can dd self fund uni? or am i living in cloud cuckoo land?

[NoahVale]

We are skint.
I understand there is a student loan for fees and now a student loan for living.
I understand we may well be expected to provide £1000 a year towards her, a link looking at martin's money

anyone experience for poverty stricken parents

NewLife there is no way most DC could or indeed should work full time while studying.

If it's a decent course it should require many hours of study.

No young person needs to be essentially self sufficient from 16 in order to be 'good with money'. Most manage that perfectly well at a later stage in their lives.

Eric.

of course many manage perfectly well when older, but many don't too.
my dc don't/didn't want years of debt so paid there own fees through working.
My dc have no alternative but to fund themselves, we cn't afford to do it for them.
They work or don't go to uni, it's that simple.
I'm not saying it's ideal but the OP asked so was giving my experience.
Mine had to stay local to enable them to work alongside their studies and didn't go to RG uni's as they needed to work.
Hopefully dd will have money and maybe a sponsorship/ investors when it is her time.

With all due respect Eustace that's a barking mad plan. You have no idea of the financial situation your children will find themselves in. At the very least they'll have their own children to support, you could need 20+ years of care, you may become estranged from them, they may go through bastard divorces which wipes them clean financially (your divorce wasn't exactly cheap...), their children may have needs which require expensive care themselves. Given you are ridiculously well off it seems incredibly short sighted of you - shockingly so in fact. Anyhow massive derail.....

We have enough money to have paid our children through university but we haven't, and not just because the loans are cheap money. It is because we want them to take responsibility for themselves, and to appreciate the importance of budgeting. We have subsidised them enough that they don't struggle (basically we pay the rent, a very common arrangement) but if they want anything more they have to, and do work. In time we may pay the loans off or buy them property, my husband is dead set against that but I am seeing the latter particularly happening more and more. It will go to them eventually anyway so I am not convinced making them join the struggling millennials scraping by in student standard accommodation all through their twenties has much merit but they don't know that.

The effect this all has on equality of opportunity is another matter and another debate. Someone voted for this lot and landed us with this unfair situation.

Eustace

i totally agree with your philosophy tbh, and don't find it barking mad.
Especially the bit about working until you die and the pension fiasco.

I haven't read the entire thread, only bits and pieces so I apologise if I'm repeating anything.
I'm about to head off to university and it sounds like you're DD is in a pretty similar situation as me concerning finances.

I live in Scotland, luckily SAAS pay my tuition fees so I don't have any advice regarding that I'm afraid :( My student loan and bursary will cover my accommodation fees and nothing else so I'm left with no option but to get a job. I'm currently at college, I work roughly 14 hours per week which adds up to roughly £400 per month. I plan on getting a part time job when I move away with roughly the same hours, the wage will be what I live on in terms of food, social activities and any other necessities. This doesn't bother me really, I think having a part time job during university is actually a really good thing and I'd encourage her to get a job between 10 - 20 hours which can subsidise some of her costs.
Speak to each university she's applying to, more than often they'll have grants and bursaries students with parents on low incomes are eligible for.
Between now and when she starts university is there anyway she could save up some money which could act as a nest egg? That's what I'm doing at the moment and I should have roughly £1000 saved by the time start. She could always get a part time or full time job during summer to save up. I've also been saving up coppers and 5p coins in a jar. It might end up only adding up to £50 but £50 could be a pretty hefty food shop.

My mum isn't supporting me financially and honestly, I wouldn't expect or want her to. I know if I was ever really desperate she would help me out but I'd never ask her to send me a weekly allowance or anything like that. However, I am about to turn 21 so maybe I'd feel differently and so would she if I was 18.

I got the full amount of loans as my family had a low income. The day I left home to go to uni my mum handed me a tenner and wished me well. That was the only contribution my family ever made (no sending me online shopping, no train tickets home etc)

I already had retail experience as I'd worked through my A-levels, so I got a shop job easily. My course had 12 hours a week contact time and I worked between 16 and 40 hours a week for the whole of my degree (16 hours term time, 40 hours through all holidays so I couldn't visit my family because I needed to be at work) and got a first.

But, I lived in the cheapest (and nastiest) halls and flats I could find (I now dine out on the horror stories!), I ate very little but baked beans, pasta and tinned tomatoes. I didn't have a TV, I had a pay-as-you-go mobile that I put £5 every 3 months on, just to keep it in service. I bought my clothes from charity shops, and even then I only bought what I really needed. I could only afford to go to the Students' Union bar once a week, and never went to the club nights - so it was difficult to make friends (I ended up running a student society so that I could socialise) But it was an amazing 3 years, I would never regret doing it even though living so frugally was very hard.

(Dying with no assets means the chdlren get the money and not the wicked state. If that means I need to hope one of the five children will support me if my business ceases to and I cannot rent out rooms on airbnb or fund my care home when the time comes (I expect to work until I am about 80 at least so that gives me a lot of time to earn a huge amount of money ). I won't be estranged from all 5 children. We all get on very well. I cannot really see how my relationships with all 5 would go so badly that they couldn't spare me a room in theiir houses given the money they will have hade from me towards those houses never mind their private education, lack of student debt etc.)

I think I have same philosophy as you too Eustace I'm hoping that my children will help us out if we ever got into the situation of having no money for care when we are oap's, but in the meantime I'm also going to be working till I'm 80 and will be doing my best not to have to ask kids for help. But I'm secretly hoping that they won't wheel me in a home but might build or move me into their house with a granny annexe, will sell our home to finance it if need be. If not we hire a live in helper. Don't want to go in a home. My kids will get financial support from us with deposits towards their homes etc.. We have a good relationship and are very close. My private pension is crap (self employed too).
OP alot of universities particularly RG ones, they give out bursaries about £2k-3k per year to low income families I think below £25k. It is automatically triggered by student loans company who will pass on the info to the uni if your eligible so no need to apply. They get 3 equal installments. Some of DD friends at different uni's have them.

thanks coffee, i didnt know that

I very much agree with Eustace: far better to spend one's money on one's DC upfront rather than leaving a large inheritance and seeing much of it eaten up by the taxman. My parents both died in the past year and I feel angry at the tax bill and resentful that they didn't plan better.

My parents did exactly that for my Grandmother, it was not a happy experience for any of them as she descended into dementia, she manipulated them over a ten year period, a lonely and bored lady in a sort of second toddlerhood. The last two years of her life in a home were the best for all of them, she held court and lived up to being an eccentric character at the centre of attention, they revisited their love for her. Perhaps if one of them had given up work but do you want that for your children? You cannot know what the future holds, especially as we are going to be part of a huge grey burden for their generation. We both paid our own way through uni, paid for our own wedding and homes, and have worked hard to build up what we have, including sacrificing gratification now to make sure we invest for the future and already joke that the minute we get annoying they should put us in a home they are probably working on it now . I know we are lucky we had the opportunities but at the same time we want our children to have the same values. So we will continue to take responsibility for our destiny whatever it may be, and expect them to do the same, whilst appreciating it is so much harder for their generation so they do not need any greater burden. Frankly I have so many friends struggling with the challenges of Septagenarian and Octagenarian parents financial resources aside that I can't imagine planning to be anything other than as small a burden as possible

ron you make a good point there. I wouldn't want my kids to feel I was a cause of inconvenience in their life if we had a debilitating illness and placing obligation on them to care for us. I couldnt burden them with the responsibility. But I really don't want to go to a home if im still of sound mind. So many oap's we know give up the will to live when they end up in care homes it so sad. I would rather pay a live in carer if that was the case then pay the massive care home fees. It's a good debate though, thought provoking its made me think realistically of what to expect. DH says I shouldn't be fretting too much about old age as he thinks by the time we get to 80 in 40 years time so much will have changed, advancement in technology will see humanoid robots looking after us when we are old .

Families organise it the way that suits them. I't pretty likely I could afford my own live in carer. My father went down that route and both he and my mother died at home.

I am certainly not telling women to give up work and not save for old age of course. Women need to get better at financial matters. It is just in my situation and number of children etc I think it will work fine. It is most likely I will still be working for myself when I'm 80+ and unlikely I will need a huge amount of care and if I do I should be able to afford it anyway but I certainly want the children to have 100% of my capital at least 7 years before I die although the state might well choose to confiscate all capital and houses by then - who knows?

NoahVale - I haven't read the whole thread.

It is worth checking to see what kind of bursaries or scholarships may be available, as these often go unclaimed if no one thinks to look for them.

If she goes to university in a cheaper part of the country (i.e. one of the northern cities) then self-funding will be much more feasible as her rent will be a lot cheaper. That said, if she is smart enough to get into somewhere like Oxford or Cambridge then she should not be dissuaded in favour of going somewhere with cheaper living costs. That would be a false economy.

I don't know what stage your DD is at but I would really suggest that you let her live at home for a year after she finishes school, work full-time and save as much money as possible. Working in the university holidays is also a good plan. If she gets a decent job for a year before she goes, she may well be able to go back and work there in the holidays. (That's what I did.) I wouldn't recommend that she does a part-time job during term time if she can possibly avoid it, because it could affect her studies. But obviously some people have no choice and have to make it work.

While she is still living at home, teach her to budget properly. She needs to be able to understand how much money she has in her bank account, what she will have to spend on unavoidable costs, how much is left after that, how long it needs to last her, and so how much she can spend each week. Also, make sure that she can cook. Being able to cook cheap, healthy meals from scratch will save her a lot of money compared to buying pre-prepared meals or getting takeaways.

Maybe look at a sandwich degree? Brunel University does this and I am sure there are others. You study part time and work and are paid part time. Take on a bar job in the evening and a full time job in the Summer vacation and it is pretty doable.

Also can she go to uni near you and still live at home? Might not be what she wants but that is where lots of young people are ending up.

thanks. am encouraging her to work in the holidays, thanks to this thread.

I'm with Eustace and don't find any of that barking mad. It makes a great deal of sense.

Except that you're not distributing all your capital now, which could be a flaw.

Dd has to work for the shortfall (weekend and hols). She gets some loans and a small bursary and partial grant. She could manage without but leads a party lifestyle and has top iphones etc so seems to be doing OK.

We are in the bracket where we aren't well off enough to help much due to living expenses and younger DC. However we buy bits of food and have lent small amounts when DD has run out for travel (she spent first terms money in one month).

The big advantage for us in funding ds is that it doesn't count for IHT, so we can support him through university and not have to worry about surviving 7 years as we would if we gifted money for a house deposit.

I wasn't happy about the interest rate on the loans, or the fact that the rules on repayment or the interest rate could be changed, so we look at it as him having some of his inheritance early, as he is an only.

But some students will not pay much of the loan back. Our children will get money from us but not money up front for uni tuition and living expenses. That is total madness. Their inheritance will be for things they cannot take out a very cheap loan for! Why would gifting money for a house deposit (presumably in a few years) affect the 7 year rule? Are you very elderly parents?

Yep, check out bursaries, they can be generous at around 3k non repayable which is a great help.

Both my dds are away at Uni both RG. I am a single mum on a ok wage both girls have got mainitance on top and have applied and got burserys as I was not in a position to help torwards living costs. But I have helped with shopping and tickets home. Both DDs have part time jobs but they like travelling so that's to fund that. They both manage to work and juggle uni well. You only can do what you can. This is still their home and I need to make sure my rent and bills are paid so they have a home to come back too.

DS is in 3rd year of mech eng degree.We have 3 other DC and a family income of about £30k.
DS on top of his loan and grant he gets £3k a year bursary from the Uni (I think this is standard). Over the time he has been at Uni he has amassed a nest egg of about £10k and has only worked one summer holiday.
DS2 is hoping to go to Cambrisge and will get £4.5k bursary on top of his loan .
I would say with both DSs courses working in termtime would have been impossible.