Am I being naive by planning not to fund my 4 kids thru uni?

[deepest]

Is there enough loan facilities that they can pick up the debt themselves?

We find our kids completely. Niether of our two eldest work - DC1 does medicine so it's tricky (although not impossible) to work and DC2 doesn't work as he has medical conditions that make extra work difficult. We pay £67 a week for their accommodation and £350 a month for everything else. That adds up to a little less than £8,000 a year. At this level they manage to save money very easily, socialise, buy books and are even able to fund driving lessons for themselves.

I think they could easily manage with a lot, lot less.

They have nice accommodation at £67 a week. Both live in decent houses and have large double bedrooms.
As I mentioned earlier they are quite tight frugal and very conscious that we are funding them. They appreciate that they are in a fortunate position.
One of my DCs is totally tea total so a night out clubbing only costs him a fiver He thinks he 'saves' hundreds by not drinking or taking drugs
All three of my older DC attend Uni's in the North of England which helps a lot.

£13,000 would not be unreasonable for London. It would be high for anywhere else. Spending savings on university expenses is financially ludicrous unless you are seriously wealthy. Your DCs may never pay much of the loans back which is why the government is worried about the debt it is now building up as a result if this policy. Parents are far better off buying a property for their children rather than paying up front for all university costs. Any money you pay for university costs is gone. Any money you put into a property is probably money well spent. Just top up the loans as necessary. Every single piece of financial advice on university loans will say take out the full loan! It is cheap money and may never be repaid. If you are wealthy just help them pay off the loan, if need be, to reduce inheritance tax. Far better financial planning!

Our dc will have 10k + in savings but if they do it my way they can get a mortgage with that and then get full student loan just by waiting 3 years. It made us 1000s as in that time our place went up 40k. Its up to them of course but has luckily meant for us we are a long way ahead of most of our friends in paying off our mortgafe now we are 30.

The Guardian article says that the shortfall that students+others must make up tends to be smaller in London, actually (so less than the £13k avg) because of London weighting in the grants-loans & so on. So more subsidy required outside of London (says the article).

We earn over the threshold, but as they don't take outgoings into account its going to be very difficult. DS is going into the cheapest halls, but his £3800 doesn't cover his rent. He will be £400 short each term. So we are going have to cover this and also send him a weekly allowance. He is visiting the town next week to hand out CVs

You should save what you can IMO. University is very expensive and they'll struggle even with a job and a student loan.

The other thing that isn't taken into account is number of children at university at once. Topping up one child's fees isn't so bad, but four at once is something else!

It certainly is!

I do find some people's attitude to their student children quite harsh- ther does seem an attitude on her that once you're 18 you should be completely financially independent.

But I also find the idea of parents doing without to save so their children can leave university debt free completely bizarre. Also the idea of getting kids to use their own savings rather than getting a loan is not financially sensible. A student debt is not paid back til you're earning a decent wage, is paid back in small amounts and any outstanding is written off if you reach, I think, 50.

Hak speaking to students at both the universities where I work, the vast majority are helped by their parents.

That said, if you asked at less selective universities where large swathes of the students continue to live at home, the answer would be different.

I think we have a most definitre two tier system in place at tertiary level, with the most selective universities, with the coincident best reputations, being full of students with families who can and will help them out. And vice versa.

It is very very wrong and will only serve to preserve the status quo in respect of wealth in this country.

As for loans and whether it is sensible to take them or for parents to fund, well, at the moment the re-payment is fairly easy. But how many of us think it will stay this way?

In fiev years time, when the student-loan hole starts to look like the pensions hole, I wondered be surprised if a new-look tax came into play. A lot of parents would like to avoide their DC being saddled with that little number!

Yes, that's true, word. The education divide will only get worse as middle class parents who are either in a position to help their children financially or who are comfortable with the idea of debt continue to send their children to university while fewer "first generation" kids go. Certainly at ds's school, which is only just starting to send people to university it is very hard to get them to look further than the places where they can stay at home. It's a disaster for children from disadvantaged, backgrounds.

The main problem is accommodation costs. Most first years want to live in halls, and at some universities, all the halls are fairly expensive, or there's not enough room in the cheaper halls for everyone who wants to live in them. Once you end up in the situation of paying £6000+ for accommodation, there is not usually that much left over to cover living costs as well as occasional expenses such as traveling home and putting down a deposit on the second year house. There's also not really any cushion if students face emergency costs for whatever reason (although universities will sometimes be able to help depending on the emergency).

Also, it's worth bearing in mind that most students will not get their student loan until they provide proof they're at uni- usually when they enroll during freshers week. This means over the summer before uni, they will have to fund deposits for halls, anything they want to buy to take to uni, as well as living costs for the first week or so.

If you really can't afford to help your children out at all, it might be worth suggesting they spend a year working before they go to uni. This means they'll have a buffer of savings to help them out if they get in trouble, rather than (for example) relying on a student overdraft.

TheWordFactory I agree that the current student finance situation is unsustainable- especially with universities pushing for higher fees. However, if a tax is brought in, I expect it will hit all graduates/ all recent graduates, not just those with outstanding loans (although it will of course probably leave those with student debt paying twice).

Working for a year before going to Uni (while living at home rent-free and spending no cash) is not much fun but it can really help - I know several people that did that. Most places allow term time work - and frankly at most places students have plenty of time for it. Some don't, but have long holidays where they can work almost full time. DP spent all his holidays from Uni working full time in some pretty tough heavy lifting type jobs. His first employers after he graduated really liked that.

temp, that sounds like an excellent plan tbh. Do something lucrative like waitressing, and you'll have the pick of the part time jobs at university and of shifts back home in the holidays.

I remember a lot of people living off their tips (or rather using tips for spending money whilst living at home for free/cheap) and saving their wages.

Oh and a potential tax rebate, too, on the tax paid from the April in the year you start uni (I'm referring to me here, in the 1990s - so I'm quite possibly very out of date )

I don't expect to fund our DC's through University (though it's a long way off). I suspect my wife will feel differently.

For me, it will come down to what the choose to study. Too many people see University as a means by which to leave home. One thing tuition fees ought to do is focus students' minds on whetehr it's worth going to university. In fact, I can see the brightest and the best getting picked off after A levels and having their further education funded by employers (who will become the "customers" rather than the situation we have now where it's the students.

I'm not anti-university, I just thik it's an academic pursuit; so wouldn't wish to fund my offspring through a hotel and hospotality or columbian basket weaving course.

I don't expect to be able to afford to fund mine through University. I would encourage them to do something more practical/work based and study through that though.

No, and they'll get minimum help because DH earns too much and hopefully I will be working then.

MaliceInWonderland78 I dont think that employers will fund people to do degrees to any great extent. In the time that I have been working (20 odd years) I have seen the amount that employers spend on educating their employees other than for strictly legal requirements steadily decline.

Even when employers do sponsor study it is generally for a very restricted range of subjects. This may seem fine until your child is employed by a Columbian basket weaving company and finds themselves with a very narrow set of qualifications.

Gnome I believe it's actually on the increase. Employers know what they want, so they can drive the market and have a say in course content. Of course employers will only do this where it benefits them - which to an extent is no bad thing. The NHS is a case in point.

My employee funded my studies upto and including a post-grad degree.

What we need to ask is: Do we need graduates in hotel and hospitality or (as many as we have) in Sport Science? The answer is probably "no"

If industries need graduates, let them fund them.

Malice, I struggle with this. My DD is just about to start a Biochemistry degree.

When DD was looking at courses there was a big push on biomedical courses. These courses were certified by NHS. She also saw other courses which showed where biomedical sciences are going. Automated testing which didnt require path lab testing.

The courses which are focused on teaching students to become path lab rats are going to become outdated. Medical testing is changing. Pick the wrong course then students could find themselves outdated very quickly.

IME from last 2 kids going through uni, hall rents take something like 95% of 'away from home' loans - it's a ludicrous amount of money, entirely unjustified, & obviously designed to inflate uni finances

so even with reduced 'at home' finance they would be much better off staying at home if it's feasible

I find it very hard to accept the system will stay the same if a large % of ex-students don't reach the point when they repay their loans. Realistically, either the level which you pay back will drop to being just above NMW, or the costs will be massively inflated, so that those who do earn enough to pay back loans will be subsidising those who don't.

Plus I do'nt believe this system will be exactly as it is now when my pre-schoolers are at uni age, it's changed so many times since I was 16 that I do think those of us with children who are younger than 15 need to prepared for another change before our DCs get to that age.

The 'at home' push annoys me too, generations have been able to pick unis based on the course and their interests and their grades, to go to "rich families get choice, poor get what's close" is a bit shit. (And I speak as someone living in an area with an easy commute into London for DH's work so our DCs could be 'at home' students and have all of London options as well as others in the other directions, but I am aware that for large parts of the UK there would be only one local uni, 2 at most)