Minimum Maintenance Loan but we just cant afford the shortfall!

[JufusMum]

Hi all - looking for some advice. Because of DH salary we just about fall into the bracket where DD will get the minimum maintenance load (about £4300). The fact is that doesn't even cover her rent let alone food and travel, so we are wondering what we do? I understand parental contribution but with our bills, even though DH has a decent salary I only earn a very small amount and I am not sure where this extra £4-5k a year is going to spring from. I am considering weekend/evening jobs and looking at scholarships/bursaries but most are means tested. How do "middle earners" cope?

@Xenia nobody on the new student loan system will be putting their own children through university yet, unless they were already parents during the course.
I was the last year before fees (on the old SLC loans) and had my son within months of graduating, and he's only just 18 now.

I don't know anyone with kids at uni who don't still buy their clothes and shoes ,well,the basics at least
I had two at uni at the same time and they got about £5k each in loans which we made up to the maximum. After that I didn't pay for their clothes, phone (amazing how many parents pay for expensive contract phones), travel or anything else.
I did save money at home as well. My electricity and grocery bills plummeted.

"You still never pay anuythig back (other than now you do pay back if you earn over £25k - lots of people will never pay a penny back so it is a gift from hard working tax paying UK citizens which is now granted to 50% not the 1979 15% of tax payers)."

It is interesting - I think there is an argument that much of the taxpayers' funding of the students is going to pay for an expanded private rental sector (both halls and private landlord owned houses). Obviously the students get the benefit of living there as well! But economically, the tax payer is funding rents to landlords, via loans which may never be repaid (although most students will repay something - it is partly the interest which means capital won't all be repaid).

"as now if my parents had not paid it up to the £900 maximum I would have been high and dry although might have been able to earn in the holidays." [in 1979]

You would also, I think, have been able to claim supplementary benefit in the summer holidays if not working - not means tested by your parents income as far as I remember.

I think student eligibility for sb in the summer was removed in the early 1980s?

Where in the country is she studying? If in London or the South East she needs to choose somewhere where rent is cheaper!

Only in Tory Britain would someone who became a lawyer purely for the money and put 5 children through private school and university expect sympathy for having to pay a decent whack in tax (although I’m sure they aren’t solely on PAYE).

Would warm the cockles of Jacob Rhys-Mogg right up.

Chuck another urchin on the fire, won’t you?

itsall, that might well be right on supplementary benefit although I expect it had a no savings rules where if you had any you didn't get the benefit. I tended to work at least a month in a children's holiday camp in the UK which was not high pay but they paid your train costs there and gave you food and board whilst working there.

On the landlord point i was recently scanning my diaries from the 1980s and I noticed the rent I paid to Manchester University owned accommodation was much higher today (same accommodation - same university) than then.

This is intereting looking things up now they are scanned - 1980/81 academic year - it says "Full grant £1430, minimum grant £385" (may be the 900 full £509 minimum was 1979). The LEA grant typed sheet says

"Parental Contribution: it is often brought to the attention of the Authority that a number of parents do not make their full contribution towards maintenance where a parental contribution towards maintenance is assessed.

Where this happens students may well suffer considerable hardship and their work suffer as a result.. It is therefore important that parents accept responsibility for making up their son's or daughter's award to the full amount".

(My uncle's parents, my grandparents, paid Durham university £9000 in today's money for his medical school fees in 1936 - same fees Durham charges today just about ! It was so expensive my father, the youngest child born when his father was 49 could only do a 3 year degree - physics although then did 5 years medicine after as my mother supported him from her teachers' wages for years and may be grants came out in the 1940s too)

OP I sympathise. The uni years are difficult for middle earners. Looking back to when my children were small, the fact that contributions would be expected from parents for a university education, let alone the likely sums involved, were never publicised. This is still pretty much the case. You have to go looking for the information, which discriminates against families with no previous experience of higher education.

I feel that it is so wrong to means test any person aged over 18 by their parents’ income, it infantilises them. They are treated as an independent adult in every other respect so it is not surprising that you did not realise that your income would affect their education, the mantra has been ‘everyone can afford to go to university which isn’t true for children of unsupportive middle or high earning parents.

However we are stuck with the current system. We felt strongly that our children should receive the same amount to live on as those on a full loan and see it as our duty to make up the shortfall. They are expected to pay for everything out of this but get free board and lodging in the holidays. If they want a more extravagant lifestyle they work for it in the holidays. A gap year would also allow your DC to save a nest egg and probably be a great experience.

Assuming you feel it is right to do the same, in your situation I would look at a budgeting site e.g. money saving expert and go through all of your finances. It is amazing how much you can save by looking at where each £ goes, switching utilities, cancelling old subscriptions etc.

Check your tax re the car and fuel and look at more cost effective options, it sounds as though significant savings could be made there.

Encourage your DC to study a 3 year course. Some are 4, 5 or 6 years long!

A good education really is the greatest gift you can give your DC . It will be worth the sacrifices.

"I feel that it is so wrong to means test any person aged over 18 by their parents’ income, it infantilises them. They are treated as an independent adult in every other respect"

I agree that it doesn't make logical sense to means test an adult on parental income - though it is not a new thing at all. As other pp have said, there was certainly a threshold for parental contribution in 1970s and 80s. But also true to say that this seems not to be widely known! Also the issue that non resident parent income is disregarded, while income of a non-parent cohabiting with the resident parent (iyswim!) income will be taken into account. There are occasionally mn threads about the effect of this - in effect the adult student may be means tested on a non-parent's income.

It needs to be publicised more that there is this shortfall to make up for many parents and how much it is. From memory the hbighest full loan in London for those on low incomes is about £11k and £8k elsewhere roughly and the minimum loan for middle earner parents is more like £4k for outside of London so a big shortfall.

It should be something parents are told when they children start secondary school at age 11 that if your child may go to university and you earn X then it might be a good idea to spend 6 years setting aside money for that.

My daughter is 9. She first mentioned wanting to be a pilot aged 2. We’ve been saving since in case she needs the £100k training fee for the commercial route rather than the (free) RAF route.

Get her to transfer onto the police PCDA so she gets paid to train AND gets her degree. No brainer it is a brilliant scheme

autumnglitterball
Probably missing the point here but what police force does she want to apply for that requires a degree? None of biggest forces in the UK - the Met, GMP and Police Scotland - ask for a degree. PS and GMP don’t ask for any formal qualifications and the Met only specifies an English GCSE.

All new police officers in England and Wales will have to be educated to degree level from 2020, the College of Policing has announced. ... Prospective officers can either complete a three-year "degree apprenticeship", a postgraduate conversion course or a degree.

So there you have it. As I mentioned before, a degree apprenticeship is something we have been advised against.

She's mad to struggle for 3 yrs and get in all that debt to do something with only one job outcome when they pay for it now.

Why would you be advised against the PCDA? It is absolutely brilliant and you get paid throughout. I have first hand experience btw. I'm too old to do that route but I would totally 'if I had my time again'

Pm me if you want to talk it through. I can also suggest some excellent online support (free) she can access

To be honest I’d go for the degree apprenticeship scheme the forces are doing at the moment. What isn’t there to like about it? Paid to study and get a degree out of at the end and no debt?? No brainer!!!

Juanmorebeer
We have been advised against it by more than one university and by DD's careers officer. It has a high drop out rate due to the long working hours required by the police and the study on top.
Because DH and I did not go to university we would also like her to have that experience, you spend a long time working and I have been working since the age of 16 and frankly I'm knackered.
She's a young summer baby too so she would literally not even be 18 when she finishes A-levels and I think it would be too much, too soon.
I appreciate everyones kind comments and advice of where we could save money to assist DD with her university journey. If I have to take on 2 or 3 extra jobs then I will do it, and our one holiday a year (one week) will go. It's the sacrifices we have to make and for a good reason.
Thankfully one of her choices has very very cheap rent so the rent would come in just slightly under the minimum loan so I will be encouraging her to go there ha!

I agree that one solution is to be rid of the work car and just buy an old banger instead.

OP has said this isn't possible and I can believe that. In some jobs turning up in a 15-year-old hatchback just isn't going to fly, especially if you're travelling to clients or business partners or suchlike. If the company is inflexible and won't offer a car allowance or any fuel-efficient vehicles then there's not much that can be done.

If she is put off by the long hours then policing maybe not the right career choice for her?

The problem is if she does 3 years doing the degree then waits for a recruitment window to open with her chosen force then applies she could be waiting a further 2 years after graduating to be in work! The process is LONG. What would she do in this time? Because degree is so specific she wont be qualified for anything else during this huge gap.

With the PCDA she will be a fully operational PC, in secure job, paying into the pension etc from the start. So much better for future security.

It seems if she is decided on policing (must be as doing that degree?) then she will be at a massive disadvantage by doing a 3 yr degree and not even being paid to train.

I think because it is brand new some people advise against it purely on the basis they know nothing about it. There are not many ways you can get a paif for degree these days (not to mention being paid 20 odd k while ypu do it) I think she should seriously consider it

The PCDA students just started with my force are in uni 1 day and on shift / on the job training for the equivalent of 4 days. Workload seems totally fine

Have you fully looked at the cost of getting a car for Dd. My dd passed her test last year at 18 and insurance is astronomical. She looked in to taking car to university but it was going to cost £700 a year to park. She did a Gap year in order to save and is working in the holidays although not during term time.

Actually I think she should look again at the apprenticeship. Of course the university is going to tell you it's a bad idea - they want her fee income.

Particularly as you say she will be a special (hence the need for the car) while at uni - so studying FT and volunteering. I doubt the workload would be any less this way.

And frankly degree apprenticeships for the police are very new - I doubt the first cohort will finish for another couple of years, so the careers advisor really cannot speak with any knowledge.

Juanmorebeer
The degree students who have just graduated in the two top uni's of her choice have all (bar three at USW) been immediately recruited into the local constabulary in the area where the university is.
That's good enough for me tbh. She doesn't intend to come home after university.
She has only looked at uni's in the North/Wales due to living costs. She is already taking her Level 1 Welsh online in case she ends up at Wrexham Glyndwr as I understand it is a requirement for North Wales Police.
We currently live near Milton Keynes and it's way too expensive to buy property here so she has no intention of staying.