How to check my child’s grades at a Uni?

[Snowflake55]

I am in despair as my son refuses to tell me if he is attending Uni at all, let alone to tell me how his grades are! I tried calling his Uni and all they say “it is confidential”. Do we parents have any rights in the UK to find out how our children are doing at a Uni? Thank you

If you were paying £500 a month plus for them to attend work, you might have a point.

I really think the financial aspect of this skews everything and really needs addressing by the government.

The grades are a red herring here. You sound worried about his well-being, understandably so. Try contacting them and saying you have concerns about his well-being. They won’t be able to give confidential information but they probably can get a student support worker/counsellor to check on him. Remember to tell them that he is alone in the country as obviously that makes him more vulnerable.

I used to work on a helpdesk at a university. If anyone called claiming to be a parent or relative we couldn't even confirm if they were even a student at the university. Once we had an abusive ex trying to track someone down. Even acknowledging someone is a student there can put them in danger.

Most people aren’t paying for the educational aspect of Uni though.
They are supporting their kids on living costs
None of that goes to the Uni.

It's completely ridiculous that parents, and their own income, forms the basis upon which the government assess a student's loan requirements because they are understood to be dependents - right up until you want to know how they've been doing and then how dare you treat them like a dependent!

This is such good advice, good idea what you have suggested.

Agree
The same goes though if they have reached 18 and are still at school.
Schools may speak to you because they always have, but doctors won’t .

But they are adults. I can’t go to their accommodation, and frogmarch them to the student counselling services.

Although at one university I worked at, with all on-campus accommodation, we could ask the College staff to do a "Bed check" if a student wasn't engaging.

But the students generally resented this.

They’re inseparable though. You can’t attend the lectures if you can’t afford to live within a commutable distance.
You can’t benefit from the educational aspect if the maintenance aspect isn’t paid.

The equivalent would be an adult getting a job in a city, their parents being expected to pay £500+ a month to make up the shortfall between living expenses and wages and then the adult refusing to discuss their job with their parents.

It needs sorting out.

I know people hate this term, but people saying they’re going to ‘demand’ something does conjure up the image of a ‘Karen’!

If you are funding your child the university doesn't know that and won't give you any information about how they are (or are not) progressing.

Even if you are funding them I'd suggest there's no legal requirement for the child to answer your questions abour their progress unless you've actually made answers to your questions a condition of giving them the money. After all, they are an adult and are expected to be able to enter into responsible agreements and to keep their side of the bargain.

If they won't keep their side of the bargain you'd be entitled to stop the funding - provided that your agreement to fund them is conditional on answering the questions.

If you just want to give them the money to help them out or because you think it's the right thing to do, it does not give you any special rights to know how they're doing.

Either you treat your child as an adult and you treat this funding as a business transaction, or you just treat it as a gift and you have no right to know how it's being used.

So why use it then?

Grow up.

Uni staff members you could learn from greyrocked post and show a little compassion.

I really am shocked at some of the replies from uni staff members on here.

If you are paying for university I think it's reasonable for him to say whether he is attending and how he is doing.
I'd not be willing to fund something I had no knowledge of.

I’m not disagreeing that it needs sorting.
Im simply pointing out to those who think they are actually paying Uni fees, that they are not.

( With the obvious exception of those who are fully funded by parents )

the fact is students have died at unis

Most of the very rare cases when a student dies at university is a sudden illness, or a pre-existing condition, mental or physical.

And as I say, if parents haven't set up robust & resilient parenting techniques for this transition, it is NOT the university's responsibility to do what parents have neglected to do.

And you should remember that part of parenting is to allow your DC to separate from you, and to make mistakes.

What parenting techniques is your university suggesting for suicidal ideation?

If they withdraw their maintenance support, will the students be able to attend university?

This is something which is often missed off these discussions, often (not always) those people who are struggling with their mental health to the point of being at risk have had very poor experiences of parenting and telling their parents of a risk, against their will, is potentially going to make a situation far worse.

Yes, this. Over my career I've spent a lot of time supporting students whose parents have been not just unsupportive, but actually positively destructive of their DCs' education. It's awful to hear from these students how their parents use money etc to manipulate them. Genuinely shocking (and I daily thank my parents for their sensible encouragement of my education).

I'm grateful for the laws that mean I cannot speak with parents without students' specific written permission, although you'd be surprised how many "respectable" parents will try to get me to break the law. Including one very pushy solicitor parent, who laughed at me when I said I was not going to break the law.

No.

What about my comment sounded immature?

Even if the student is fully funded, it is the student that gets billed. Not the parents.

Honestly, think people need to be preparing their children to reach adulthood - not demanding third party people mediate in family relationships.

Exactly @He11oKitty

And remember that:

• University is not school
• Don't slag off hard-working and caring university staff for preferring not to break the law
• If your DC is already not coping with school, with friendships etc etc without significant parental involvement & support, university might not be the panacea

Speaking generally of DC with all sorts of health conditions, I've noticed that those who take time out and go and spend some time doing something else, before university often will positively thrive in a high pressure, high achieving environment with a couple of years of maturity under their belt (or even just 1 year of intercalation/leave of absence).

There is no universal law which says that all qualified 18 years olds must go to university - in fact, a lot would get a lot more out of university if they delay a year or two.

Yes, if the student can find funding elsewhere.

If they borrowed the money from a bank, would you expect the university to share their results with the bank?