Uni Student DDs bombshell

[cantdecidewhattodo123]

Looking for some perspective please, DD 21 & 23 are at Uni ( not in UK) . They live in a flat together owned by me and I pay for bills, fees and weekly allowance. So fairly cushy number and they can concentrate on study. Told me this week that in fact they failed exams years ago, have transferred to different courses/Uni and have been hiding it for years. They have cratered their education and wasted years but with hard work can still recover. But I am shocked - it’s so immature, like they believe it’s not important or can work out somehow magically. And they have taken money from me (that Ican afford) under false pretenses which I think is dishonest. They blame me for their failure which I know is just lashing out. I am really worried but what to do to help them?
If I stop supporting them to force them to face reality they may end up homeless or in trouble/debt and will probably drop out. But if I continue with status quo they can continue to lie, delude themselves this is somehow okay and may never get a qualification or a job. Any advice gratefully received!

University is so far beyond affordable now

@Motorcycleemptyness Not really as if their family can't help them out they can get full loans for everything. A lot of them won't ever have to pay these back as they won't meet the earnings threshold.

Do they actually want to be in university? Because maybe they could pursue a different route to get to where they want career wise.

Did they choose the courses they wanted to do?

I can understand how shocked and disappointed you are and they shouldn't have lied for so long. My daughters are a similar age to yours, so I can relate.

Lockdown was challenging and my youngest started first year in 2020.... she's in her final year now.

I think then living on their own in the flat, not in halls or student accommodation...just allowed them to be very slack.

You're talking about the UK here. In Switzerland, university is close to free. You just have to pay living costs.

You're talking about the UK here. In Switzerland, university is close to free. You just have to pay living costs.

Maybe that why the dropout rate is so high? Students who aren't "university shaped" go because everyone else does?

I know France has a high dropout rate.

@Neerdoneerdo Yep, I was responding to the PP, Motor, who I think was talking about the UK (which I know is OT really.)

OP I would suggest you make the finance dependent on them attaining certain results, with report cards/whatever the equivalent is in uni presented to you at the end of each term as proof of achievement.
Tough love. You will be doing them a favour.

I was going to say that you know what you need to do, but I don't think that you do! You are making excuses for them and enabling their behaviour.
Firstly, they need to abandon this pretence of studying.
Then you need to work out how much money they have taken from you under false pretences.
Once they have found jobs (having, presumably, moved back under your roof) they pay you back all of that money plus rent for staying with you.
When all that is cleared, they will have learned a lesson in what life is like.

What a disgraceful pair of ungrateful “ Freddie Freeloaders”
Stop funding them.

Actually the trend for everyone to go to university is more prevalent in the UK, where lots of easy to get onto, easy to complete, but not very useful degrees have popped up, than in some countries with free at the point of use university education. In some countries the first year exams are fully and openly designed to be failed by most, to filter out weak candidates. In others it's hard to get in in the first place.

Thirty years ago in the UK there were no tuition fees for "home" students, but it was a lot harder to get into university because there were far fewer places. Indeed far fewer 16-18 year olds did A levels and A level courses were meant to filter out non academic students (the high attrition rate was at A level, with a very high drop out rate at state schools because they weren't meant to spoon feed).

The number of available places in UK universities has exploded over the last 15 years, so that there's a place for almost any 18 year old if they're not fussy about which course or university.

Firsts used to be pretty rare in academic subjects, often only a couple of % of any given graduating year group at a rigorous university, but now in the UK students are spoon fed through and expect a fairly high percentage of firsts.

Which is why now in the UK candidates are expected to have a good bachelors degree for jobs which would once have required good O levels.

They need to come home. You can sell the house or rent it out. Then they get six months to sort themselves out with a job/accommodation/study plan which does not require your financial input.

Give them till the end of this academic year to turn things round, or it stops.

I agree with everyone else about cutting off support. They move out of the property you provided, they get whatever jobs they can, they support themselves. They grow up.

If you really want to light a fire under their arses, tell them you expect repayment in full of every hard-earned penny they swindled out of you and squandered these past years.

I also think it would be beneficial for them to separate. Two kids doing this independently would be unusual, but they've created a sibling culture where it's fine and normal to exploit and cheat and deceive. They're clearly not a good influence on each other.

It sounds like both girls need to sit down with a careers advisor within the uni to look at what their options are and where they actually want to be.

A few things could have happened here :
They could have been so used to being academic at school with lots of support and accountability and then really struggled with the independence and jump in the difficulty of the work.
Covid was extremely difficult for most students and many started to receive less than half the class time than they would have before never mind it all being online. I know a lot of students who ended up repeating or deferring by a year because that style of learning just didn't work for them and they were at risk of failing.

It does sound like they were worried about letting you down and just handled it all in the worst possible way and lied and stuck their heads in the sand. I think you need to figure out what they actually want. I'll be honest I went to uni straight from school because it felt like what I should do. Didn't have a clue what career I wanted or what direction I was going in but I needed to decide on something. So I spent plenty of time and money getting a low award degree that led to absolutely no job prospects long term. It honestly taught me nothing other than that field was not for me. I put myself back through uni recently in a field I love and have just paid my way through and achieved my masters. I think it's important to have an end goal/ motivation and it sounds like your girls don't know what theirs is yet. If it were me I'd sit down with them and name how this had made you feel. I'd state that you've spent a lot investing in them which not all students are lucky enough to have and now you want them to get part time jobs and start paying their own way in part. I'd go with them to a meeting with a careers advisor and tell them that if this course is not the one for them then that is OK. But they need to figure out what is. That may involve leaving uni and working for a while until they figure it out.

One thing I will say is that as parents how we handle mistakes is probably the most important interaction we have with our kids. I'm not saying you do, because I don't know you, but if you have a tenancy to have strong reactions when your kids make mistakes then they will seek their own solutions to avoid your reaction and they might not be the best solutions. Could this maybe be part of what's happened? Did they go to uni because they wanted to or because they felt that was what you wanted for them?

No need to be dramatic now.
It is hard, you feel betrayed, deceived, sick of it... You can be angry.
At the same time, you might still want the same as they want - for them to find a good way to live their lifes. You might want to turn it into a lesson that coming clear is easier than expected. You might want to understand how it got so far.

You don't have to come with a definite plan now. Ask them what exactly the situation is. Ask them what they suggest now. Ask what they want, what they fear, what they learnt from it. See whether they apologize and what they have to say.
And than calmly decide, what makes sense from your point of view, what is acceptable, what are your conditions. You can even take a bit of time to think about it. And you might come with better suggestion than theirs will be.

---

I failed my first attempt for final exams at uni, had to take half a year off, redo my thesis, resit the final exams and start my master a year later.
No significant costs were involved (mostly free education and I was living at home).
My parents were mad (I definitely hadn't done everything in my power to pass, partially because I just hadn't known why, partially because I prioritised fun over thesis in the summer).
They wanted to blame my boyfriend, but he was practically the only one able to help me in any meaningful way, being several years older in very similar field (and he was already helping).

I'd expected I lost their support and should get a job. They said that they don't see it as either useful (with regards of me finishing my education) or as a punishment ( I was able to get a job I'd enjoyed at that moment, but without much in terms of career available). Their suggestion was - for me to create a specific battle plan, no part time job, fully prioritise my main degree. I paid from my savings for an "external student" enrollment, so I was able to go to the university daily and take some subjects for my master.

Looking back, it was the best possible thing to do. It wasn't a punishment, it was more important - it put me back to the rails.

I'm not saying your case is the same, I'm saying you are the more experienced adult here, and you might want to look beyond immediate punishment (I'd say you do it already, just wanted to balance the "stop all support immediately" attitude many posts hold).

Nothing stopping the DD's from making the appointment and taking the parent along (although I acknowledge as you say Uni's do not have any responsibiity to deal with the parent otherwise). if they truly want to remain and study hard, they need to prove to Parent they are serious and are able to put in place steps to get going again.

@cantdecidewhattodo123

Any plan you make should include family therapy with a view to finding out what went wrong, how it happened that they couldn't tell you what was going on.

I've seen this happen several times. In every case the children had very little trust in the parent's ability to handle academic disappointment, or the children had an overwhelming feeling that they had let their parents down and wished to spare them the disappointment - and spare themselves the wrath they felt was coming their way. In some of the children, there was the feeling that the parents had never seen them as themselves but had projected a lot of dreams and expectations onto them. A complete resetting of the relationships was necessary in every case.

Does your funding , support and love only come if they complete a degree you think is valuable? Sounds like you are a control freak! I understand you are paying for them but they are still at uni and getting a degree.
have you thought about why they didn’t tell you? For me this is the biggest part .. they must be terrified of you

Oh you poor thing. I totally empathise with your dilemma. I’d be so furious and equally saddened but to completely pull the rug out doesn’t seem correct either. Even though they’re older I’d be setting some really strict boundaries and sticking to them. They need to know that they can’t just get away with mugging you off like that.

We have one rule - we pay for everything once: once for laptop, once for gap year, once for Year 1 Uni... it is a hard rule to follow but our 24YO D is finally on her feet, climbing up professionally and the drama is receding in recent years. We were exhausted, such hardship to get them to grow up!
You are a decent, great and giving parent, someone who should be appreciated and not used as a "wallet" or else the only future they have is one where all daily problems will be resolved magically by someone else - do you intend to support them forever? Marry them rich? It is hard to cut them off but often it is the only solution or life will teach them a hard lesson one day when you are not around anymore...wishing you the best!

What do they do all day? Are they working part time or lounging at home? Quiet shocking tell them to move into student accommodation, which might force them to take it serious

Most degrees are 3 years long, how has one gone to 4 years and you've not questioned why they haven't graduated? They clearly haven't got what it takes for uni, withdraw all support and make them get jobs.

They can work and do an OU degree.
Too much given has been their downfall.
All is not lost. Look at doing an OU Degree.

Been 3 and 4 years and not got past year 1 exams !!! Enough is enough, go over have the awkward conversation and set limits asap , study ,get qualified or get jobs or out of the property unless you are happy to fund these spoilt young madams for the rest of their lives. No mum guilt -allow yourself to be livid your entitled to be livid.

My DD failed her first year due to Covid - she signed on to re-do it but didn’t tell me for s year, when I thought she’d finished her second, that it was only her first. She said she didn’t know how to, I wish she had of, I would have appealed due to tutor strokes and Covid.
We also pay her rent and she gets a good allowance but I think she was genuinely just ashamed.

How much longer are you prepared to carry on financing them? They've got a cushy life & are basically taking the pee.
Tell them you are no longer prepared to finance them & will only pay the rent on the flat (so they aren't homeless) & suggest they get jobs. Or tell them both to come home.
They don't sound like they are really invested in their education so why should you be? They're both adults & need to find their own way in life.