dreading parental contribution discussion with ex - pls help!

[OmegaAlpha]

While my DD17 is prepping for 2027 uni entry, I am worrying about how to help her financially. I believe she will be assessed on my income of 25/26, which is £57K, so will only receive half the maintenance loan - about £5.8K. She wants to study away from home, out of London.

She does have a child trust fund (thank you Gordon Brown!) which thanks to regular payments and my parents, would actually cover the difference, but I would prefer it if she could hold on to at least some of it for extra costs/emergencies/further study, and receive some parental contributions, which I need to discuss with my ex - never the easiest person to discuss money with.

He is self-employed, and switches between boasting about the incredible jobs he's doing (art fabrication/building/installation), and telling me he can't afford to pay for kids' clubs etc. I have no way of finding out his actual income, as he pays himself in dividends, expenses, etc, as well as a basic salary.

I currently receive £600 a month CSM for DD and DS12, which I believe will reduce to £450 once she goes (this was worked out via the gov calculator, and not an official order, which I based on what he paid himself when we were together 10 years ago), and I will also lose a third of child benefit. I just about manage to pay a hefty mortgage and other costs out of my income (we live in zone 2 London), but by cutting out holidays, eating out, being vv frugal, I might be able to also contribute. I can't move because of DS12 (and my own work), but may possibly be able to rent out DD's room on an ad hoc basis.

Are there any other separated parents on here who can advise me on how to discuss this with ex, and suggestions/models as to what to ask for?

I want to keep my DD out of this entirely, as she is already worrying about the cost of it all.

If you’re in London I would definitely encourage her to think about being a commuter student

yes, I have tried but she's not keen, like many, she wants to fly the nest (as I did too). On the upside, if she goes to Edinburgh, her uncle (my brother) lives just outside, and her cousin has a flat in the city, so she could possibly stay with them for some of the time if desperate, or at least get cheaper rent in her second/third years. She is aware of which unis are most costly - one of the reasons she refuses to look at Bristol, even though I think the course would be up her street.

Thanks for all the helpful responses.

After reading through them I have decided that I am going to sit down with my DD and go through all the costings with her, so she understands properly what she has to factor in.
I'm not going to bring Oxbridge into the discussion - if she gets in that would help enormously, but she is already putting too much pressure on herself with that, and is prone to anxiety, so don't want her to worry about that for now.
She'll have to get a job if she wants to have any proper fun anyway - unless she chooses to stay in London, which I will also point out to her!

I am also going to present the costings in a v matter of fact way to her dad, presenting him with a minimum payment he will be obliged to make, but also what I think we actually need to give her, after her loan and CTF savings, for basic needs. He will probably react badly, but then it's up to him to negotiate about that directly with his DD.

I'll keep the new CMS payment negotiation separate - or might just mention at least his payment will be going down (even if not by as much as he imagines). If he says he can't afford it (which no doubt he will), I'll just let the CMS deal with him over that separately.

I can't afford it either, but will find a way, as we do.

Thanks everyone, for all your help and support

I think you need to be very careful presenting it as 'the minimum payment he's obliged to give', since he's not obliged to give anything (unfair as that it). The means test is done on your household income, and is calculated (extremely inaccurately) on what your household can afford to give and should be contributing. It's not a shared cost, it's a calculation of the top up expected from your your household.

It almost certainly won't be enough, and of course, as a good dad he should also want to contribute to his daughter to help her out, but I'd expect that to be in addition to your contribution, not instead of part of it.

I hear you, and will adjust my wording, but actually neither he nor I are obliged legally to make any contribution - this is just 'expected', by a totally shit system which doesn't take account for the size of mortgage or other debts or responsibilities, whichever household it's based on. It's reliant on parental means and goodwill. However, I think he and I are both obliged ethically, in terms of our parental responsibilities, if we want to support our kids going to uni. He still has a son living the majority of the time with me, whom he also loves, and I would like to think he wants the best for both of them. If he didn't at least match what I paid, then his relationship with his DD would suffer, which I don't think he would risk or want. I think he would want the best for her, it's just me that he doesn't like to give money to, so this thread has been helpful for me in separating that out.

Surely the best thing is for you to do the means test, and top up your DD as per the expected household contribution based on your household income. Then he does the same test and also tops up DD as per what is expected from his household. This will likely give your DD enough to live on. If DD lives with you during the holidays, you charge her board. Otherwise, however you look at it, you are expecting him to give you money to offset the contribution that your household is supposed to make (although not legally mandated) to DD. That is expecting him to give you money.

He won't be giving me money. It is not me applying to uni, and if it was he would have nothing to do with it. Our DD does not need 2 x the parental contribution, which is what you are suggesting, but only one. Regardless of how it has been worked out, she doesn't only live with me, and I am not her only parent. Her dad is on the birth certificate and we have shared parental responsibility.

Whether it's means-tested on his income or mine, I believe we should share the cost of a single parental contribution, which is what most two-parent families do, I imagine. I cannot pay the full parental contribution for our DD to go to uni, regardless of what the government thinks. I can only ask him to do this, I cannot enforce it, but I believe it is as much his responsibility as mine.

It's up to him if he agrees to or not. He loves his daughter, he should want to contribute, and I hope that he will. He's not a terrible father, but if he hadn't walked out when our children were young, and we were still a two-parent family, we would be a whole lot better off, and the parental contribution would be a whole lot higher, so if anything he's saving money this way.

What I asked for was help in having this conversation with him. I've had a lot of useful advice, and I now feel able to do so.

Thanks for your help too, and it's useful to be forewarned, but I don't really want to wrangle over the ethics of what I consider to be a deeply unfair system any longer. It's not helping me at this stage.

I've also now had the conversation with my daughter, so she knows the plan, and is aware of how much money there will definitely be, and how much I am asking for on top. She is anxious about that too, but I would rather nip this uncertainty in the bud.

My dad had many, many flaws, but at least he supported education. He just paid the child maintenance directly to me when I went to university.

I asked my ex to pay DS the money that he had been paying to be in maintenance. He said no and gave nothing. I hope your ex is more reasonable!

Lots of students get part time jobs to support themselves at uni as many parents can't afford to contribute. Another option is online tutoring online for GCSE and A level subjects which can be quite lucrative.

Sadly, one parental contribution is unlikely to be enough in most Uni cities. If both DD's parents pay what the government assess their expected contribution to be, based on their individual household incomes, DD would have enough (and potentially could take less loan, so less debt).

The system is pretty shit, and unfair to middle earners, but it's mean tested and the expected parental contribution is based on household income, not marital status. Being divorced doesn't reduce the amount you are assessed as being responsible to pay based on your household income. If you have an ex who is happy to contribute, this is a real opportunity for DD to benefit from a realistic amount to live on, and potentially a reduced student debt. I also think you will have much more chance of your ex paying if its additional, rather than reducing the amount that you have been assessed as being expected to pay with no additional benefit to his DD. His payment to DD should be giving your DD more, not reducing your costs as per the means test.