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 didn’t save, but thankfully ours did not overlap so it was manageable.

we've been saving for them since birth, so by the time they turn 18 it should be around 50k each - although we will continue to reassess this over time.

Depends on your financial status, us and all the folk I know never were able to save for kids uni… if kids fortunate enough to get to uni then they sort themselves out…like we had to sort ourselves out….

I think the gov should set up some sort of education funding investment vehicle with tax benefits that can be used specifically for education, even if it means reducing the jisa allowance. No idea how that would work in practice but we need to incentivise parents to save or invest to have the option to pay for their DCs uni costs rather than just them taking out loans. I know you can save into jisas but many are reluctant given that goes straight to DC at 18. No idea how it would work in practice eg if they decided not to go to uni, but it seems like US has figured out some sort of incentive for this.

I feel with the current COLC more people will study in their home city/town - they do round here anyway lots of my friends their kids live at home - mainly for financial reasons and most of them only have physical lessons 2/3 sessions a week so a lot to be paying accommodation out for!

We don't have a university that's commutable from here.

So commuting isn't an option. Nearest University would be 100 miles away!

We didn’t save as such but were aware of the upcoming costs and made decisions based on that eg I went back full time when DC 3 went to school and we didn’t retire early
Paid off mortgage early and fid not move to a bigger house
This allowed us to fully fund all DC from income

There is literally nowhere in most of the UK that is 100 miles away from a university apart from the remote Scottish islands. The UK has over 130 universities. Its saturated (part of the problem).

But the point is that things will change if rent keeps being so expensive since it isn't a sustainable model. People will then factor that in when deciding where to live. There are of course always likely to be some students who for reasons of geography rent close to where they study but it is already becoming far more common to live at home, save the £8k or so per year and commute in and the number doing this is likely to increase.

Part time jobs are not sufficiently numerous for the number of students who want one. And, if you get one, to keep the job, you'll be expected to be available all year round which won't suit all students.

The shortfall between maintenance loan and what is needed to survive is now also larger than is easily afforded at many universities without working a lot of hours.

It's why a lot of students are now taking gap years (to work and save) or living at home and commuting.

Added to that, even holiday jobs are difficult to find since the companies already have banks of zero hours employees.

Yes I guess location and choice of course is key but where we are there is about 7 universities my kids could commute too and a wide range of courses and my friends with kids who go are only there for afew hours a week and begrudge the high rents so don’t do it - less debt but an individual choice for people banging on about “the experience”