To think social mobility is impossible for working class /lower middle class kids?

[Cheeriosay]

And if it is possible how?! I feel the prospect of social mobility is at an all time low for teens/young adults due to the educational crisis in schools, cost of living crisis & lack of opportunity to move up in the world. This was relatively easy years ago either through education, marriage (or both).. Now it's not going to be as easy for teens & young adults who want to climb the social ladder.
I'm putting it bluntly, I'm sure some posters will be on soon to say these teens should know their place & not be getting ideas above their station but sod that!

But that's how social mobility works. The bright ones move up and the others don't. If everyone just gets the same there's no mobility everyone just stays where they are.

I worked to support myself at university, so managed to save my student loan for the 7k deposit needed. My first post grad salary was about 17k
I'm not sure why that's a bad thing, but I'm sure you will tell me....
Looking at the area I bought in, can get a similar flat for around 120k, starting salary for same role is over 30k, so nearly doubled. Arguably it's therefore easier to buy a similar property in same location than it was for me 20 years ago, looking at price vs salary.

How would todays student save the money from their student loan? I had to work to support myself at university too because my loan covered my rent & that was it.

Since when was drive a meaningless concept? It's what makes people get out of bed in the morning and go out into the world to get what they want and woe betide anything that stands in their way. It's what lifts people out of generational poverty because they see better and godammit they want it.

This isn't true.

Private preps round our way actually advertise to parents how many children they get into the local super selectives. In Kent there are two grammar schools where over 40% of the intake is from local private preps. The 11+ tutoring industry is enormous in areas with selection at 11. Children go to private schools where they're taught in classes of 9 or 10. Then they do small group 11+ tutoring at the weekend. Then they do '11+ booster camps'. It's insane - how can children from state primaries who are being taught in classes of 31 compete with that? There is no such thing as a 'tutor proof' test.

Also, are you going to argue that Chinese children and children from South Asian households just have massively higher IQ's than white and black British children from similar economic backgrounds? Because Chinese and South Asian children are hugely over represented in grammar school intakes.

If individual drive was the only or predominantly important factor when it comes to career success, there wouldn't be absolutely colossal differences across groups in outcomes according to parental income, parental educational and occupation, and whether people attended a fee paying school.

I've never understood the "we can't afford university" mindset. You don't need any money, the government/student finance literally give you the money to go to university. It's essentially free at the point of use then you only pay for it later if your degree gets you a good enough job that it was worthwhile. I went to uni on student finance and got a weekend job while I was there for drinking money, my parents didn't need to give me a penny!

You don't need to be aspirational to pass the 11+ you need to be very intelligent.

There are grammars not too far from me in London & the tutoring is insane. DC on waiting list from Yr 2, preps that literally prep you for the tests, tutoring programmes where dc are doing 4 hours plus a week from yr 4.

I've never understood the "we can't afford university" mindset. You don't need any money, the government/student finance literally give you the money to go to university. It's essentially free at the point of use

It’s not ‘free’, though, is it? You do need money.

You might have parents who are ‘expected’ by the system to top up the minimum loan to the maximum loan but because they have other children to pay for/a massive mortgage/debt, they just can’t.

If your student loan is £4.5k but your accommodation is £7.5k, you’re going to need a pretty substantial term-time job just to cover that, let alone food/travel.

Student Finance still expect parents to contribute.
When I went, first in my family, my mum was already dead and my alcoholic dad in and out of prison and not in any position to give me any money.
The finance I got was not enough to live on, and my course was very demanding. We were actively not encouraged to take jobs as this would eat into study hours.
Unsurprisingly, there were times it was either eating or paying rent. I ended up quitting as the overdraft grew and grew, and the stress just got unsustainable.
This hasn't changed, and the money students get is not enough to provide a basic standard of living. It's a huge barrier for those in poverty and with complicated families. Repeating the line that anyone can afford uni is simply not true.

my parents didn't need to give me a penny!

parents are expected to help now. The maintenance loan is means tested.

I think a big thing missing here is financial literacy because I came from a poor working class background and now work in STEM, probably the same age as you, and have bought a home and moved up the property ladder as have several friends from similar backgrounds.

We weren't given any money for deposits it's all our own money, but all the ones that succeeded in getting on and climbing the property ladder knew how to make their money work for them. I'm very fortunate to be good friends with an accountant who also started off poor and has been very successful and he has given me lots of advice over the years I would never have known if I hadn't known him.

I wholeheartedly believe finance should be taught in schools because if your parents are shit with money you're essentially doomed because there's nowhere else to learn those financial skills and it really holds people back. If you don't learn them they you can't teach your kids and the cycle of generational poverty continues.

It's the difference between two people on the same salaries and the same starting point having totally different outcomes 20 years later and one of the main privileges of the middle class and the wealthy in my opinion.

My children all went to Grammar schools because we live in the right area and they are intelligent,the only tutoring they had was for a term before the exam ,to learn the technique,not covered in their primary school. Literally 1hour per week with practice papers that I gave them once a week. The test is way beyond my intelligence,NVR was impossible,my kids tutored me !

Not forgetting the initial need to stump out a few grand to find accommodation. Demand for student housing is so great these days that deposits are thousands of pounds.
Poor students literally do not stand a chance.

This thread is filled with people that don’t understand how much luck has gone into their success. It’s all luck, right down to your very genes and the friends you were exposed to growing up.

For some reason people really struggle to accept that luck is often all that differentiates themselves from those they look down on.

Social mobility will only improve once we focus on improving state education, state healthcare, social services and primary prevention/public health. After 14 years of Tory rule, these have all been decimated and so social mobility is undoubtably worse.

Yes agree. I have three children and the one who is earning £50K plus aged 22 was surrounded by friends who all had the same aims and aspirations. My other two are enjoying their careers but are not as driven by financial gain.

"I've never understood the "we can't afford university" mindset. You don't need any money, the government/student finance literally give you the money to go to university."

Suggest you go onto some of the FB groups for parents who are sending kids of to university, who are in an absolute panic because they can't afford to subsidise their kid's accommodation and living costs.

Maybe you went to university a long long time ago, when student grants/loans actually covered most of people's living costs. They don't any more, and not all students manage to land a job to tide them over. The latest survey by the Russell Group suggest that currently nearly 1 in 5 students is considering dropping out of university because of financial problems and that this figure is higher for students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

It's almost like it's passed you by that housing and living costs have increased by vastly more than the value of the student loan.

@OrangeCarrot I agree with you. I worked hard & am pretty intelligent but wouldn’t be where I am without getting help onto the property ladder. Although I still worked out if I didn’t go to uni & went full time in my retail job (the pay was actually good back then) & got one of those high LTV interest only mortgages I’d be sitting pretty.

It's difficult but possible. Lots of people use the "no point in trying, the middle class get all the jobs" excuse, aka "I can't be arsed, but want to blame someone else for my own failures". But if you do try hard, and work hard, it's amazing how your luck can change ...

Suggest you go onto some of the FB groups for parents who are sending kids of to university, who are in an absolute panic because they can't afford to subsidise their kid's accommodation and living costs.

I just typed into a calculator & my dc would only qualify for 4.7k maintenance loan. We’d easily be looking at having to top up by £500 plus a month which is a significant amount. God knows what it will cost when my dc are actually of age.

I went to university ten years ago, there were plenty of students there from poor backgrounds given full student finance that paid all their fees and accommodation. People I went to school with came out with the "I can't afford university" line then even when student finance covered it all, so it's not a new mindset. We were poor and lived on pot noodles and has jobs but our classes were paid for and we had somewhere to live, which also had mold but whatever.

I know students currently at university, student finance covers all of their fees, they can't afford accommodation so stayed at home and studied local. As long as the fees are paid you can attend a university, you don't have to move away.

Do you want to provide some details?

How do you suggest people currently on median incomes (34K) buy a home (290K median cost) , while also paying rent (1300 per month median rent)?

@Cheeriosay , I’m definitely not going to tell young people to know their place but!
I do know their place and it’s a great place. My husband and I left school with a smattering of O levels. We worked and saved for a deposit and then a bank backed us with a loan. We started our business and went on to make further investments.
We’re retired now and worth £5 million. We have really worked very, very hard along the way and we’ve taken risks with our investments.
It can still be done but government of all colours increasingly favours big business. I don’t know how long it will still be possible for the little man to do so well.

So you're going to ignore the evidence I just referred to?

You're also going to ignore the cost of living crises and the fact that over the past 10 years rent have increased much much faster than student loans?

If the accommodation is the problem students can stay at home and study at their local university, plenty of friends did that too. It's not essential to go away to study.

I knew people at uni who couldn’t go home as there wasn’t space for them or they didn’t get on with family. Some had parents who couldn’t support them living at home free. You seem very sheltered.

Who said anything about living at home free? If you get given student finance that isn't enough to cover accommodation, you give it your parents instead. It's going to be more than you were previously giving them when you were at school...nothing.

I'm not sheltered, I grew up in abject poverty. I studied hard and made it out and saw others do the same.