If you paid school fees, how do uni costs compare?

[Heatherbell1978]

Currently planning/budgeting for school fees for 2 DC. Both in state primary just now so this would be for secondary. Where I am fees currently around £14k a year. Yes, I've planned in annual fee rises which would look more like £26k a year by the time DD6 is in her final school year.
Assuming both go to Uni, we'll have paid off our mortgage before DD goes (she's only 6 atm) so that will make life easier but DS would be at Uni while still paying school fees for DD. So just wondering whether the amount you provided for Uni maintenance was less/same/more than school? Not talking Uni fees here, just rent etc

Depends on degree and work expectations. If you don’t think DC will pay much back, it’s far better to have the loan and save the money, if you have it up front. If you don’t have huge savings, DC should definitely take the loan. £25,000 is far better used for necessary expense later on if necessary. MSE has the relevant info.

DS has just finished year 1. We made up the minimum loan to the maximum amount and gave it to him to cover 10 months self-catering. That cost us less than half of year 13 school fees (up north and cheap!). We give a bit extra such as pay his phone & food shops when we see hm. He is working this summer to refill the coffers, pay for driving lessons and cover his social life.

Next year his rent alone is more than the maximum maintenance loan. We will haven't crunched the numbers yet but I suspect we will have to fund an additional £4k.

Think uni for us will be circa 2x DS school fees.

Thing is, if you are used to paying £30k a year school fees (not uncommon in the South even for day school) out of income it feels like a bargain to cover fees and maintenance which might add up to £15 - 20k a year. It just extends the financial obligation by a few years but allows kids to graduate debt free

Van Cleef, agree. Paying fees was quite a commitment for us, but we were used to it and able to carry on with no impact on our standard of living. Our 12 year old car is now our 19 year old car etc. The payback came recently when newly graduated DD started asking about savings. Though she won’t be earning that much she plans to put the money she would have been spending on loan repayments into an ISA. She still has a way to go before she knows where she will be living long term. Perhaps by paying her fees we will effectively have funded her house deposit.

I always struggle with Tizers argument about taking loans if you don’t expect to earn much. The difference is in world view. Are we strictly individuals or part of a society. I am happy to pay my taxes to pay for things the government needs to provide, like finance for students who need help. However we could afford to pay for DC so we did. Unconditional on their likely future earnings, which were never considered. They studied the subjects they wanted to study.

It’s not just my advice!!! It’s advice in general from any respected source. Ok if you’ve got money for houses and subsidizing Dc further, but student loans are the start of adult life. Most people on lower earnings get an amazing deal. Even if you’ve paid school fees, not everyone can afford to continue paying and some might even like to see Dc take responsibility for their learning and costs.

School fees cost us £1000pm so Uni will be less

Lots of English private schools are NFP too - DS's is. English Midlands.

Didn't cost us anything. (Other than the first couple of months rent they used their student loans My children got jobs as well

Tizer, no one is saying that it is not advantageous to an individual. If you don't plan to earn much it is essentially free money.

However there is a wider question. Politically I would prefer to see the state focus its money on people who really need it, and perhaps reduce tax for small businesses including start ups. Others prefer a wider state provision and higher taxes as they will see it as a route to greater equality.

We had paid school fees so could carry on without changing our lifestyle. It did mean that both we and DC had less spending money than peers, but hey our choice.

@Needmoresleep i couldn’t agree more. It wouldn’t sit right with me to have our kids accept taxpayers’ money when we could easily afford to pay it ourselves. Money raised by people who may not have had the opportunity or ability to go to university themselves in some cases.

Everyone has very different views about helping their kids / pushing independence even if high earners. I know ppl whose kids are at independent schools (full fees & undeniably well off) who refuse to even top up their DCs minimal loan so the DCs are encouraged to be ‘financially independent adults’. Their words not mine. The DC are taking gap year(s) to pay for the difference (one has had to decline medicine too). Each to their own. Wouldn’t be my choice.

I find it very hard to reconcile why wealthy parents wouldn’t pay both fees if they can afford it. It seems tight to think ‘oh well my kid won’t earn much so won’t pay it back, so rather than loaded me pay I’ll let the rest of society pay for my kid’. I also think every student should receive the full loan if they wish so there’s no topping up for the squeezed middle.

DD1 has paid off loan. We have no qualms whatsoever! DH paid huge tax bills every year. DDs had loans for the reasons above and there’s no guarantee in life about what job many students get . Mine didn’t do medicine or economics. They have had much more jeopardy regarding work. Most of their friends took loans too. We preferred to give them more for house deposits.

No one we know feels they owe the government even more. We didn’t take state education so released places in excellent state schools. DD 2 has a much lower income so everyone is happy with their choices. No guilt whatsoever. Yet more nasty attacks on our choices, which are perfectly normal, is not welcome. Thanks.

Tizer it is not an attack on your choice. It is a response to your statement:

It’s advice in general from any respected source.

On several threads it has been pointed out that the advice is from an accountant/individual perspective. There are lots of others factors behind an individuals decision making. You feel you pay more than enough tax and effectively are entitled to some back. I would like to see adult social care better funded, and so am happy not to dip into the Government pot. Both valid decisions. People also have wildly different attitudes to debt. It is of value to us that DC start life debt free, even if it meant us deferring expenditure on our house (not decorated for 35 years) and car. Others will feel they have paid school fees, and University is the time for them to have some spare money. (For example one friend and her husband used to savings from not paying fees to build their pension fund, a priority over their kids not having student loans.)

Paying for DC worked for us. Both were aware, without us saying, that the money they had meant that we were having to be frugal, so were frugal themselves. They may have made their own lunches and not bought coffees out, were careful with getting flat deposits back or using the coach rather than the train, but their friends did the same. Both are now saving, which means that at least some of their deposit will come from them. I also wonder whether everyone is being honest. DD was careful not to tell her friends that she did not have loans. My guess is that she is not the only one.

There is absolutely no problem if peopel take the loans. The very very ver few of us who chose to pay the fees and have students with no loans all do it for different reasons. I just wanted to copy what my poarents did - paid or private school fees from age 4 and university costs - they made the tiny minimum grant up to the full grant - same with helping where any of us did post grad too and then we were on our own. I had paid £1k fees (and rent) for my oldest children so even though the twins' fees were £9250 a year (and even higher for law post grad) I paid the fees to ensure in a sense equity with all the children and with what my parents did. I respect parents' views which are different. It is the nice thing about the UK - we can all have different views. My son's friend's mother just paid off his student loans from her 25% tax free pension lump sum as she

I know one of my sons mentioned he had no loan when at unikversity but he was in the hall with the highest % of private school pupils in the UK at one point and plenty of others also had no loans too but that is a very very rare situation from one unusual first year hall.

Currently pay about £22k for DD’s fees with a 10% scholarship. I pay about £8k a year for DS uni. We don’t pay fees and he has the basic loan. Uni much cheaper.

I’m just not bothered about my kids having the loan and fee debt. My husband get very strongly that they needed to make an investment in their own future despite being an incredibly high earner. They have very big house deposits waiting for them and I would far rather ring fence more money for those than pay fees and them not take a loan.

DD is talking about law school and training contracts are hard to come by. I’d rather cover fees for that or for an MBA or similar than an undergrad degree

Absolutely. Depends on the family and their earnings and their views. I have in some cases paid for law school by the way, and they have no student debts and all 5 own a house with my help so it was not choices between those 3 items. Lots (most) well off parents take a different view from me and want the child to feel invested in their own future by having the loans.

By the way Women's Hour on radio 4 yesterday had an item about student loans and particularly impact on women who are on maternity leave etc which was a good explanation of the various different loans over the years. I didn't hear all of it as it was just on in the car but it was interesting. Eg one lady was cross her husband from same university at same time repaid his older loan quicker than she did as she had had years at home with the children but now back at work still paying the loan but one expert correctly made the point that although the interest accrues whilst on maternity leave (unlike in Holland) it is still just the 9% of earnings over threshold you pay so in fact rather than women at home with children paying more they tend to pay less over all.

@Xenia That is exactly right. It’s a tax. It’s never about paying it off like a bank loan. A stay at home mim gets a holiday from the tax. But the tax doesn’t increase if she goes back part time. In fact she will probably then pay very little. I’m not sure why people cannot grasp this. It’s nearly always better for women to hedge their bets and take the loan.

Uni will be slightly less. At todays prices they could live comfortably on about £10-12 K a year in all Scottish Uni cities. That would allow them to share a flat in a decent area near the uni, pay their bills, have a social life , run a small second hand car and go on holiday in the summer.

Of course they will need less if they have a job at evenings / weekends / holidays.

Might be slightly lower in Dundee ,Stirling and Aberdeen and higher in Glasgow , Edinburgh and St Andrews where rents are very high.

Remember they will need to pay for their flat for 12 months a year - so many parents seem to think it will be 10 months.

Also depends how much of a loan they take from SAAS.

Of course lots of students live on much less than that. And some have parents who like them to flash the cash who have a great deal more.

This is my view as well. If we pay school fees (not there yet) it'll be a huge commitment for us and one we'd be glad to see the back of by the time Uni comes along. And we could do with piling as much money into pensions/ISAs in the run up to retirement as possible once school fees are out the way. I'm sure if we had more money we'd do more but I took out 4 student loans and then a postgrad loan back in the day. The former used entirely for travel (!) and the latter paid for a year of accommodation while I also worked to fund my masters year. I enjoyed the responsibility of having to sort myself out and the independence it gave me which has set me up well - my dad was very strict about how much support he was willing to provide me through Uni.

Appreciate times are harder now but I'm keen to create kids who are as financially independent as possible!

My dds boarded, first didn't go to uni...second in second yr now.
We pay her fees, her rent and maintenance as want her to finish debt free...it's still less than school fees !
But her school fees in the sixth form were £43k per yr once you add in extras, uniform, travel.home etc.
Uni is 9k in fees, 12k in rent and we give her £800 a month living money for 9 months of the year...she works in holidays for spending money then
We pay phone contract and car costs for her.
It's still less than school

Obviously it's a long way off, and it's not really what the thread is about, but I think assuming a 5% fee rise is too low for the moment. The 15% is likely a one off, but I wouldn't assume that fee rises will go back down to <5%.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. State school teachers in Scotland have just had a pretty decent pay settlement awarded by the government. In order to recruit the best teachers, in most private schools, wages at least have to keep pace with state (obviously this may not be the case for every private school). Staff wages are often the biggest cost for any school, so most schools will likely need fee increases to cover this.

2. Energy costs- schools aren't protected by the energy price cap, and energy costs are often the next biggest cost for schools after staffing. It's something that's difficult to cut down on too- you can't have kids learning in the cold and the dark (doubly so when they are fee paying). Some private schools are in older buildings which are harder to keep warm, and things like floodlights etc for sports pitches and so on can be very expensive to run. Although energy costs have gone down a bit, for now, this is definitely an issue that's been causing schools financial stress this year, and if costs stay high you'll likely see this reflected in future fee increases.

3. IT costs- Most (windows) schools are still on windows 10, but when support is withdrawn from this in 2024, schools will have to switch to windows 11 for security reasons. In some schools, this will mean investing in a lot of new IT infrastructure (which is all expensive).

It's also worth bearing in mind that costs of doing any building work or maintenance have also increased dramatically since covid, so if the school ever needs to do any serious maintenance, then, again, that will be pretty expensive.

15% is a lot for parents to suck up in one go, I think most schools would have tried to spread that a bit more, so I think it's safe to assume they aren't sitting on massive reserves. To be safe, I'd be budgeting for 10% increases for at least the next 2-3 years, and then review it.

Some parents are in careres where wages rise or have a young child with full time childcare which is more than one set of school fees or where one parent goes back to full time from part time work so school fee rises may not be quite such an issue for some in those situations.

On the other side of that coin however is that if people are silly enough to vote Labour at the next election who pay school fees Labour is unlikely to be kind to them as it has some pretty nasty plans to hammer the 500,000 parents who save the state so much money by in effect paying twice - tax plus school fees.

DD was always on a full scholarship but as she has ASD the plan is for her to go to uni as locally as possible. I’ll buy her a student house to cover the bills and the loan can be ‘free’ money she can invest for her future.

We’re paying school fees for DS3. I don’t think it’ll be affordable for him to study in the UK with the way fees are growing and loans /grants are changing. For him a European uni or a work-study placement might be better.