Twins and University

[Decoratingdilema]

First thing to say is yes I am being totally unreasonable to be worrying about this now.

I have twin girls who are 6. I saw a Martin Lewis article the other day where he talked about maintenance loans for universities. The basic jist of it was that if you had a joint household imcome of £25k then you’d get the full loan.

our joint income is about £85k so I’m not sure how much, if any they’d be entitled to. We’d have to cover rent, food, books etc. It’s got me on a spiral of worrying about how we’d afford this if both of them decided that university was the path that they’d want to take.

Should we be saving now just in case his happens?

honestly this is not a stealth boast, I’m genuinely fearful of planning and being able to afford this should they both want to go.

Then there’s the driving lessons at the same time

I know this is on AIBU but if there is any other twin parents who could share their experience that would be great

so

YANBU - it’s never too early to plan

YABU - they’re 6 get a grip 😂

Well, save now if you can. But also, get a grip! Not everyone wants to go to university, or is suited to it.

It's never too late but if you could afford to save £200 each month then by 16 the girls would have nearly 20k each for uni

There’s a great calculator on the money saving expert website about how much you should be saving now. If you can afford to do it, then I would. Even if they don’t go to uni they’d still find it helpful to have savings behind them (or you might!)

Everyone gets something so you’re effectively topping it up to what those on minimum earnings get.

Also I believe if you have siblings in university at the same time that's taken into account when they do the loan means testing

I have a friend who has triplets, she most definitely put money away from the start as 3 x anything at the same time is going to be expensive, school trips, clubs, driving lessons, university etc etc

If you can save now, why not, especially there are good saving accounts for kids. But not everyone wants to go or is suited to university. They should be getting jobs in their teens to start saving and pay for things like driving lessons. Enjoy the age they are now!

I'm in the it's never too early to start planning camp.

£85k is a healthy but not massive income and you have 12 years before university so, yes, I'd start planning for it now because student loans aren't likely to get any better and the hit to your monthly income will be less the sooner you start 👍🏻

If you can afford it, start saving now. What’s the worse that would happen if they decide not to go to Uni - you’ll have a saving pot for a house deposit.

Anything could happen during the next 12 years.

I think the shock to the system for my friend with triplets was the end of primary school residential trip x 3, she’d starting saving for that very early on !

Use the calculator to see how much they'd get:

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance-calculator

We have twins (8), an older siblings and similar earnings but equally concerned about university costs if both twins wanted to study.

We live in an expensive area so other than the money we would have spent on school trips and school transport we would likely struggle to give them any more money. They'd need to get a job in the holidays or a job at uni or live at home!

They would have loans for the fees so it’s just living costs. Most students work part time to support themselves and parents top up.

The whole system might be different in 12 years time, or they might not want to go.

Driving lessons are not necessary for most students.

Start saving now. You have a healthy income and you will get minimal support. You should easily be able to put £200 a month aside. Anything will be better than nothing.

If they don’t go to uni you can give them a head start with house deposit or whatever.

I think the current max student loan is c£10k and the minimum is c£3k, OP.

So they wouldn't get nothing anyway and they'd have to do what most students do and get a job. Esp during the holidays.

Thank you everyone, neither myself, my husband or our extended family went to university so we don’t have any direct experience.

I’d be happy for them to go or not, but if they did decide to go to university we believe that it should be to study something that will give them a defined career path.

I’d also be more than happy for them to get a trade or an apprenticeship.

That’s really helpful thank you

we would 100% expect them to get a job

Yes you should start saving now as it’s an expensive time. The accommodation is expensive and the government expects you to top up their loan to the amount they’d get if you had a low income - so 6k ish per child, so that’s 36k if you intend to do that. Not all parents do that, my son’s gf’s parents don’t top up their kids loans at all. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s financial reasons. I’ve seen some parents say no-one helped me so I won’t pay for my child’s education. I really struggle to understand that attitude. When they went to Uni it wasn’t 20k per year with fee’s, accommodation and living costs.

My son earned 5k working full time in summer 1 and he’s earned 3.5k for an 8wk internship this summer so your children can work to help too. But personally on 85k you should be able to save some each year to make it a bit easier and if they didn’t go to Uni then you can alwyas gift it as a house deposit when they are at that stage

There's a lot of assumptions here about being able to put aside £200/month with that income. We've found that with different clubs/hobbies, after school clubs, school trips etc we're just about managing £100 to go in our emergency fund (in case the car/boiler breaks).

It disgusts me the cost of UK university. It is one of the reasons we moved to Europe so our daughter does not have to worry and will get a degree without debt. As far as I am aware no mainstream uk party wanted to reinstate free uni in England?

I would start saving now, as much as possible maybe in children’s isa? Even if they don’t want to go to Uni they can travel or have a deposit on a house.

I would say driving lessons are important -much better to get your licence at 17 than trying to fit it in as an adult. Here my daughter can get her A licence - it’s random but you can drive “things” up to 30kph- at 15. She will be booked in for the test as soon as she is 15 as driving is a vital life skill. At 18 she will be booked in for her full test.

OP, don't feel you need to justify your attitude towards your children's future.

It's a good thing you're considering their potential future plans!

None of my family had been to university before me and my brother also subsequently went. One of my children recently graduated and the other is starting in the next few weeks. My brother's child is early teens but all indicators point towards her going to university too. So it is something that is worth considering whatever they eventually decide to do.

It was a random figure someone plucked out of thin air to give an example. That's all.

The OP will know what they can afford and anything will be better than nothing.

I really don’t think this is a twins problem. The costs involved will be the same as any other person with 2 children. Just start saving now.

Yes I know triplets who all went to uni, one had a gap year but still extortionately expensive for parents. They also saved from when they were about 5 to enable them all to go. They said if any of them didn't want to go they could have their share towards a deposit for a house. They were lucky as grandparents saved for them to go too. It's never too early to start. So many leave it too late to start saving.

My point was that with 2 children different ages the costs are staggered to a certain extent. But with twins going at the same time then it’s double up front - albeit for a shorter amount of time - so 3 years rather than potentially 5 years +

It's a twins problem in the sense that they go through all the life stages at the same time, whereas with different age children it's all staggered to an extent.

Lots of parents deliberately have a 4-5 year age gap to avoid paying two lots of childcare, for example.

I’ve seen some parents say no-one helped me so I won’t pay for my child’s education. I really struggle to understand that attitude. When they went to Uni it wasn’t 20k per year with fee’s, accommodation and living costs.

Yes, I've seen that too. It baffles me!

I went in my 20s and I'm still paying off my own loan so there will be a limit to what I can do to help financially but I won't do nothing!

I think, where parents are still paying off student loans, it should be included in the loan calculation tbh