My son failed his university degree

[SHMumindespair]

I feel at a loss. Could I have done more? I was supposed and looking forward to a university graduation when my son sends a message that he will.jot tet a degree. He filed too many times. 4vyears. £70000 debt and no degree. Future ruined. I am.just at a loss and just crying, feeling a mix of anger, disappointment, responsibility.... I could go on but feel like a failure myself as a mother.

I'd also be disappointed and cross that he hadn't shared his difficulties with his parents.

It's all well and good saying he's an adult and it's his problem but I bet his parents have been shelling out money to help him, as well as his student debt.

I know someone who had been on a four year piss up, basically, and understandably his parents were raging.

It’s normal amount for an English student now.
Fees are 9250 x 4 so £37000.
Maintenance loan outside London is max £10,227 a year if parents are on low income or min £4767 if parents earn over £65000 between them.
In London loan is £13348 a year.
In lots of areas accommodation is more than loan so they don’t actually see any of the money they borrow - fees straight to uni and maintenance loan all goes to uni for accommodation. Work to fund living costs.

It sounds like possible mental health issues.
A friend’s son had got himself in a pickle over Covid. Gone from 2.1 to not doing work or attending lectures due to mh. He was in such a mess he couldn’t even open emails from uni. He pretended he had an extension to explain none graduation to parents.
In end a family friend intervened, got authority in writing to speak to uni and spoke to tutor/appeals and sorted it.
He only needed to do one written assessment and one piece of work which he did with support and graduated. His grade was capped but he still graduated just 6 months late.
He thought he’d messed everything up and it had blown up into a massive issue. A trusted family friend helped unpick it all.

Wow, @Investinmyself.

I have a feeling that the repayment requirements may change in the future if students are now borrowing that amount of money. It’s not sustainable if many don’t repay it.

Mine’s about to go.
I’m on a parents group on facebook and so many had no idea of costs and wish there had been a heads up earlier.
Threshold to get full loan hasn’t changed for years and price of accommodation is astronomical in lots of areas.
We are expected to top up dc £5500 a year from net.
We seem to have stumbled into a situation where there’s a need to save for uni from kids being young but it hasn’t made its way into popular culture yet - in USA they joke in tv shows about college funds etc.

I’m on a parents group on facebook

WIWIKAU?

We seem to have stumbled into a situation where there’s a need to save for uni from kids being young but it hasn’t made its way into popular culture yet - in USA they joke in tv shows about college funds etc

It's been the expectation for ever. Parents having to support their kids through uni is not new. Though agree there is a lack of knowledge about this in the way that there just isn't in the US.

@BruFord - it's far cheaper to the Gov actually - preciously they paid the fees! So it's very sustainable.

I agree, my parents paid all living costs for me in the early nineties as it was means tested then, it's nothing new! At least now you CAN borrow part of the costs if you want to, we didn't even have that choice then.

I too read the debt as 7,000 (and not that serious)

there wasn’t an apostrophe- Seventy grand?
spaffed up the wall.

I thought it was impossible to fail
degrees?

@oakleaffy it's relatively unusual (although certainly not impossible) to fail a degree by doing badly - if you hand in all your coursework and attend all your exams but don't do very well in them you'll probably end up with a a 3rd. But if you don't hand in coursework and/or don't come to exams, it's very possible to fail. You may be given some re-sit opportunities but eventually you'll run out of chances.

@titchy True, I had no real idea of what my degree actually cost the government in the 1990’s. My parents contributed and I worked in the holidays but it was nothing compared with today’s fees.

Here in the US, people start saving when their children are babies!

Yeah and at the university I worked at, exclusion usually follows failure over several semesters.

Yes

I’m a 90s uni goer. No fees and yes my parents helped towards my maintenance (they both worked so no grant) but I earned £130 a week in a factory in hols and my fully catered halls were only £58 a week. I only worked in hols. Husband - his Mum didn’t work and they disregarded his step dads income (complete opposite to now) and he got a full none repayable grant.
Lots of parents assume their dc can get loans to cover accommodation and living costs.

@SHMumindespair a friend of mine at a RG university failed. she went off and got cleaning jobs and did an OU degree that has propelled her into a high ranking job at a children's charity. Some people just develop later, find their passions after this sort of thing. do not despair.

Same with my DS, drpped out in second year at 28 is earning 50k and now halfway through an apprenticeship degree.

If you don't mind answering, what does he do. Also @AnonKat what ti you do?

How did you/he get these jobs with no degree?

@HucklefinBerry worked on Curry’s tech desk first.
Then started as IT apprentice in a local business. When the IT manager left, he stepped up.

The Govt has debt of £250 billion in outstanding student loans. They pay interest on this. The IFS has the best detail on this. So the taxpayer still pays, in effect.

I think parents who don’t think about uni costs must be hermits. How can they not even think about it? There’s been a lot of publicity. I think the Govt should give details to all parents at the start of secondary school, at the latest. Yes, policy could change but it’s never going to go back to no fees. It should be law to have it on a secondary school web site. As other info is.

Folk lore has grown up about parents paying nothing. Having worked in grants and awards for a LA, parents always were assessed for a contribution. Many ordinary working parents paid towards maintenance. DH’s did in the early 70s.

@TizerorFizz you see it all the time on the "shall I have a third/fourth/fifth/even more children threads" - usually from parents of primary and pre-school aged children. The thought of supporting them through university hasn't even crossed their minds.

I think people know they have to pay but it’s still mentally in the bag of shopping territory not thousands a year expected.
My colleagues were shocked when I told them eg one has children close in age so she’d be expected to pay £11,000 a year minimum.
I’ve seen countless posts where parents don’t consider themselves really high earners on £30,000 a year but it’s enough to only get child min loan or I’m a single mum why isn’t he getting full loan, the mum must earn under £25,000 cut off for full loan hasn’t changed for years.
There was a thread last year on aibu where a girl was being berated for cost of halls (her grandparents were paying) spoilt princess type comments as though she had chosen a mansion. I shared a slide from ucl open day showing cost of uni halls and people were disbelieving- a week? What about food?
Lots of parents still think loan will cover accommodation in uni provided halls.

I’ve been saving for DD and her education / future since she was a baby. Even before then as I had to save to have 6 months maternity leave. I saw another thread about a parent considering how to downplay their income so their YP could get a higher loan,

I know some don’t have any choice but never would I voluntarily saddle my YP with more debt if I could contribute and no, despite ‘Martin Lewis says’ I do not see it as a student tax. It is so depressing so many expect a YP never to earn enough to even touch the sides of their student loan debt.

I know I'm sticking my head above the parapet here. But what's happened with the OP's son, I think, is a strong example of why we don't need 50 to 60% of people to go to university. Too many students/young people are failing - or just not doing very well at their degree, or even if they do OK, they can't get a job relating to the degree when they leave university. Even though the OP's son is probably quite intelligent, it looks like he probably should not have gone to university.

The OP's son has done Physics I gather? Well I love physics and science and have quite an interest in it. Doesn't mean I could do a degree in it. (And pass!)

When my daughter left school 15 years ago, I would say a good two thirds of the students were practically bullied into going university, including my daughter. She wasn't that bothered about going, even thought she is book smart/academically good, but she went because her teachers encouraged her.

Fortunately, she did very well and ended up getting a 2:1 and is now in a £60K a year job aged 30-ish, and has got a very good life. But some people who went with her, are in low paid, zero-hours-contract jobs now. Also, she's had a few jobs, especially in the first 8 or so years of work, where she was working next to people who had 3 GCSES and nothing more, and were on the same pay scale as her! Yet THEY don't have around £50,000 of debt hanging over them!

DD has paid quite a bit off it as she is a high earner, but she still has quite a way to go to pay it all off.

A large percentage of people aren't going to be able to get a job related to their degree, because there are not enough available. So many people going to university, is why we're running out of tradies. Plumbers, electricians, brickies, carpenters, mechanics, and just general blue collar workers - because too many people feel that they have to go to university.

To be honest, I reckon less than a quarter of people at university should really be there. We need to forget what Tony Blair told us (that 50% of people should go to university!) and just have the top 10 or 15% cream of the crop academically.

I know a number of young people in my village and local town who never went to university who are doing really well. Ditto my DD's husband. On a similar wage to her, and he only did GCSEs and 3 A levels. And 2 of the A levels were C and D! He did an apprenticeship - working for a Government body, and is still there, 15 years later.

Some people just don't need to go to university and will still do well in life. University really is only for a small percentage of people. Not everyone is really academically bright. And that is OK. That's not a criticism. A lot of people are very skilled with their hands and do practical things well.

Many people will do OK in ordinary 'unskilled labour' jobs. There are plenty available ... As I say, a lot of people don't need to go to university, and some should NOT go. It needs to drop down to about 15%.. The amount of debt some young people are in now with their student debt is sickening. It was a TERRIBLE idea from the government for 50% of people to go to university! The debt the country has now - because of this - is horrific.

I agree, the most successful of my DC (28 and 26) friends have been those who got apprenticeships upon leaving school.
My DD 26 is a health professional and did well at uni and is now NHS band 6 in outer london so earning well.
My DS as I said above dropped out of uni in the second year. He got a temp job on the packing line, they encouraged him to apply for permanent job in another department. He has really found his niche and now halfway through an apprenticeship degree with them.
He does not regret his time at Uni, just when he sees the extra 9% disappear from his bonus!

That's lovely for your son! Sounds like he is doing very well for himself. 😃