will we get any financial help if we are both in full time education....

[NotInTheMood]

Im due to apply for a course as ive been a sahm for 5 years so have zelch confidence and would like to retrain. Dh has now just found out he maybe made redundant, at the moment he does the weekend commute as there are no jobs where we live or at least he hasn't had any replies. He doesn't want to work away anymore and wants to retrain and do a accelerated maths teaching course if he gets made redundant.This will take 2 years. We have two children one 2 years and another 6years. If we are both students do we get any help financially or will I have to find work to support him.

Oh just to add both of us have applied for jobs and have had no replies. We seem to be over qualified or no experience etc in my case as ive been out of work. I just don't want people to think we are work shy-we just want to improve our chances and secure a good job.

why don't you phone up a benefits place and ask?

If both parents are in full time education, I think you qualify for income support. Go into your local citizens advice bureau and ask. But I believe any educational grant you receive is counted as income.

My and DP are both full time students, and I really recommend it. Not from the financial perspective necessarily (although it's managable) but from a quality of life perspective. I really enjoy us both talking about doing our work together - even though our courses are very different. It's a little tough at assignment deadline time (like now, I really shouldn't be here - just having a little break ) but other than that, it's great.

Also, college is way more flexible that work, as you're expected to do the majority of it in your own time, you can fit it round your DCs to a large extent, and the holidays are fantastic.

But, most importantly, it's so much fun to be in a learning environment IMO - way more fun that work! I'm really enjoying learning new stuff. I'm much happier now that I've been in years

OK, to the money - I can tell you what we get but this is under the old system - the Tories are probably going to change it all and anyway the fees rises are about to come in, so you'll need to check what actually applies to you:

From memory, so figures are approximate ...

We are considered to be on a low income.

We get:

• just under 5K loans each
• a parent's learning allowance of about 1.5k.
• a special support grant of nearly 3k. If the rules are the same, you will qualify for this because you are both students.

So that's £19K between us, which is pretty decent I think (admittedly some of it is loans but hey ho).

We also get a bursary from the uni of £1k each, and we're eligible for student bank accounts - my co-op student account has £1.5k "free" overdraft.

You also get 85% of your childcare paid - assuming you are not still getting the childcare part of Child Tax Credit (I simply canceled it the week before I started college).

It's worth trying to think laterally about how you can save or make money. For example I own a flat in London. We've rented that out, and moved to near the uni. We started house hunting about 6 months before term actually started, and eventually found a lovely 4 bed flat with a private landlord who was happy for us to sub-let 2 of the rooms, so we do just that. We also let the rooms to foreign language students in the summer.

It's possible you qualify for income support too. We did look into this but we're not eligible, I can't remember why.

I really recommend you go for it! It's the best decision I've made in years (after having DS of course )

BelovedCunt I'm assuming you haven't had much dealings with the benefit service?

For a start they'll have no idea what you're entitled to from student finance.

And then it can be really, really hard to get anyone in the benefits service to give you any useful advice about the stuff they are meant to know about!

The last time I signed on (briefly, between jobs) I attended the job centre every fortnight, and every time asked for an appointment with someone who could explain what I was entitled to. As DP was working freelance I didn't know where I stood. They were unable to give me this advice, despite me repeatedly asking them. Eventually they gave me the wrong advice and told me to sign off, which I did. 3 months later, they rang and said actually, they'd made a mistake, I shouldn't have signed off. But to rectify it I had to go to a job centre (with DS in tow) within in the next 24 hours, despite me being hundreds of miles from home, up in Fife, Scotland, and it being mid snow-storm. And then they mucked it up twice more. What a waste of time! Not to mention all that time I was totally skint when I should have been getting money I was entitled to

So forgive me if I'm a little cynical! It would be nice if you could just ring the benefits service and get good customer service, but that's not how it works at all IME.

Rant over, sorry!

Oh, I forgot to mention we also get a loan which exactly covers the university's tuition fees.

What level education are you thinking about?

Oh, good question onadietcokebreak. I stupidly just assumed it was degree level. Why did I do that?! what an idiot! (Glad I'm not getting marked on this!) Please accept my applogies for making assumptions NotInTheMood.

If it's not a degree I think a lot hinges on the hours of the course - i.e. whether it's 16 hours a week or not. What you're eligible for can change at 16 hours I think e.g. I think I remember you can study up to 16 hours while signing on I think.

What's the score with Tax Credits these days? Have the Tories scrapped them yet? If one of you was working part time could you get tax credits as a top up?

You should have a look at the benefits checker here, it'll give you a good idea. Try putting in different likely scenarios for you and your family.

Also, I would really advise finding out if you can talk to your potential college about finance. Most of them have people whose job it is to deal with finance on behalf of the students - so they're on your side - and they know how it all works better than the agencies who actually dish out the money IMO. (For example Student Finance were insistent that only one of us was entitled to the parent's learning allowance. This is simply not true - we can both get it, but I wouldn't have known this, or have received the money - if I hadn't been to see the student finance officer at my college).

FWIW I had no intention to go to uni when I started studying. I was just really bored in my job and so I did an course at a local FE college a few years ago. It was an access course - but I did it because it interested me, not to go to uni. But then I loved it and the rest is history

What subject(s) are you thinking of doing?

Btw the staff in jobcentre aren't benefit trained so couldn't advise on benefits fully. They can only really advise on jobseeker availability Restrictions.

"the staff in jobcentre aren't benefit trained so couldn't advise on benefits fully."

You'd like to think they had someone they could direct you to though, who knew a bit about the benefits system though wouldn't you?! But like you say it's just not how it work, unfortunately.

Although when I spoke to them it was actually my eligibility for jobseekers I wanted to know about, and they were stumped because DP was working freelance (he's not the only one, surely?!)

Yeah you would like to think so wouldn't you, maybe even listen to their staff who are saying the system isnt working but no they stick inexperienced staff on the phone lines and they have to use an a-z guide to answer questions.

Jumped ship - couldn't stand the lack of customer service and amount of misadvise being given!

Goodness, it must be a really frustrating place to work! I know I'd be tearing my hair out. Even with the best will in the world (and I did meet some nice people working there!) what you can do is just so limited.

IMO (sorry OP for going off on a bit of a tangent here) what would really help in getting people back to work would be if the the people you spoke to about getting a job were different to the ones who process your claim - people with real recruitment experience perhaps, and who had a really good understanding of what was available, and who were empowered to actually help people.

It always seemed to me the staff at job centres are just there to dole out (excuse the pun) the same standard advice, while trying to catch the odd benefit cheat.

I mean the job centre suggested SIL went on a literacy course FFS! She's a secondary teacher with two postgraduate qualifications - she's qualified to teach literacy!

I've worked for a (central) government bureaucracy before and I totally get your frustration at not being listened to when you know things aren't working on the ground. And the ages of time it takes to change anything (if at all).

I much prefer working for smaller organisations now, because if you want to change things for the better, it's much more likely you can actually just get on with it!

NotInTheMood sorry for the hijack! It's slightly college related as I'm here procrastinating, I should really be doing my school work!