Husband unwilling to support son financially through university

[Lozza70]

Sorry quite long so good if you get through!

DS1 is quite academic and is about to enter Y13. He did well in GCSE’s with seven 9’s, three 7’s, distinction in further maths and an A in HPQ. He wants to persue vet med and is currently predicted A*.

The issue I have is that DH has stated he does not want to support him in university. He would get minimum maintenance loan so we would need to top up and if he is successful in going into vet med I know there would be little time for a part time job, though I know it is possible. I could support in topping up though I have recently been made redundant so would need to dip into savings.

Neither DH or I went to university and started work at 18 with both of us working our way up to senior positions. I think this is one of the things tainting my husbands view on this matter. Plus the decision from DS1 to get into vet med when up to last year he always talked of another career which he could access from 18 with an apprenticeship approach. DH thinks our son is not really committed and this is just a fad but he has done loads of work experience and is still sure this is what he wants to do. I have asked if he did another path at uni would he support but he is of the same view. Generally DH is not ‘tight’ with money spent on the family so this has come as a surprise.

I suppose I’m disappointed as I think we
should be proud DS1 has the ability to access uni and we should support that. Has anyone had a similar experience and how did it work out?

What a horrible man. Is he jealous?

@Lozza70 Look carefully at Cambridge. There are often bursaries. Short terms can make it cheaper than other universities.

This.
Your poor DS, is your DH jealous of his success?

@Owmyelbow He cannot manage without parental support! His rent will be more than the minimum loan. It’s impossible and DH should be ashamed. .

Vet med and part-time work don't mix at all - if your ds tries to work during term-time, he won't earn much, but what he will do is flunk his degree - or will be doing re-sits, if they are allowed. A friend's daughter tried to be 'independent' whilst doing her med degree and work in addition to SFE loans. She insisted she would work. She failed her year 1, had to resit exams, failed her year 2, had to resit exams, failed year 2 exams and had to redo the whole year and at the start of year 3 she was hauled in and told that if she has to resit year 3 exams and fails them, they won't allow her to repeat year 3 and expel her. Up until that time I had no idea med schools allowed year repeats! She stopped working right away and flourished in year 3.
Don't ruin your ds's prospects! Don't let him work during his studies. You can either work or study, basically, if you study properly.

This.

If your son is paid the minimum maintenance grant, it is because you are earning enough to make up for the extra that he requires, as a minimum, to pay for living expenses.

Long are the days when students could get enough money from a part time job to pay his expenses without a full maintenance grant.

Your son has enormous potential, for most of his subjects he is in the top 2% of the country but his dad, who earns well but is an ignorant, asumes his remarkably academic child is not motivated enough and thinks he should do an apprenticeship on something he is not interested in? (never seen an apprenticeship in vet practice, much less so one that leeds to becoming a vet)

Honestly, if he pushes on this and you allow him, you both are going to lose your child or have a very resentful one for the rest of his life, and rightly so.

i’m not at all impressed with your DH. Hopefully he will change his mind.

I have a young friend who recently graduated as a vet. We were discussing this exact issue. She has a uni friend (vet student) whose parents did not support her financially. She did manage to successfully get to the end of the course but it was difficult. She took a gap year after A-Levels and worked full time. She also had a part time job while she was a student (it must have been VERY hard),

DC2 took a gap year and worked full time as a lifeguard in our local leisure centre. They now work
evey Sunday in a leisure centre at their uni. Unless it has changed in the last couple of years, it is actually quite easy to get a lifeguard job because they (at least were) in short supply. You don’t have to be an amazing swimmer - just competent. Then you do the qualification which takes a week and costs £300ish. DC2 matured enormously in that gap year.

Regarding the divorce suggestions - your DS would probably get a larger loan because the loan is based on the household income and if DS is living with OP who doesn’t have a job then he would get the max loan.

My exH didn’t help at all with uni or anything else. Dc got bigger loans on my sole income which I topped up and bursaries. I have zero respect for exH especially as he received a lot of financial help himself. Why have children if you don’t want them to succeed.

Parents are expected to pay the shortfall you may not agree with the sliding scale of loans but its the system we have and it’s not good long term for those who had to take out maximum loans it’s really horrible to be left with huge debt hanging over you your whole adult life. Getting a full loan is no prize it’s extra debt.

It’s normal to change your mind as you go through A levels and even beyond. We are unusual in UK to expect people to choose specialisms at 16 and 18.

Tell your dh you will cover the costs by renting out your DS room to a local student or Airbnb it. He’s not the boss.

Oxford and Cambridge are by far the cheapest to attend they have the most financial support and cheaper rent as they have their own accommodation.

Even taking a gap year you aren’t going to be able to save enough for the whole degree.

Bursaries at undergraduate level are normally to support students coming from low income households. The fact that the OP’s son won’t get the maintenance loan means his parents are earning well above the average.

@Lozza70 - we took a similar stance towards DD in regards to attending University. To us, the debt just wasn't worth getting into. Plus she has younger siblings still living at home, so financial support would have put us into a precious position.

Our advice after A-Levels was to get a FT job in the field she wanted to study. Something she did, we made it possible for her to save most of her wages, as she was still ademant to attend Uni. Working in the field helped her to make some good/ tough decisions. She did attend University, but one in commuting distance to home. She choose a course that had a NHS bursary attached (not nursing). So money wasn't a big issue & she didn't need to work during term time.

My dad didn’t have indoor plumbing (toilet) at his house until secondary school. Did this mean that he insisted that his DCs didn’t have it until secondary? Absolutely not!

Parents like this are insufferable dickheads.

It's at 5 or 6 year course, I can understand why your husband is not prepared to make this commitment if it's a recent change of direction by your son. Vet medicine is not especially well paid and has very high burnout and suicide rates, too.

I understand your husband anyway, it's a very long time to be forking out for a young man he's already supported for 18 years and who could be supporting himself.

If he does decide to go for it please make sure that he is aware that a large part of his job will entail killing animals. Lots of young vets find they can't stomach it, and others can't cope with angry owners who think you should always be able to fix their pets.

That’s right the bursaries are based on parental income and really just given so unis can charge middle income families large rents. They know they can’t charge rent which would exclude those on full loans so they basically knock money off the rent bill.

There are hardship funds for those whose families don’t help with the top up expected and he will be entitled to use food banks (and will need to). But it will be miserable for him.

I have a cousin who - in the days when we still had grants - refused to support his daughter to go to university. His wife informed me "I'd be working just to put her through university - I'm not doing that!"

They had allowed her to apply, presumably expecting that she'd follow in her father's footsteps and make a mess of her results. In fact, she was offered a place at the uni of her choice and finished up turning it down to keep her parents happy. Unforgivable, in my view.

My cousin/her father: "Aye, but let's face it Weary - where did going to university get you?"

Well, I got to see places that I wouldn't have otherwise, got a decent enough salary, met my husband at work...

The daughter could have done so well for herself, but never really got away from her parents' low expectations.

I think your DH is an arse for saying a blanket 'no' to helping his son go to uni.

However:

Some degrees are more expensive to get kids through than others and your DS is picking one of the most expensive, there is very little time to do paid work and the cost of work placements is crippling - it costs money to get to work. To give you an idea, my DD did veterinary nursing as a degree and did a year long work placement, working very long hours and commuting quite a distance as there were no training practices locally (another problem with studying vet science). We think we spent the best part of 15,000 in one year on a car and all its costs, fuel, food at work and all her basic needs at home. We had a savings account for her and this helped a lot but we still had to dip into our own savings to get her through 4 years of uni, and this is in Scotland where we paid no fees.

So before you make any promises, I would really look long and hard at the TOTAL costs of qualifying as a vet. Some of the people on DD's course had to drop out as they simply could not afford to work long hours for free, for a year, and had little parental support. That must have been devastating for them.

But I have to be honest and say that as much as we wanted our DD to have the opportunity to go to uni, we were feeling pretty burnt out by the end of her degree and financially, hanging on by our finger nails. Money worries made us anxious and snappy and there were a lot of rows between myself and DH over silly things as a result. And we were 100% in agreement on helping her financially!

What a distasteful post.
It's a 5 year course.
All tough courses have a high burnout rate. Yes it's true the suicide rate is higher but there are valid reasons for that. Salaries can vary depending on where you are and what you're doing/specialising in.
Euthenasia is a part of the job. Not a large part of the job. And currently not part of my dd's current job spec. All jobs these days have their difficulties. Medicine also has major issues and problems.
Very few 18 year olds can support themselves these days whatever job they have. The cost of living has shot up & salaries are not high.

He won't get a hardship grant if the parents aren't poor though will he?

"You can work your way up in many occupations. Of course."

In the old days, maybe...

How much of this is jealousy/unresolved feelings in your husband?

Does he see “Graduates” as posh twats/entitled /other negative traits and would hate for his son to turn into a person he would viscerally dislike for having been to university?

Is this something you would be able to raise with him?

Yes, they both worked really hard and got firsts!
Now they both work in their chosen fields and earn far more than I have ever done.
They are both generous to me but I have never let them realise what it actually cost me.
I didn't do it for that reason, I just really wanted them to have a good chance of success, and never want them to feel they owe me!

You just to it? Tell your DH that it’s your responsibility to do it as parents and so you’re going to financially support him out of family money. I don’t get why he gets to decide when he’s making a really shitty decision.

firstly student finance can be very helpful - my dc and I fled domestic violence in the December of the year she applied for uni and student finance accepted police reports etc as evidence of estrange ment and her loans were from my income only.

your dh is not being helpful, especially as he has said he wouldn’t suppprt him at uni no matter what subject he does.

my dc was also eligible for hardship funds as despite having a very well paid dad they were completely estranged and my income was not large (she got max loans).

If he does get into vet med, which is extremely competitive, then he'll definitely have a lucrative career ahead of him.

Your husband is obliged to support your son in FT education. But if he can't handle the notion of doing so what about loaning him money? That he'd pay back once he's in full time work?

Does husband realize they take his income into account when deciding how much to give your son?

What about sitting DS down and suggesting a deferred start to Vet Med. Suggest he works for a couple of years and saves every penny while you and DH support him at home (assume DH will be happy with this?). It would be good to gauge DS's reaction because then you will know if he is truly committed to this or not.

I can see DH point of view, the cost of Vet Med is estimated to be around £30k pa for 5/6 years. Now I don't expect anyone to pay the whole lot but even topping up would cost an arm and a leg and may compromise your futures/pensions going forwards.

We did help our DD out at uni but it was pretty much to the tune of £10k spread over the three years.

Sorry, but when did it become the parents' job to pay for uni? I get your son wants to do something actually meaningful rather than just going for the sake of it like a lot of youngsters these days but why do parents have to fork out to pay for it all? Am I missing something here?