To ask what you’re saving for DC university?

[ELS20]

Hi everyone,

My husband and I have one DC who wants to go to university in 4 years time. We both have a good jobs and pay a bit extra into our pensions and also have about £20k in savings/shares. We put money into the savings/shares every month, which includes a savings account for DC to help with a house deposit one day.

I love to travel, as does our DC. My DH also loves to travel but he worries that we should be putting money aside to pay for DC’s university. The way I see it, university fees are so high now that in order to cover the cost of a 3 year degree (about £30k and increasing just for tuition fees) we’d have to sacrifice our travel and other things such as home improvements. My plan is to do some more family travelling before he goes to uni and then pay his university rent for the years he’s at uni (with consequently reduced travelling), and DC will get a loan for tuition fees and living expenses. Most people I’ve spoken to plan to do the same thing because student loans don’t impact credit score and only start being collected once the graduate is earning a certain amount of salary.

I’d rather spend money travelling and showing DC the world and making family memories. I’m not talking just beach holidays. So far we’ve done things like African safari, Central American rainforest, Ancient sites etc. I think this is of huge value to DC as well as very enjoyable for us all.

I do understand the need to save, and we do save, but I also don’t want to restrict what we can do as a family to save every penny.

I guess my question is: what do you all think/do? Am I foolish to want to spend so much money on travel and should I be saving more than I am? I know it’s a fortunate dilemma to have believe me. Years ago we were struggling a lot financially and every spare penny was ear-marked. Our careers have advanced a lot and we’re now in a better position and I just want to enjoy that (as well as saving some money).

I guess for the vote:

YABU: I should be saving as much as I can to pay for DC tiring fees and sacrifice travelling

YANBU: We should continue to travel and DC takes a tuition fee loan

Thank you all so much

My DDs 9 and I put money into a savings account for her each month just for uni (this is sepeeate to the other savings I have for her). I don't intend for this to cover uni fees but more to help with living expenses if she doesn't go to a local one.

I earn too much for her qualify for much (if any) student loan for living expenses hence why I'm saving. Hoping to cover all her main expenses so any money she earns from part time work will be for socialising.

Thanks for replying :) We have a savings account for DS to hopefully help with a small house deposit in the future. I figured that was more helpful than helping with uni living expenses as he can get a maintenance loan for some of that (and then we will just give him money monthly at the time for uni rent and other expenses). Do you think that’s a good idea?

Agree saving for house deposit is helpful! Are you sure he will qualify for a maintenence loan? I could also give my DD money monthly from my salary but would rather give it her out of the uni savings I've set up for her as plan on giving her the equivalent of £500 a month in todays money plus any help with accommodation costs. I do think a DS would cost less as wouldn't have to worry about skincare, hair etc 😅

Tbh I wouldn't worry about it too much, it sounds like your giving your son some great experiences and making choices that do benefit him.

My children went to Uni over 10 years ago . As parents we made sure they had all the advantages of a good education. Not private but excellent grammar schools. We have not helped with the Uni fees but helped with living allowance and top up for accommodation. There is a limit with how much many parents can help financially.

When DC started secondary school, I used an online calculator to see how much I should be contributing PA based on household income.

I put that into a JISA for him every year across 12 months. I’ll continue for 4 years (we’re in Scotland). I’ll keep an eye in it and what our contributions should be in the last couple of years of school in case we need to top it up, but this seemed to be a fairly simple way for us to approach it.

We also put more into pensions than required and spend a lot of our disposable income on family time and memorable holidays.

Given how you have described your income and lifestyle, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There is middle ground available should you want to take it.

So the norm amongst my friends is that the student takes the tuition fee loan and the maintenance loan, parents pay their rent and bills and they live off the maintenance loan plus any money from part time jobs, birthday money etc. We are onto our last year at uni for youngest child now and a non fancy house share in a northern city is costing around £620/m Inc bills plus we pay for phone, some train fares, dentist, prescriptions, haircuts, food and some other expenses in the holidays. It would be untenable for us to do it without the loans and I don't think it's necessary unless you're so wealthy that it's a no brainer (and even then the advice was save for a deposit for them, don't pay for uni outright - see Martin Lewis. School said the same)

I graduated fairly recently. Lived out. Northern city. Befriended flat mates in first year, stayed with most of them until the end.

Nobody was getting anything substantial from their parents. Loans, handful of grant/bursaries, and most of us worked - quite a lot in the holidays. Never occurred to me that parents would pay for much. I was 19 when I went. I think I got a bottle of vodka and some plates/mugs/cutlery to take with me the day I moved in.

I really think paying for their living costs is a middle class Mumsnet thing. That’s not a criticism, must be great if you can. But loads of parents aren’t.

@ELS20 Few pay tuition fees up front. It’s down to you to make up the minimum maintenance loan to at least the full loan sum. So you need to pay up around £6,000 to dc each year to do that, assuming he gets minimum loan. So that’s what you need to save for. Dc could work of course! Depends what you think is best but most people divert money to dc for a few years - either directly from earnings or savings. If you don’t, where else is it coming from? Would dc live at home? You have to see it as investing in your child. Talk to dc about the loan and familiarize yourself with the terms of it and think hard about what degree and likely employment and earnings. This should all be considered.

I’ve got a house deposit for my son. It’s invested and can’t be touched for now. I have 0 for him for uni and he wants to do a 5 year degree. He will only get the minimum loan because of my income. I am more skint than i feel I should be as I earn good money but I am focusing on setting elder one up financially. We have a plan for that and it will be sorted by July next year. After that any spare cash will go to the younger one if he goes to uni in 2 years. I had planned it all and I thought I would be able to contribute a lot to uni but life has happened so I just haven’t managed to save it.
so I think he will have to take out the maximum loans he is allowed and I will give him what I can even if that is £500 a month. He has a dad who earns £95,000 and he is saying he isn’t going to contribute anything to uni. I’m used to him being useless so this is not a surprise.

With the way things are going, would suggest a degree apprenticeship if he's capable of getting in to one.

It's not quite the uni experience. But you graduate with money in the bank and years of work experience instead of debt, it puts you way ahead of the curve of new graduates with no work experience and in a great position to then take a gap year and go travelling after the degree, and then choose what you want to continue your career in from a position of strength.

We’ve paid the accomodation bill for all of ours and they have lived comfortably off the minimum loan with some working in holidays etc. working is good for them as it gives them a lot more to put on their CV and to talk about at interviews.

In Scotland so no tuition fees
We pay £1100 a month to cover rent and expenses
I went back full time to fund

This is wise. I really wish schools would educate students from Year 7 upwards about costs of uni. Parents need to plan well ahead and especially if they will have 2 DC at uni at the same time as many parents will as a 2 year gap in childbirth is popular. I've saved for my foster child to go to uni. He'll get loan for course and maximum loan for living because he's classed as independent as a care leaver but he still lives with me and me and DH will help him pay towards his accommodation and food. I don't want him to work term time. I'd prefer him to focus on his studies and getting the best experience from uni that he can. Plenty of time for him to work in summer breaks and after leaving uni.

This is what I was planning to do, so for the years he’s at uni, instead of putting much into savings we would pay money to him for rent and living expenses which would be topped up by the maintenance loan (from what I see online he’d only get the lowest amount due to our salaries which is fair enough). I’m happy to divert funds to him during uni years of course, I just don’t want to massively restrict us financially in the four years preceding uni to try to save enough to cover tuition. I also think saving for his future after uni such as a house deposit is more valuable than trying to cover tuition as he can get a loan for that. Thanks so much for replying I appreciate it 😊

I really wish there were no tuition fees in England! I’m not sure I understand why they are so high, because in the end a lot of graduates won’t pay it off and then the loan is cleared when you retire I think. Why not make the fees lower so there is a better chance of them actually being paid off?! When I went to uni my total tuition for a three year course was only about £3k. It’s ten times that nowadays!

This is exactly what I am planning for DS. Did you DCs also get a loan tuition fees?

We are planning the same as you. They will get loans to cover tuition fees, minimum maintenance loans to cover day to day expenses and we will cover rent.

I agree, I’ve thought this a number of times, but DS at the moment is very kean on something around science/technology - possibly space/aeronautics related so I’m not sure what course he could do for that kind of career other than a degree.

This is my plan also. DS goes to grammar school too and I plan to pay for accommodation and living expenses topped up by maintenance loan

I checked online, he would get the minimum maintenance loan amount (I think all students get at least the minimum?) so we would pay for his rent and top up of expenses if needed, similar to what you are planning

We plan to pay for his accommodation (which is 10k a year!)
His tuition fees will be a loan and he’ll get the minimum maintenance loan for living expenses.

I'd choose saving for my children over travelling.

Thank you, that makes me feel less worried. My DH is just so worried about DS having a huge student loan but it seems nowadays it’s the norm due to such high tuition fees

Our children are debt free after graduation and leaving university.

We have worked hard supporting them, had fewer expensive holidays, lower consumption and less m2.
We do not regret anything.

The children have had work/work during their studies during holidays and weekends.

Loan for tuition fees, then pay for his accommodation whilst at uni. This is what we did for DD and worked very well. She lived off her maintenance loan (she got about 5 grand) and topped it up by doing a few hours work. We also gave her a £100 supermarket gift card every month for some food shopping.