Paying back university tuition fees - what happens if DD becomes a SAHM?

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Does anyone know the answer to this? If my DD (currently only 3!) were to go to university (and end up with large debt), would she have to pay the fees back if she gave up work and became a SAHM? Does anyone know?

Due to the "wrong" choice of domicile, my parents decided to fund my university costs accepting that I may have chosen to be economically inactive. No problem with that, their money, their choice.

It's the sense of entitlement to other people's money that some of us aren't quite used to. Someone has to pay for it, even in very sad and unpredictable circumstances.

If you don't feel an overwhelming responsibility to honour a voluntary debt relating to your own education before all else, what does that make you?

Accrding to sme, only the rich should be entitled t an education.

The rest of us should know our place and curtsey willingly.

State education is free up to age 18/19. Why should the state keep paying beyond that? Where should it stop?

We do not need the number of graduates we are turning out. We could survive, as a country, on a fraction of the number we are currently educating.

By funding people to do degrees they have no practical use or intentions to use, we are spreading the pot way too thin.

Motherhood is not a reason to not pay your way. Most educated women do not enter into motherhood until their 30s, a good 10 years after graduating. They have only one or two children, and are therefore able to be economically active again after just a few more years.

The state needs to pay for some degrees (either through grants or through writing off loans) because some people do work of social value (teachers, nurses, researchers, librarians) which require them to be educated beyond A levels but whiwilder unlikely to pay enough salary for them to pay back the full market cost of their degree plus market interest, especially if they have a baby break.

(obviously some teachers etc will earn enough, but not everyone can reach the top of their profession)

Ermm - "whiwilder" = which are

'And the majority do plan to use their degrees'

Argh! There is so much misunderstanding about the purpose and value of Higher Education. A degree is about LEARNING. It is not purely about function and 'use' or a means to a job. And learning is inherently valuable.

Ironically and with some exceptions (namely medicine) the more closely related a first degree is to a vocation the more likely it is to be derided. It is the degrees that have absolutely nothing to do with any current job i.e Classics that are often most highly valued.

This notion that the state should only pay to educate its citizens and citizens only deserve to be educated if they are the most intelligent beings on the planet or if they are going to perform a function in society which is directly related to their studies is simply wrong.

We ALL benefit from educated citizens. The better educated, the more we benefit.

It's also a stupid and elitist argument to say that the more people are educated to degree level, the less value that education has.

Just try applying that to school education and you take us back to those people who said that working class kids shouldn't be taught to read and write because they were only going to be shoved up the chimneys. Move on folks. We're in the 21st century!

Thanks for writing that fivecandles, thus saving me both a lot of typing and a lot of shouting at the keyboard. :)

I think we should pay for our own degrees rather than the tax payer. Why should a basic rate taxpayer have to pay for the doctors and engineers on a fortune.
This system means I can go to Uni and pay as earn (or not). Taxpayers wouldn't gt their money out of me at my age.

I agree, nothingold. Totally.

The government can use incentives to educate those who will not be high earners (teachers, nurses), but other essential occupations (doctors, engineers) will earn enough in their careers to cover the cost of their investment.

The government does fund learning for its own sake - up to age 19. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Beyond that, let charities and qangos take over the funding of luxury learning, where personal finances fall short.

'other essential occupations (doctors, engineers) will earn enough in their careers to cover the cost of their investment.'

It is very difficult for an 18 year old and their family to look ahead to their earnings at 45 when they are faced with tuition fees of £9000 per year plus living costs for 5+ years. During this time there is no guarantee that they will pass their exams and graduate.

Even though dp and I are comfortably off I would baulk at the rising debts my children would be incurring if they chose to study medicine and this would be even more the case if we were on low or no incomes.

Already, medicine is primarily a career choice for very privileged young people. This will become ever more the case.

But where also is this idea that learning is a 'luxury' coming from? I do not understand why nobody challenges the fact that we fund the training of our police and armed forces but training to teach, nurse, save lives, defend the innocent in court, research potentially live-saving drugs, defend the environment, translate etc etc is considered a 'luxury'. Why?

''other essential occupations (doctors, engineers)'

And what is an 'essential' occupation anyway?

I would argue that all occupations are essential and valuable in that if you earning you are paying taxes and you are not claiming unemployment benefit.

I think librarians, scientists, translators, journalists, editors, writers are just as essential.

Splitting occupations into essential and non-essential and education into valuable and non-valuable is a horribly reductive way of lookign at human life and society.

Broadly speaking - vocational/non-vocational.

A government is well versed in the amount of trained people it needs to fill essential jobs, and can use a variety of incentives.

Other important jobs can be funded by the companies that need those particular skills, or by the employees themselves.

I don't see why my neighbour, who honestly earns his money by hard graft, and pays his taxes without fiddling his VAT returns, should make any contribution for my DS to have four years of partying with a little bit of studying thrown in.

'I don't see why my neighbour, who honestly earns his money by hard graft, and pays his taxes without fiddling his VAT returns, should make any contribution for my DS to have four years of partying with a little bit of studying thrown in.'

Then why should childless couples pay for schools? And why should my taxes pay for cancer treatment for smokers when I don't smoke? Why, ultimately, should we pay for anything that doesn't directly benefit ourselves??

Ah, yes, that would be for the good of society as a whole.

fivecandles - please save me from spluttering further into my keyboard...

My typing is rubbish but that last post needs answering. :)

And the idea of spending 4 years partying is a very outdated view of what happens at university these days. Most young people do many hours paid work and don't forget any money they spend on partying is their own.

Unlike, let's not forget, the subsidised meals and expenses that MPs benefit from and the entirely free education that they experienced.

Please answer it then bread.

It is a stupid argument to say that we shouldn't pay taxes to fund things that only benefit a few. Because by that argument you are saying that we shouldn't pay taxes for premature babies or street lights on unfrequented roads.

Especially when graduates are likely to make such an important contribution to society anyway not only in terms of the jobs they do but also in terms of their higher earnings and higher taxes.

But, 5C, they already pay for free education up to age 19. Where do you stop? First degree, Masters, PhD, postdoc. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

And perhaps, unlike me, you don't live in a university town. Try to go to a pub in term time, or even Costa Coffee. Why should my neighbour pay for their fixes?

It's not about benefiting the few. It's about university students picking lucrative degree courses so that they can support themselves in later life, including paying back the cost of their education.

There are far to many students drifting onto courses which they drift right off again, all at the tax payer's expense. They don't give a monkey's about what their silly decisions cost other people. If they had a credit account for their studies, they would soon wake up and smell the coffee.

'You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.'

But why there? There is no logical or moral reason why taxpayers pay for the training of the police and soldiers but not teachers or doctors.

'Try to go to a pub in term time, or even Costa Coffee. Why should my neighbour pay for their fixes?'

I don't get why it's ok to judge how young people spend their own money (since it is now their own money) but it's nobody's business how middle-aged women for example spend their own money.

Why on earth are students not allowed to go to Cost Coffee or the pub at lunchtime? How odd.