University fees - is it true that European universities are much cheaper and British kids can apply?

[nkf]

Could that be one way round this obscene amount of money that has to be paid in the UK?

Not for every student of course. But an option for some?

Yes it is true. It's one of the freedoms within EU membership that you can live, work and study in any EU country on the same terms as their nationals.

You need look for courses that taught in English, and factor in living costs and then work out cost of financing them (does Student Loan Company cover courses outside UK?)

Apparently, it's a lot cheaper though. Less that the £3K a year it used to be in the UK.

Am thinking more of ensuring my kids can speak another language enough to study in another country.

It pains me to think of young people with debts of £30k.

how much is it to study in Ireland?

I don't know any details but my German au pair said her course will cost about 600 Euros a term.

We looked into this for our daughter. We found a course she liked in the Netherlands, taught partly in English and with a buddying system with Dutch students for the parts taught in Dutch.

However, she wouldn't be eligible for student loans from the UK. The UK administrations won't allow student loans for studying a whole degree course abroad. I've no idea why - I haven't been able to find any justification published anywhere.

We don't have enough savings we could use, and we certainly don't earn enough to pay out of our income, so we'd have to borrow money at commercial rates to pay the 16,800 euros tuition fees for the 4 year course, and the approx 800 euros a month living costs.

If she could get a job for 3 months before starting university, and work part-time whilst there, she could access some less expensive loans from the Dutch government, but she wasn't likely to get a job as she speaks no Dutch.

You didn't get this info from me but if you register for a course in the EU which has a compulsory element of study in the UK (for instance a dual degree course, where the main university works with a UK partner university), you do not pay fees for the time you spend at the British university. This is because you are a 'guest' at the British uni and are still actually a student with the European one. You would carry on paying the fees of the European uni, which may be a few hundred Euros per semester.

But as Patty point out, you would then not be eligible for loans. I would like to point out that many European students are a fair bit older than their British counterparts, and many work over 20 hours a week to support themselves without parental help.

If you choose Germany for studying, there are programs in place for getting potential students through the language exam which is a precondition for university study. I took that exam many moons ago, and it's really not too difficult. It's called the DSH, I recall. Many uni programs in Germany are now actually taught in English (especially business degrees), although obviously most students will be Germans with English as a foreign language.

It's finding the finance that would be the key.

Even if the headline cost is significantly less, you will be faced with a commercial interest rate, and the ordinary T&Cs of repayment over a fixed period irrespective of what sort of job you secure (or don't). That may not be a preferable type of debt situation in comparison to larger figure, but student loan terms. Though of course if you have savings and can pay as you go, or you will stand as guarantor for DC's loan and can cover their repayments should they not find a sufficiently remunerative job, then it is likely to be far less costly.

Thanks everyone. It seems that it's cheaper to study but...you have to have the money up front. If you do have savings or enough income, your child could leave university with a degree and no or very little debt.

In the UK, the amount you have to find is so huge. Even putting it on the mortgage would be severe. Perhaps people with one child and a low mortgage could do it.

I can see other problems - the distance and language etc. But, it still seems worth exploring. My kids are still quite young so I have a few years in which to save. But no way can I save the amount required for the UK.

Does anyone know what employers think of degrees from European universities? And presumably there are good universities and not so good ones, just like there is the UK.

nkf I think a lot of your anxiety stems from a lack of knowledge of how the student finance system works.

No matter what your income is, your offspring can take out enough loan to cover the tuition fees. Loans, bursaries and grants for living costs are means tested, and are provided on a sliding scale. If your offspring receive less than the maximum then it is expected that you will top it up - but as it's means tested then (unless you are living way beyond your means) then you should be able to afford to do so. If you want to get an idea of the thresholds, then there's a calculator here www.studentfinance.direct.gov.uk/portal/page?_pageid=153,4680136&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

Grants and bursaries never have to be repaid, and loans are only repaid at a rate of 9% of any income earned over £21,000pa, so it's a very affordable rate, and are written off after 30 years anyway. Very few people will ever pay the whole loan off before it is written off - hence why it can be a very bad decision to pay upfront.

Am thinking more of ensuring my kids can speak another language enough to study in another country.

Dutch, some German and some Danish universitoes teach in English.

They apply for student finance in the country they are studying

Current details of finance for UK students studying in the Netherlands are at
studyinholland.co.uk/loans_and_grants.html

The Study in Holland site is a very useful one.

Loans for course fees are available in the EU - remember that the repayment arrangements will vary from country to country, and possibly from region to region.

However, in my view it's financing living costs that's the real problem.

Yes they are but you can't get a tuition or maintenance loan so have to pay up front. Students going to a UK university don't have to pay anything back until they are earning £21K

Thanks everyone.

Re living costs - they still have to be financed in the UK. So that means another loan or giving the children an allowance. I suppose many European countries are expensive but students often seem good at living on a pittance.

I think the loan is a great weight on young people. I retrained recently and it will take me six years to pay off the student loan and that was only £8k. Not even a year's tuition.

Maybe I'm generalising from my own experience - free education and a full grant in the '80s - but it does seem hard on young people.

We have paid a lot for our DDs uni but that is paying their rent, all in first year and most in 2nd and 3rd year. They paid everything else out of the maintenance loan and part time jobs. I would have rather they finished uni debt free but no way would we have been able to give them more than we did. We have just stooped paying DD2's rent as she has just finished uni. So students in the UK don't have to fund anything up front but they finish with a huge debt that could be with then for most of their lives.

Student loans are wiped out after 30 years if they haven't been repaid.

The repayments are quite low and only kick in once their salary reaches £21k pa.

Their mortgage offers will be based on their salaries less the annual repayments, rather than reduced by the amount of loan outstanding.

Anyone that studies in the EU is entitled to the identical fees and loans or grants of students native to the country they study in - and vice versa (so EU students studying here can access the same loans UK students can).

Yep if you got a grant, fees paid, housing benefit etc it takes some getting used to, but it's not all doom and gloom and I hope anyone with university ambitions isn't put off. The kids seem to accept it albeit grudgingly even if it sticks in our throats!

Oh and universities offer lots of financial help do check!

"Student loans are wiped out after 30 years if they haven't been repaid.

The repayments are quite low and only kick in once their salary reaches £21k pa.

Their mortgage offers will be based on their salaries less the annual repayments, rather than reduced by the amount of loan outstanding."

Well, yes, that's true now, today. What worries me is that in future banks may change their criteria for mortgages to include outgoings on student loans and the amount outstanding (and the amount you still owe goes up every single day by between RPI and RPI + 3%, depending on your salary). And governments may change the rules on salary threshold and wiping out the debt - they can change pension schemes and tax rates, there's no reason why they can't change the conditions on student loans.

And if your child's student loan doesn't cover all their outgoings and he/she has to borrow money (not all parents can afford to help and jobs aren't easy to come by), he/she will have to start repaying those overdrafts/loans straight after graduation, whatever his/her income.

True patty - but they can't change the rules in existence at the time the loan was taken out - only the rules for new applicants.

Are you sure about that, titchy? If the government of whatever time it is finds it's a bit short of cash (not that such a thing ever happens, of course...) couldn't it sell the loans on? In any case, there's a clause in the "small print" of the student loan contract stating that the terms and conditions can change at any time according to changes in legislation. Who changes the legislation? The government - i.e. the same body making the loan. 30 years is a long time..

One of my friends here (NL) is a student and when she started in September she was fluent in English & German - her course was in Dutch and she was fluent within about 6 weeks. Obviously having two other Germanic languages helps!

You don't need to speak Dutch to get a job here. My husband worked in an old people's home and now works in IKEA - both jobs were secured before he could speak Dutch.

She gets a student grant because she works 62 hours a month in a casino (no Dutch required) as a waitress. If you don't make your 62 hours that month you don't get the cash... but you will the next month. You also get free public transport as a student and if you're working you may be able to get an element of housing benefit and some money towards your compusory health insurance.

Be aware that universities in France are very cheap but also very patchy quality. That's because here in France there is a parallel system (called grandes écoles ) which creams off the top students and top teachers. A qualification from a grande écoleis very sought after, from a fac, not so much.

Added to which, the university / fac experience here is very different to the university system in the UK. For example, in the first year, basically anyone with a Baccan attend university so the first year is massively overcrowded. The selection takes place at the end of the first year. So the first year can be a complete cattle market with people who will never in a million years get a degree all registered at a fac.

Then there's the social side. Or rather, there is no social side. After Bac, young people tend to go to the fac closest to home and then return to their parents every weekend. It makes for a very soulless student campus.

Do your research on all areas, not just the financial side, is my advice!

To echo hottiebottie's post, I'm going to quote at some length from the "Critical Education" blog, as it mentions the legislation underpinning this.

"[Student loans from 2012/13] are not covered by the Consumer Credit Act and interest rates can be set at the discretion of the relevant Secretary of State using secondary instruments, as can the other details of the scheme, such as the repayment threshold (and percentage determining level of repayment). Although the current government has stated its intention to set real rates of interest (ie above inflation) it has given itself powers to set rates much higher than that.

The 2011 Education Act, which received Royal Assent last November, Education Act now allows governments to set up to market rates of interest on student loans using statutory instruments (rates must be ?lower than those prevailing on the market, or no higher than those prevailing on the market, where the other terms on which such loans are provided are more favourable to borrowers than those prevailing on the market.?)
Having recognised this lack of statutory and legal protection, what do the terms and conditions of the student loan agreements say?

The clause that currently appears in the 2012/13 ?STUDENT LOANS ? A GUIDE TO TERMS AND CONDITIONS? allows future administrations great leeway to change terms and conditions.

?You must agree to repay your loan in line with the regulations that apply at the time the repayments are due and as they are amended. The regulations may be replaced by later regulations.? (p. 8)"

I've just gained a bachelor's degree from a Belgium university, from the top university for its subject. It cost about less then 2000 euros in total.

The downside is that you need to be fluent in flemish first.

Most Master's degrees (but not all) are in english.

NKF I just looked at the costs of studying in germany and indeed it is about 600 Euro, plus a few other things on top, per semester....
however in germany you would be very likely to be expected to be fluent in german first, as teaching will be in german language.