Thread 17 - Corona Cohort Summer Vacation to Yr 13, Finding Freedom?

[Orangecinnamon21]

PLACEHOLDER FOR NEW THREAD ...PREVIOUSLY TO BE FOUND IN SECONDARY EDUCATION

@Monkey2001
Thanks - not eligible for Bristol, so his school is not in the bottom 40% for A level attainment or for progression to higher education. But yes from Warwick because his school's KS4 performance was below average and it has above average FSM. I guess slightly different criteria can make a difference for schools on the cusp of contextual offers 🤷‍♀️

Second Monkey's point about sight reading - I always have to keep saying to DD, you are not supposed to be able to play it as well as you play your pieces. It's designed to be hard because it wouldn't tell them anything if everyone could play it with no mistakes!

Thank you all so much for the well wishes. I think she’s having a ball from the little contact I have had. And if Find my phone is anything to go by, it’s nowhere as near grungy as her usual park life would be

Orange "When I had a word with myself I realised"...

Ok. Ive calmed down. Had a word with myself, and as you rightly pointed out, I too realised he is actually very advantaged:

I'm putting myself down for an honoury 1st from Oxford for all my recent interest/support/investigative projects/filling in accountancy applications etc ....

Miranda bet you /hoping her sight Reading was better than she thought? Results in a week yeah?

Miranda which board does she do singing exams with? DD never had to sight read with LAMDA but obv I know that there are many different boards. DD cannot read music at all so that would have been a struggle. She'd have been delighted at knowing she could get 7 marks just for attempting to lalala a bit.

I don’t think there is a way to flatten the lumpiness . Putting down finance details on application will just result in a thriving industry aimed at countering it as much as possible. Friend said about someone we know that they are self employed and got their accountant to do the figures so their DD got a high maintenance loan. Obviously there’s a limit to what can be done but if there is a system to be got around people will do it.

And over the last few years people are used to being divided into 2 groups - Remainer /leaver, pro lockdown/anti lockdown, Johnson/Corbyn. The fact that there is a wide spectrum is totally ignored . The same with state and private education. The College DS is at now is state but it’s so removed from his old school which is eligible for a Bristol contextual offer that it’s absolutely ridiculous to compare the 2.

There are limitations to any system unfortunately and I don’t think there is really the will to change the current one. That’s quite negative and I hope others will post things that make me feel I am wrong about this!

I assumed it was your entire household income that was taken into account, rather than whether it was PAYE, dividends, self-employed profit or whatever. We haven't looked too much into finance yet I must admit.

I agree that whatever system you put in place people will find a way round it and there are always people who miss out. I was hoping that DS having an EHCP might lead to contextual help but it seems not as we live in a fairly affluent postcode and have degrees ourselves. I have to say he is at an advantage because of the latter, I have a friend who lives in the same postcode but neither she or her husband are uni educated and as their DCs are bright, no SENs and well behaved they haven't needed to be overly engaged with their education so far and it became apparent in a conversation last week that they haven't got a clue where to start with uni stuff. Even with my uni education MN has been such a MASSIVE help to me over the years with everything education related, just the fact that we are on this thread helping each other along makes a big difference.

It is your entire income EverythingDelegated so in the case I am talking of one parent chose not to work and for the other salary ‘the accountant fixed it’’ Just hearsay and there will be a limit to how much can be done

Those who are determined will always find a way, we have new neighbours who are basically property developers, newly divorced and their 20 year old DD owns the house. Her Father owns another house further up the road. Their previous address was one of the most expensive areas in the country. The DD isn’t going to university but I’d take a guess that if she were the finance forms would be such that she would get a decent maintenance loan.

The student loans system in England is very problematic I think. I just tried the calculator for a household where the parents earn the median salary of £30k each and the student would only be able to borrow about £4.5K. I'm not sure that would even cover accommodation, let alone food. I guess a household income of £60k is very good in some circumstances but I can also imagine circs where there is very little in the pot at the end of the month.

Very glad to be in Wales, I must say.

We have a relative who is in the most horrendous trouble with HMRC over some fiddle his accountants persuaded him was legit many years ago when he was SE, he is a decent guy who was just trying to do the best by his family and is completely mortified to have found himself in this situation, not to mention in imminent danger of bankruptcy. Yet others get away with totally fleecing the system (I know of a family similar to the one you describe too Fools)

It's similar for the child benefit, two parents each earning 49K don't get it but one person earning £60k with a SAHP pay back the lot. Although the childcare bills for the former will be huge compared to the latter so maybe its not so unfair.

This has just reminded me I needed to do DD’s student finance.
For anyone self employed the year that will be used for 2022 entrance is tax year 20/21.

Our lot our very lucky though aren’t they as we are all sitting around posting on here and are supportive.

@EverythingDelegated I’m shocked that an EHCP is not a contextual flag, regardless of socio- economic status!

I need to look into the EHCP thing a bit more, only did a brief check of a couple of unis at the start of all this, but I suppose there is a risk of them ending up out of their depth if they get onto a course that they wouldn't have done otherwise (for my DS's type of needs anyway).

I think making university access and funding really fair is impossible! On funding, it really feels like some people may as well take a couple of years off work or go part time if they have more than 1 DC at University - they can then access full loans and non-repayable bursaries from the university. At St Andrews you get an accommodation bursary and can apply for means tested academic bursaries. If your DCs get an extra £5-£10k each by losing £30k of a £60k parental income, the numbers look quite appealing!

They do, don't they. I just couldn't do that, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot career wise. However if you got made redundant it could sway your attitude towards looking for another job. I can see the argument for staying part time, yet another disincentive for women's careers and pensions, it is nearly always the woman who takes the hit isn't it. I'm still p/t as my job doesn't really lend itself to f/t and we manage financially but I hadn't thought of it in these terms.

@singingstones

The student loans system in England is very problematic I think. I just tried the calculator for a household where the parents earn the median salary of £30k each and the student would only be able to borrow about £4.5K. I'm not sure that would even cover accommodation, let alone food. I guess a household income of £60k is very good in some circumstances but I can also imagine circs where there is very little in the pot at the end of the month.

Very glad to be in Wales, I must say.

This is the problem, there are very few places that the minimum maintenance loan will cover. Such a disparity too. E.g Southampton looking at least over 1000 more for same type of room at Cardiff.

True.
I've been part time for 15 years and only recently upped my days. Not very well thought out clearly!

I bet there are quite a few families whose income dropped during the pandemic, but not enough to access the full maintenance loan, and whose expenses have stayed the same. Income has to be

Here’s the amounts for next academic year , from Loughborough but applies to everywhere apart from London.

DD will fare well this year as we had quite a big income drop in 20/21. I think for those who had a big drop recently you can ask them to consider current rather than previous income but could be wrong,

We didn’t give the first thought to how it worked until we rather unexpectedly got there , DD had always said she didn’t want to go to university. Now she doesn’t want to leave and I think we may have a year with her doing a Masters and DS in his first year. I try not to think about that in any detail at the moment !

If we had known I might have suggested she look at an integrated masters as that comes from the usual student finance instead of getting a postgrad loan . Doing it that way is financially advantageous potentially in terms of what they get to live in and also how much of salary they pay back.

Finding £5k pa per child is a big deal! I think the taper of eligibility is ridiculously steep, I would put the minimum maintenance loan at nil, but taper it over a much wider range, so you get nothing if parental income over £150k, full loan at around £30k, 50% at £90k. People on £60k with 2 DC at university struggle to find £10k for the DC. There are a lot of students who just have to work because their parents can't find the gap.

Yes I think the problem will come for families who might have had a highish joint income that has dropped dramatically in their terms, but is still too high to get the full loan. Hopefully there would be savings to dip into I guess.

I agree Monkey, that would be much fairer.

In Wales (at the moment - please let it continue) everyone gets the same amount of money, some is a grant and some is a loan. The ratio of grant : loan depends on household income. The income thresholds are lower at both ends, but everyone can afford to go to uni.