Uni finance/ divorced parents / parental income

[greenberet]

I have twins both looking at uni this year. I have been through an extremely acrimonious divorce with severe financial implications to me and there is zero communication from x as he basically is an arse!

He Is director of own company and able to manipulate his earnings and has done so during divorce to imply lack of money and on this basis refused to pay kids school fees. I have continued to pay these for DS for two years out of my settlement.

X has told kids to apply for uni loan off the back of me as I currently am not working and they will receive maximum amount. However I am now running out of money and will need to consider employment going forward.

As the student finance is assessed each year I am concerned whether they will be eligible for loan in years 2 &3 and my questions is does anyone know the level of income in relation to percentage of loan or where I can find this information.

X earns too much for kids to be eligible for loan if his income and OW’s income taken into account - she works for the company.

X has form for misleading kids and providing them with less than full information. I am concerned that he is leading them down a route where they both think they will get maximum loan for 3 years and are basing their choices on this - particularly DD who is looking in London with high living costs.

I doubt I will be in a position to help them out financially - I am likely to find it difficult to support myself having not worked for 20 years and suffering with long term depression.

I cannot guarantee that X will support them financially due to his actions over school fees and payment of Child maintenance.

For some reason this has just dawned on me today and I do not want my kids to be under financial pressure

Any guidance appreciated

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/new-fulltime-students

Start at the link above. Ball park - if you earn £25k or less a year they'll get maximum maintenance loan. If you earn over £45k they'll get the minimum loan (£4K outside London). In between those two amounts they'll get a sliding scale. All students get tuition fee loans regardless of household income.

One further thing - household income is assessed on the previous full tax year.

Thank you titchy

I am divorced, my DC live/d with me, mainly. I get child benefit. My DS1 and DS2's student loans are based on my income alone. My exH's income wasn't looked at at all. I had to supply a copy of my decree absolute to the Student Loans Company, (3 times, so far!) as proof. I earn well under the £25K and tax credits and child maintenance aren't counted as income. Savings aren't looked at except for interest on them (ie earnings.) The minimum loan is around £4k as above and both my DSs get the max loan. Looking at the previous tax year may help you as well. ie For Sept 2019 start they look at April 2017-2018.

Also be aware that some universities have automatic bursaries (don't require to be repaid) based on parental income as supplied to the SLC, so please tick the box to share your income details with the university. These can be around £1k- £2k a year. It's worth finding out on the university website how eligibility is calculated. It varies quite a lot, but Warwick and Birmingham for instance, are £2k/year for low incomes families. Some only provide bursaries if you meet stringent conditions such as coming from areas of deprivation or from a poorly performing school etc, some just provide them to anyone with a low parental income.

If it helps, I got the minimum loan and a part time job and was fine (not rich but I could eat and pay rent and go out with mates). I did do about 14 hours a week but it didn't impact my studies. This was 2013-17

It does vary greatly depending on the universities they apply to. RG unis tend to offer the best bursaries ranging from £1000 to £7000 in the case of Edinburgh. The SLC only look at income within the household where the kids live so won't take your exH's income into account anyway (unless they live with him). I found that uni is only really affordable if you have a really low income or a high income. For people in between it must be a struggle.

DD2 got a bursary (not that much) every year because I am a low earner and single parent. XH was abroad at that point, and stopped paying anything the second she left school. DD was able to take out maximum loan amount every year. We are in Scotland, so it might be different for you.