Do many parents in the UK save early for university fees?

[AddledPeacock]

Have many people here started saving specifically for their children’s university fees from a young age? College funds seems common in the US but not in the UK. I guess you could do it under a jisa although there is the risk they could blow it on anything they choose at 18. I think they have specific education focussed savings products in the US. Just wondering with all the talk about how to fund university fees.

We’re Scottish so no fees - but have been saving for uni living costs since my kids where born

First is hopefully heading this year and we have a pot of £35k ready for it

I have an ISA where I save in general - I put in money specifically for uni costs as we have 3 and my eldest is hopefully off to do a medical degree which means for 1 year I could potentially have 3 at uni in the same year...

We are saving for the children but not specifically for uni fees.

Not sure about many.
In our case, we regularly save since our DD was born. She is nearly 11 and we have accumulated £24k so far. There is no specific aim for the saving, mainly just for safety and avoiding stressful financial situation.

We started savings for the dc when they were born, just general savings so if they hadn’t gone to uni they’d have had more towards weddings/house deposits etc. also came in handy for driving lessons and buying cars,
we could have had so many more holidays with them when they were little I think it was a better use of our money to put it aside for them as they got older.
We did still have holidays, just cheap Spain type ones rather than anything more exotic!

I only realised relatively recently how little my DDs will be eligible to borrow due to our earnings - we do save generally but will probably mostly meet living costs out of our income (and so save less).

We’ll also expect DDs to work as that’s how I funded myself through uni (I was one of the last to get a grant but it only just covered my rent, the rest was down to me).

We save in general, for expenses for the dc's future, but none of it is earmarked for university. The amount we have saved would cover university expenses, if needed.

In the US many parents save into a 529 account which is tax advantaged and can only be used for education expenses. There is no equivalent product in the UK so it wouldn't make sense for parents here to save specifically for university (and even if they opened an account with the intention of only using it for education, there would be no restrictions so nothing to stop them using it for a wedding or house deposit etc).

It's not common for people to save for university in the UK as its only more recently its become more expensive to go. They have always had to pay in America so I assume that's why its different there.

We have always saved but never for anything specific. Even then we can't afford to pay the fees and both children will have to take out loans for that.

yes, have saved for university costs since babies. Short sighted not to if you can afford to do so. making a big difference now with 3 of them overlapping by several uni years

but have always expected them to work through secondary school/college (and they did) and contribute as well. it's def not a free ride for them!

I looked into this today and am surprised at how little the maintenance grant / loan covers. When I went to Uni it paid for food, bills, accommodation and fun.

Now, it won't even cover accommodation at Exeter.

I don't know what we'll do. But I am panicking about it and I have about four years to save. I've just lost my job as well 😭

Feel a bit shit to be honest! He'll get a job but I don't know if it'll go far enough

From birth, yes. Just a little at first due to p/t income/childcare, more when we could.
It's not like you couldn't see it coming!

I saved up to top up my kids' maintenance loans to the maximum from when they were mid-teens, but they are using the loan for their fees. Like 95% of students do.

We only started saving from about year 10 for university. It was then that schools had a parent assembly and told us about the shortfall in maintenance loan based on parents income. We had no idea before then.

Kind of. I am saving in general for DD, it might be spent on uni fees if that’s the route she wants to take or it might be travelling, or a wedding, or a house deposit, it will be based on what she wants and what she needs when she gets to that point.

We have a JISA, only put a nominal amount in there but she’ll have about £5k when she turns 18. Then we have ISAs in our names that are intended for DD but that she won’t get instant access to when she turns 18 because it will be a much larger amount of money and it feels risky to turn that over to an 18 yr old. Then we also have a pension in her name that will hopefully be helpful to her in 50 odd years but probably won’t be that exciting to her when she turns 18.

Mine are in junior school. We have saved most of the fees for them but want to save the living costs too. Then if I take 25% pension lump sum that will go for house deposits.

Saving yes but not for uni unless that's what they especially want to do. We would be equally happy if they want to use it for travel, car, home deposit, other training.

The vast majority of kids get loans for their fees so no parents aren’t saving. The majority of parents whose household income is such that they are expected to contribute to maintenance manage to do so though.

Well actually it is like you couldn't see it coming. It's only the last few years where the expectation that parents will contribute significantly has become well known, and that loan eligibility has fallen so far behind the cost of living. Plus there seems to be less of an expectation for students to work these days.

Go back even 5-10 years and the loans covered a lot more of living costs, they weren't reduced in households where parents were on NMW and it was a given, outside MN at least, that students would work part time during term time and full time during holidays. Now they 'couldn't possibly work and study at the same time' and their parents are expected to give them hundreds of pounds a month towards their living costs.

DC still in primary school and we save generally for the future. By the time the university years roll around, we don't know what we will be eligible for or whether they will want to go to university etc so saving in the general sense makes more sense for us.

In Scotland, so no fees. I’ve followed Martin Lewis’ advice and have saved the parental contribution (£12000) to top up the minimum loan to the full amount. We will give £100 a month as well. Essentially they will get £4000 per year from us. 17 year old has also saved £5000 from their part time job and intends to look for another job when at university. They also have money in a JISA. This will be split into a LISA, a separate pot will pay for a small car. There will also be some of this available for supplementing university years if required.
Still saving for younger sibling but same set up will be in place.

Sadly the LISA will soon be withdrawn and will be replaced by something else, so pre-existing LISA rates won't be as competitive.

We put in 5K to a JISA as a gift for our baby when born. A little money has been added by grandparents. She is only 1, but I am going to change it to S&S and will hopefully add a little here and there, so that by the time DD is uni age it will be a decent chunk for uni costs.

Both kids have CTFs/ISAs, which we and FiL have been contributing to since they were a few weeks old. They’ll have about £40K when they’re 18. The intention is for university fees.

😱