groaning under the weight of private school fees!

[pearso]

Hello,
I've got one child at private school, the other still at state primary for another year and we're dreading the decision next year about what to do. It's very unlikely we'll be able to afford a second set of school fees. Is anyone else in a similar situation? I'd love to hear from you if you are.... I'm also writing about it in my column for the Evening Standard so wouldn't use names but would love to hear what people think, especially in London and about any experiences good or bad.
thanks!

can i just add that yes i will remortgage but this will be our second ever remortgage (the first was 5k for carpets/double glazing). We have no loans apart from the mortgage and i don't even have a credit card. We have never remortgaged for a car or holiday or other stuff. This is the most important thing for us. We are both teachers who have taught in local schools.

BoffinMum on Sun 11-Jan-09 13:39:02
"A lot of them have ended up accepting the loan instead of considering other options such as economising, living at home or swapping accommodation in parental homes with other students, and taking up p/t work to minimise debt on graduation."

I am seeing more and more of the opposite problem: students doing night jobs until all hours and then unable to learn during the day because they are knackered. Getting very difficult to get anyone to do fulltime work at the uni- what used to be considered fulltime work. There are only so many hours in the day and if you are out earning a living then that does cut down on the hours available for studying.

I was fortunate enough to have one of the (then) very generous Swedish student loan, and something I remember with gratitude is how much time there was, time not only to get through the course list, but to do additional reading and to sit around for hours and discuss theories with other students. Those evenings over the wine bottle, weren't wasted, they were part of the learning process and a lot of the work I have done since has come out of that.

What I see now are students rushing from classroom to work, shooting out of the door at 5.30 because they cannot be late for work, always anxious to find out what the bare minimum is to achieve the grade they need, because doing any unnecessary reading is a luxury they cannot afford.

We did a bit of internal research on student study and time management patterns (not including vocational courses, because they are indeed very time hungry, as frannikin says) and we found that students were typically spending 10-20 hours a week on Facebook, on top of face to face socialising. Now I think that's one example of time that could be spend more productively reducing debt or doing voluntary work, myself.

As a mother of three students I know how much time most students spend (a) in bed (b) out having and good time etc etc.

one reason some mothers on here might want to try to pick reasonably well paid work for themselves is they can then fund their children at univesrity and remove some of these problems which I have been lucky enough to do so far, touch wood...

I don't agree with the concept of student loan/debt. It makes debt seem fine. It institutionalises debt. We actually had a written agreement - I pay them at university and in return they take on debt, no student loan, no card debt which has largely worked well.

I agree with you point on debt Xenia-I hate the way that it gives an 18 yr old the idea that debt is normal.

Hmmm....what about mortgages? Don't they institutionalise debt too? Yet we accept those as a part of normal life.

My own feeling was that being able to take out a student loan meant being independent of my parents; I could choose to study what I wanted, how I wanted, make my own mistakes because I was paying.

And the first thing I did when I got a funded position was to save up money to pay off my debt.

I've never borrowed money for anything other than my mortgage and student loan: I felt that both those were in a different category from consumer debts.

Mortgages are different. As long as you are sensible (i.e. don't do something stupid like get a 110% mortgage, borrow 10x earnings or pay inflated prices) you can always sell the property and cancel the debt. Has anybody ever managed to get a refund on their student loan because they can't find a job.

Doing tiring menial work in order to survive while at university makes a mockery of what further study and higher education ought to be all about. As cory so rightly says, there are only so many hours in a day, and the kind of deep thinking/playing with ideas/reading that is really the whole point of university goes by the wayside if you have to wait on tables/babysit/serve in a shop when you are not in lectures and seminars.

True, Senua. The way student loans ought to work is that you would only have to repay in a year when you were earning over a certain limit. It's a difficult one, seeing that the government wants a large proportion of the population entering higher education, but do not want to pay for it, and it is a well known fact that higher education is no longer a meal ticket if it ever was.

Not everyone can afford to 'pay their children' while they are at university, so they don't need to get a loan!!!!!

That is the whole point of the loans, so that children from poorer backgrounds can go to university and it doesn't become a two tier system between those who can afford it and those who can't. Education should be available to all, not only those who have the money to buy it.

For those people used to paying school fees, of course it's just an extension of those but for the 90% rest of the population.....(oh dear, back to the beginning of this discussion again).

Bags is right and the last thing I would want to see is a situation where all the highest grades are reserved for those students whose parents can afford for them to concentrate on their studies.

I think that part time work is a problem. Employers want a cheap labour force to call on when they want them. My 17yr old son is trying to get a Saturday job (easy when I was at school)but it isn't easy. He wants to work either Saturday or Sunday, but as soon as he applies the first question is 'what other hours can you work?' He ends up having to offer some evenings, which he doesn't want to do-his subjects involve a lot of course work.I would imagine that university students have the same problem-it will be very difficult to find a job to suit the time they want to work.
I think mortgages are different from student loans because people are older, they have rented,handled a budget and have a job. An 18 yr old has no experience and is suddenly having to manage money. As a parent you have no idea what they are doing-you just have to hope that they are being sensible.

But most students can do some work.
I certainly worked a couple of nights DJing and then all my holidays in factories/restaurants etc.
It was perfectly possibly - and I did law and got a good result.
Ithnk the idea that young people start off their life in debt is hideous. My PR was telling me that as a single mother she can't see herself ever being able to pay it off which I though must be desperately disheartening.

I defy anyone to argue that being paid to sit on a sofa whilst babysitting in the evenings, during which you can work your way through your reading list or draft an assignment, detracts from your studies.

Similarly 10-13 weeks working in vacation periods (remember our lot get 28 weeks off a year!!) as a playworker or whatever is hardly menial as well, and is likely to have little negative impact on studies, if any.

It might even allow certain students to apply some of the theory they are learning to real life situations (eg Psychology, Social Science, Education, certain Humanities subjects, etc) or disseminate their own learning (Science, Technology, Engineering). They will also come into contact with a broader social group and develop transferable skills useful in getting a job.

We are doing young people a disservice if we think all they are able to do is lie in bed for half the year.

I'd just like to add that there are other ways around this problem. We moved to an area where the state schools are excellent. This has meant that we now live in a much smaller house, dh has a much longer commute and I miss the cosmopolitan area we came from. However our dc's are in an amazing school that is on a parr with the private school that dd went to previously.

I worked full time whilst studying for my degree in engineering management as well as bringing up a tiny baby on my own.

It didn't detract from my studies, it made me far more determined and concientious.

I ended up with a £6k debt. Tiny compared to most.

However, i had no social life/new clothes/mobile phone etc.

I was a student parent, got no grants or loans, and graduated at 22 with an £800 debt - I worked as an editorial assistant for a magazine, taught piano, did babysitting for other people, and did beading on evening dresses for a dress hire shop.

I also read wider than the reading list and ended up an academic, so there's not always a conflict between work and study.

Students are advised to get jobs - it's the first thing we used to say - and there are massive benefits to working whilst studying, but 95% of the time the university is against them doing just that. I worked through uni and my department were constantly asking me why I thought I had to work. I had 3 hours time a week in my final year so what else was I supposed to do with my time? Especially given that I am definitely a night owl when it comes to work.

My three nights babysitting a week actually meant I did have time to work - admittedly I couldn't immediately go and check something but I'd mark it and come back to it later. Of course that relies on the children going to bed and staying there but they did 90% of the time!

Regarding vacation work I never earnt enough on my vacations to cover the cost of being at uni - rent, bills food, books and other media, additional "trips" (but I did music so spent around £20 a week on concerts etc). I got paid £300net/week, worked every school holiday and still had to babysit to make ends meet.

Bear in mind that also a lot of students get into debt once they graduate but don't have a job. Also my parents didn't fund me for uni, but I wasn't eligible for any additional goverment funding because they earnt too much. I did end up taking out some student loan but ALL my income this year is going towards that off. And funding my Masters.

Most of my children have done some work at university. I agree that funding themselves ior having a grant means they are independent of parents. My funding agreement with them (and as someone said above if you're payment school fees it's not that hard to continue on after 18... and in fact in our case day school fees were £10k a year and their university fees, rent, food, books etc ended up about £10k a year too) is based on my being happy that what I am paying for is worth while. I would not have been likely to fund needlework studies at an ex polytechnic.

In the Times today there is an article that says that success of children depends largely on the background of the parents.
this page

Very true, but not exclusively so.

There are always exceptions but as a generality I would say it is correct.
People always defend Grammar Schools by saying that it is a way up for DSs from a deprived background-but in reality they will do all it takes in the way of tutors, practise papers etc to get their DC a place! It is never a level playing field.

I, perhaps naively, do believe the government has tried to tackle the issue of underachievement among disadvantaged children but it has, thus far, proved unsuccessful.
Is it perhaps the case that whatever the state does, and however much money it throws at it, it will never be able to bridge the gap for tose children whose parents either cannot or will ot engage with the education process?

The only real answer is reduce social polarisation, i.e. stop the rich getting richer, and broaden the middle class as much as possible.

However our current Gvt has 'no problem with people getting seriously rich', and I quote.

From a policy point of view, they rather shot themselves in the foot.