to not fund ds further education

[frazzled74]

we have a moderate income which allows us to pay mortgage etc and have 1 holiday per year plus a few day trips etc, but no savings. ds 17 will be going to uni next year. we also have a 7 and 4 year old.
am i being unreasonable to expect ds to take student loan to cover tuition and accomodation costs etc.Some of my friends are talking about taking on second jobs and remortgaging to help finance uni. I think this would be detrimental to rest of family (not enough equity anywayto remortgage)
I was hoping that ds would find part time /holiday work to minimise his borrowing and that i woud be on hand with food parcels, train fares etc. I know that its hard that students end up with masses of debt but is it that awful?

so how do they actually fund uni then, loans overdrafts, and grants.

whats the max a student can get a year?

interesting that most people think it's fair not to fund his studying

When I suggested this on a thread a few months back about my DSS, I was very much told my most that it most definitely was unreasonable and that in not helping him out was basically an evil stepmother from hell

Carrie, everyone gets the tuition fees plus maintenance loan. Then you might get grants for extra, which are means-tested, and then your university might have its own bursaries. I don't know the max, sorry, but I think it would depend on where you are and what you're doing. For example, medics get extra, so do people in London (because both of those are more expensive), and some universities have more cash than others to give to their students.

crazy, I vaguely remember your thread - I thought the issue there wasn't so much what you could afford but that you thought it was good for DSS to pay his own way? Or am I wrong?

littlered, how much roughly is the maintenace part?

Ah, but Crazycrazy, you are the step mum so will be treated as automatically in the wrong by many here...

OP - find out what he can get, and think if you could live off it. Be honest with yourself. If not, you're going to have to help him find other income sources.

For those saying 'get a job' - he needs to lay the ground work for that now, come start of term, a huge number of students turn up in uni towns looking for work and there may not be enough jobs for everyone wanting/needing one. I worked every holiday at the place I worked in my year out back home, but applied for a lot of jobs at uni which I didn't get. Those who found work easily tended to have been transfered, so if he can get a job at the local Tescos, Sainsburys, M&S etc in your town now, he's more likely to get term time work at the store in his uni town. Bar work is also easier to get with experience.

Also, won't your household expenses decrease without him living at home? Can you not give him that to help out even if it's not enough to completely live off? If your shopping each week will reduce by £15, give him that a week etc. You say you have a holiday a year, do you currently pay for him to go? Could you tell him if he doesn't want to go, you can give him the cash equivilant to his place etc.

I left uni with vertually no debt thanks to my (really non-rich) parents helping me and working just in the holidays, but then I was the last year of no fees.

crazycrazy
i wouldnt even bother posting on AIBU about stepfamilies, you will get flamed. because stepmothers are eeeevil and even if ex-husband and her got together wayyy after couple split up, women still seem to treat them like the OW!
it is good for kids to pay their own way, step or not!

Personally I think it's better to educate the child than to leave them a lump sum so in your situation I'd move to an interest only mortgage and give the 17 year old the difference.
And then you could overpay when he's finished University.
I've seen so many people drop out over the years purely due to lack of money and financial support it is such a waste of talent.

Sorry Carrie, don't know - I should think it's on the student loans website somewhere but I couldn't find it quickly.

I felt it was important for DD1 to take out the loans and then it would help her to feel it was "her degree" not something overseen by us. She has a loans of approx £6500 which are this years tuition fees plus 75% of the maintenance loan(the extra 25% is means tested). The maintenance loan covers her accommodation with about a fiver a week left over - she chose halls that don't have en suite rooms so her room is quite cheap. We give her a monthly amount for living costs and help her out with a food shop at the start of each term etc. She doesn't have a job in term time but she worked last summer and will do this year. Thankfully she has a good work ethic and values money.

We could afford for her not to take out the loans but for me that made her too dependent on us.

Agree with MillyMollyMoo - if you can find the money now, you have 7 years after your oldest has graduated (assuming only a 3 year degree) before the next one is at the age to go to uni to build back up family finances.

If you can't find the money, then it's not a issue, he'll have to sort it out himself, but if you can, you should give him the chance to start his working career without £20k + debt to pay back before he can start saving for a home/his own family etc.

If your income is such that your son will qualify for the full grant/loan/bursaries etc and you cannot afford to give him any extra money, then YANBU. It's not a bad thing for him to have to work a bit, though it would be good for you to help him to look into grants/bursaries he could apply for, and take him food parcels etc!

However, I think YABU if your income means that he will only qualify for the minimum and he will really struggle to then pay for everything but you could afford to help him out a bit.

I think you need to look at the sums yourself, but if he is on a three year course and qualifies for the minimum only he will pay £3k a year in tuition fees, and if he only qualifies for the minimum maintenance loan and no grants, he will only be entitled to borrow £3.5k a year. That will probably just about cover his rent so that's £19.5k of debt and he would still be working evenings/weekends/holidays to pay for essentials like bills, food and clothes as well as the 35 hours pw he should be doing for his degree. Depending on the course, he could do this fine, or he could be massively overworked.

Although you only have to pay back 9% of your income over £15k p.a. you still pay interest no matter what,so when the rates go back up your son may be paying back £1000+ if he earns say £25k p.a., but never paying off any capital.

Can you tell I'm bitter about being in the first intake to have to pay tuition fees and not get grants!

Forgot to say this site is good for the info

do they take student debt into account when your applying for a morgage,?
in other words if tyour 20k in debt from student days , does that affect how much you can borrow?
or is it seen as differnet debt?

It depends he will be assesed on your income, so does your income prevent him from being given enough student funding to support himself? if he gets his full student loan and his tuition fee loan then YANBU.

But if he doesn't get enough funding due to your income then YABU.

As a mature student I know that some of my class mates have gotten quite poor grades due to having to spend far to much time working in their part time jobs, to make ends meat. Work out how much he will need a month see if his loans cover this and how many hours he will need to work on min wage.

Also check to find out if he is able to get a maintainance (SP) grant

P.S
why are there three threads

YANBU. It is a choice that he will make for himself and shouldn't be 'eased' by your willingness to pay.

My parents are really pretty wealthy/comfortable, and wouldn't have dreamed of paying our way, my sister and I have both got the loans to prove it! It wouldn't have crossed our minds to ask. I also worked (sometimes 2 jobs) for pocket money. And yes, I went a little crazy and have a v small credit card too.

I think they may have paid the tuition fees for my sister, but I didn't have to pay as technically I was a mature student. (Albeit an immature mature student!)

No. We went to many many bankd when looking for our mortgage and they didn;t consider any our (considerable) student loans

Personably I would help as much as I was able without it being detrimental to the family's quality of life.

However, there is something you can sign to ask your income not to be considerd in his means testing stuff... Will look it up...

P.S Don;t bank on him finding part time work. There is little out there.

YNABU but

do be aware that at both my adn DH's Uni students are sropping out in droves because student jobs are still filled by last eyar's bunch as theyc an't find anything else and new ones can't get anything: the loan / grant pays for accom, loan and nothing else.

My aprents didn't help my sister and she ahd to drop out because of the course demands (working shifts) so you need to consider course as well, but oyu like them may simply be unable to help whcih is vastly different from choosing not to IMO

And frankly most can dom something- sis says that even a tenner when i had it spare was better than a kick in the teeth LOL

The ones that seem to do ebst Un i atm are those that live at home, far from ideal IMO but worth being near enough for it to be an option perhaps?

Where is going to university? If Oxbridge he will find it VERY difficult to combine study with a part time job.

On just the loan he will struggle to pay the fees and living accomodation.

I think YABU and should give up the annual holiday to help him out a bit.

YANBU - don't be made to feel guilty about it either by other people. In some ways it is good not to help them too much and then they learn about the value of money and a good work ethic much quicker than those that have loads of help.

Oh and YY wrt to whatever the assessment says- poor amte of mine had a Mum able to afford and assessed as able to afford who buggered off to China for ten months when he sytarted Uni to find herself and it wasnt until he became illw e realised he had stopped eating because he was totally broke

Oh and the toehr thing- if your child is applying for bursaries etc becuase you are low income, do remeber they ahve quitre early cut off dates, before students loans dates, if they want a chance.

'course demands (working shifts)' made working a job impossible sorry, incomplete sentence

Cambridge is heavily subsidised and it is cheaper to go there than most other unis, so your dd will be fine Riven. They also have lots of hardship funds etc - they don't want to see someone who is clearly academically talented end up dropping out for financial reasons.

I managed (at Durham, not Cambridge!) by taking overdrafts and saving my wages from working full time (and one summer working 2 jobs, one full time days in a shop and then 5 evenings a week in a restaurant) to see me through the next term. It CAN be done.

mumblecrumble - you can ask for your income not to be considered, but that just means the student will only get the non-means-tested portion of the loan - used to be 75%, but \i believe it's now gone down to 70% (one of the confusing things about student finance is that they keep changing it - first, second and third year students are currently all on different arrangements)
There are circumstances where the student can ask for their parents' income not to be considered, but they are pretty strict:

(From the form for 2009/10)

Your parents cannot be found or it is not
reasonably practicable to get in touch with
them.

You are irreconcilably estranged (have no
contact with) from your parents and this will
not change.

At any point from the age of 16 to the start
of your course, you have not been under the
legal care of your parents; and, for three
months or more, you have been in the
custody or legal care of, or have been given
accommodation by, a local authority.

Both your parents have died.

You have applied for student finance before,
and the parent who was assessed for a
contribution has died.

Your parents are living outside the European
Union and the assessment of their financial
circumstances would place them in jeopardy.

Your parents are living outside the European
Union and it would not be reasonably
practicable or possible for them to send you
money.

If you have ticked any of the boxes above, you will be contacted for evidence and, subject to this, you may be considered independent.