How much will uni cost parents?

[Kosmik]

What is the average contribution a parent is expected to pay towards H.E. student upkeep?

I can understand people thinking it might be unfair to have a cut off at 20 or 25K but I can honestly say that if I had two lots of income coming into the house instead of one then I could help in some way to help mine fund uni. As it is I really cannot and will struggle to pay my own bill.

Sorry I have obviously confused the issue. I didn't make myself clear I was talking about 2012 plus. Rich parents I agree may be able to help a bit with living costs but very few can pay the fees. People tend to forget the people in the middle...

We're planning for dh to fund the tuition fees & pay the rent, and I'll give ds around £400 pm for food, transport etc. He'll have to get a holiday job but don't expect him to work in term time.

I don't like the idea of debt at all, I don't care that it takes years to pay off, it just makes me uncomfortable to think of this cloud of debt hanging over ds for years to come.

Yes - we're in the middle.

Frankly I could cheerfully string Nick Clegg up by the balls for his '9k will be the exception rather than the rule' rubbish.

ds is currently at university and takes his full fee loan plus income assessed maintenance loan/grant. That barely covers his maintenance outgoings. It's all very well to say students will have to work through to fund but lets not forget that there are few jobs out there. His debt will be about £24k plus interest.

dd will go in 2012 and all the above applies save that the fee loan will be a shedload more. We'll get no help because we're a tad over the 25k limit being bandied about and don't forget you lose any CTC and CB entitlement as soon as they go to university. dd's debt will be closer to £45k plus interest.

We're currently helping out ds with a few quid each week and will do our best to do the same for dd but over and above that they're on their own.

For some students that will mean that they can't sustain life at university. And the majority of those students will be from families whose income is around 'average' because it means that in real terms the student will be worse off than one from a pooer family who may be eligible for a bursary.

Unless you are very rich, it's going to be a complete headache for most of the 2012 intake and beyond. Let's just hope that somewhere along the line the powers that be come to their senses and write off the 'debt'. Will be a shame for people who have decided not to go because of the cost. Such a waste of potential.

DS currently filling in the student loan application. Between us DH and I are fortunate enough to earn more than 100k per annum. There's no point in filling in the parents' section, is there?

I would complete it if i were you lovemydog, otherwise they may think you've overlooked that section...and that could delay the claim being processed.

You can choose to not have income assessment; just tick the box. Online it asks if you want to be income assessed. I don't know the threasholds but would expect that your ds wouldn't be entitled to any grant.

saggar I am sure we are not entitled to any grant and wouldn't expect any. I may be being thick (quite probably!) - but can't find any thresholds for loans.

I don't think you're being thick - transparency doesn't seem to be a buzz word at student finance. If you don't agree to be income assessed you get the fee loan like everyone else and the basic maintenance loan which I think (for 2011/12) is £2,763 if your living at home, £3,564 away from home or £4,988 away from home in London.

*you're

I'm with mumblechum. It's just plain wrong to encourage children into debt if they want to study beyond school. Higher education should be paid for out of tax. This is not a third world country. All the debate in the thread about how some students are relatively protected while others are not, just shows what an iniquitous move it was, to force sky high debt on to our children. Those same children who will be paying to support us in our old age.

I am very, very sorry for children planning on university next year, and deeply ashamed to live in a country which is doing this to our kids.

My parents pay my accommodation bill - it's around £4000 this year, and then I buy everything I need out of my student loan, which is just over £1000 a term. Fees are around £3500 a year but again that's on the student loan.

p.s. I'd advise any parent with a child starting secondary school to open an account into which you should put ALL their child benefit each month, if you possibly can manage it. Then you'll have seven years' worth of child benefit saved up for them by the time they are eighteen, and that will help a little bit towards the horrific fees children and families are going to have to pay (unless a future, more enlightened government removes this burden.)

By the way, listen to Moneybox Live on R4 (just after 3pm today) - they'll be talking about student finance, so that could be helpful, all of you who are tearing your hair out with the worry of it all.

dotnet, it's a good suggestion if you can do it but unfortunately alot of families rely on CB to get them through the month. I guess those families might qualify for the means tested bursaries which is a good thing imo.

Thankfully for DC3 and 4, now aged 4 and 2, DH has taken out childrens savings bonds which mature when they are 18 and which should make a decent contribution towards Uni fees should they choose to go.

Wish I'd thought about this for DC1 who is due to go this September and DC2 who may go in 4 years. Am starting to save a bit but not enough to make a huge difference. DC1 has applied for the student loan but I'm guessing there will be quite a big shortfall so I ought to start looking at how much I can contribute.

GreenToes we did the same for DD2 as your parents do, for the first year. She is now in the second year and we pay most of her rent ( she is sharing a house with friends), She pays the rest of the rent and all her bills EG Electric,Gas, internet and all over living costs. We did exactly the same for DD1 when she was at uni.
DD2 does have a part time job now.

The new fees (2012) do not have to be paid at the time and if you never earn above the threshold you don't have to pay it back. You still though have to pay rent and buy books etc but can get loans for that (and hopefully jobs - some of mine have had jobs at univesrity although they aren't that easy to find). Also for many of the better jobs you won't even be considered for those unless you do work experience and placements in your univesrity holidays. Thankfully in some professions those are paid of course so if you can get your grades good enough to get those it is not so bad.

I can't find who said it now in the thread, but I agree with them that £300 a month after payment of rent should just about be enough for most students to get by. Not generous, but do-able, which is how student grants used to be.

I do feel for the student described somewhere else in the thread who wants to become a doctor and is very very stressed at the prospect of the huge burden of debt s/he will have to take on before s/he gets a sniff of any proper earnings, years down the line.

Nobody has mentioned in the thread, I think, that there is charitable funding up for grabs for some students. A book used to be available called 'The Directory of Grants and Trusts' which listed all the funding bodies and who offered what to whom. But if it's no longer published, poke around the internet (try putting in the words 'educational charities' or 'funding help for students' and similar such things - you'll soon be able to start refining your search.)

Finally, it is definitely worth comparing the financial packages different universities offer. Some give out their own bursaries to top up the little grant to which your child may or may not be entitled. Some boost things up a bit further with additional bursaries for entrants with particularly good A Level grades. And for the fortunate few who get into Oxford or Cambridge - those two universities offer the best no-strings funding of the lot.

The sooner we go back to higher education on the state, the better.

dotnet I agree with you in genreal, But Unfortunatly if DD1 had paid her own rent in the first year she wouldn't have had any money left for rent, He halls cost exactly the same as her loan, Also as well as living cost EG food, She had to buy books and equipment for her course, Some books she borowed from the uni library but others she had to buy, She also had to buy a camcorder as she had to make a film, So just the student loan would not have gone anywhere near how much she neded, We found the same when DD1 wasat uni,

I think it's a great idea to let the wealthy buy their way into uni, as long as they are subsidising the less well off in the process by way of some far juicy bursaries.