is over 40 years.
@Drdoomish that article makes good point about low min wage for most students - trying to cover high rent etc on £7.49 hour min wage. I know some employers pay more but not all.

Even if the loans are written off the amount the repay can we significantly higher that what you borrowed. The fact that it’s such a lottery re what you will pay/not pay is what I see as most unfair. If you have wealthy parents you have the opportunity after graduation to see what job you land and make a call (if they are willing to help) on whether it should be paid off early or not. These calculations are plan5, assuming maximum tuition/maintenance (60,024 graduating after3 years), salary growth 5%.pa:, 40 years

starting salary: 25k, repayment 56,217 - balance written off

starting salary: 30k, repayment 117,176 - balance written off

starting salary: 40k, repayment 98,812 - paid off in 28 years

Nope highest ever figure was 38.5%, now 37% in 2022 and its falling still further. Soon we'll be moaning why we haven't enough medics engineers etc etc oh wait!!!

EU average is around 34%, yet do not have these sorts of rationing of funds.

Graduates tend to earn more and have more secure employment, so they pay more tax, they add to the countries pool of skilled workers, i don't really see how making people pay back 100k plus in fees and interest is a great idea, esp when all it really does is keep people poor.... maybe thats the idea?

Now 45% plus.

Nope highest ever figure was 38.5%, now 37% in 2022 and its falling still further

There are two different things at play here. @TizerorFizz is referencing application rates for UK 18 year olds, whilst @Alexandra2001 is talking about acceptance rates.

Application wise, from UCAS

This puts the application rate for UK 18-year-olds at 41.5% compared to 43.4% in 2022 but up from 39.5% in 2020. This is mirrored in the number of total applicants (all ages, all domiciles) compared to last year - 596,590 this year, down from 610,720 in 2022 (-2.3%) but higher than 568,330 in 2020 (+5.0%)

Acceptance wise as above, although 37% is of course lower than 38.5% it remains the second highest figure ever. From the House of Commons Library paper

The higher education entry rate among UK 18 year olds increased from 24.7% in 2006 to 30.7% in 2015 and peaked at 38.2% in 2021. It fell back to 37.5%, its second highest ever level, in 2022.

How much the cost of living challenges, and the changes in the repayment terms (30 years to 40 years is a fair old jump, linked with a slightly less pronounced reduction for the income threshold where repayments start to kick in) will impact current and future years remains to be seen.

https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/second-highest-ever-number-uk-18-year-olds-apply-university-or-college-january-deadline#:~:text=This%20puts%20the%20application%20rate,in%202020%20(%2B5.0%25).

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7857/CBP-7857.pdf

The fairly stark regional disparities are also shown in the HoCL paper, and equally the rates by parliamentary constituency.

A couple of other interesting links

https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/79-uk-18-year-old-applicants-receiving-results-gain-place-first-choice-university

https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/uk-18-year-olds-make-record-number-applications-computing-courses

We probably should be more worried about not enough nurses and teachers as opposed to doctors and engineers.

@boys3 They could look at non degree nursing - as it used to be. No such thing as a degree nurse 40 years ago. So maybe we need more flexible training? Huge numbers of students want to be doctors. We just have to limit places due to training within nhs. Teachers: the students mostly do post grad work/study to become a teacher. Unfortunately they know the job well from many years of being a customer. It’s not very appealing but pays above the loan repayment minimum. We also know the more you earn, the less you pay off. So there is an inventive to earn highly.

There should only be university places for smartish kids say minimum AAB and only in subjects where a degree is needed such as STEM . we certainly dont need so many Humanities graduates and certainly not degrees like furniture design for example. These are better done through and apprenticeship and/or day release