It's normal to have a student loan isn't it?

[elliejjtiny]

Dc1 and dc2 have student loans as we did at university and most of my friends did. I think there was one girl whose parents paid for everything and then bought her a flat at the end of university but she was the only one. We visit them, take them out for dinner and do a food shop. I've found out a relative has saved enough money for their children to go to university without having to pay anything and then enough for a house deposit. The dc aren't even teenagers yet. That's not normal is it?

Mine is taking his tuition fee loan, and I’ll be paying it back in full before he finishes. He is just taking it for my cashflow, it allows me to finish paying a loan I have, before moving that payment towards his tuition.

If you can help them avoid the loans then you should, but I don’t think it’s a huge issue if they have one.

It's not typical now, but I actually think it will become more so in the future. The furore over student loan debt, Type-2 loans, mis-selling, etc, means - I think - that more parents are going to start planning for University costs from birth or earlier. I suspect we'll move towards a US-type system where tax-deductible investment products will be available from birth, specifically for this purpose. At the moment, those who can go entirely loan free tend to be from wealthy families. Tuition fees aren't going anywhere, unfortunately, and loading the debt onto young people isn't sustainable. The increasing realisation of this, and a reduction in the graduate premium, means that fewer will go to University, but of those, more (I think) will have had parents who've been setting aside money for this purpose for multiple decades.

Depends what you consider to be a 'huge issue'. If your child is on track for a high-paying profession where they'll pay off the debt promptly, then yes, perhaps not. But I would consider a 9% effective additional income tax for the majority of their working lives to be an enormous issue.

We have paid DD’s and DS1’s uni fees and living expenses. When we were paying for childcare (until DS2 finished primary school) money was more tight but we were able to save it a bit in the 2 years between DS2 finishing primary and DD starting uni.

For those paying private school fees or a nanny - university isn’t any more - so it will be normal for some to manage this. Having enough for a house as well is something else.

GP paid for our DC tuition fees, we lent them the equivalent of the maintenance loan interest free (and paid their rent) and they are paying this back now they are working. So they were very lucky and never had student loans.

I know a range. Some do, some don't but ultimately uni is cheaper than many private schools.

Scotland here and government pay fees (lucky us!) so no loan for that. Dd didn't take out any other loans as we financed 1st year and she had summer jobs that financed subsequent years.

The majority of students take the loan. You'll get a skewed response on this board.