student fees

[tallulah]

My DD (17) has just come home with a whole pile of Uni prospectus booklets. On checking I find that the LEA take the parents joint gross income (without any regard for their expenses & other commitments) & on last years money we are liable for the full fees of £1215 plus a contribution of another £300 per year towards her living expenses! (last year & this year DH did a lot of overtime to try and pay off our mounting debt problem- failed on both counts)

We have 3 younger children & both work full time because we have to. We're barely keeping our heads above water (& I haven't paid the Council Tax yet because if I couldn't manage £94 last year then I really can't find £106 this year). We'd told her she'd have to take a Gap year & save up, but assumed she could pay for herself... Apparently not. The £300 is deducted from the maximum amount she is allowed to claim as a Student Loan.

To add misery, the Halls of Residence then charge her £80 pw for board.

It's looking like we have 3 options: a) she can't go, (b) we separate, so that as a single parent it's only 1 income we're assessed on or (c) one or both of us gives up work, we become homeless & claim benefits, so she then gets to go for free.

It is so unfair. It's bad enough expecting the child to be saddled with debt but leaving the parents bankrupt as well? Where does it leave us if the others want to go? There is only 5 years between the 4 of them, so we could realistically have 3 at uni at the same time.

Has anyone been through this & lived to tell the tale?

My sister is currently in her final year at uni and my parents have been eligible for the whole fees too. It maddens be beyond belief at the debt my sister has had to get into because of these fees and no grants at all. She has had loans each year and has had weekend jobs throughout the 3 years. But still she has big debts to leave with. Trouble is she has her professional solicitor's course next year and that is nearly £6000 for the fees alone. Hopefully she will get a job and eventually be able to pay it off.

I know this is a huge burden but do you think she could manage to work part-time whilst studying, or to go to a uni near home? Also, often rpiavte house rentals with other students are a lot cheaper than halls of residence, which I never found were great to be in anyway. As a student I much prefered being out of them.

Renting a cheap room with a family is usually a good option too - especially if made cheaper if occasional babysitting is provided by your dd.

Agree that the whole system is a mess - I still have huge debts and I went to uni 10 years ago before all these extra fees kicked in.

I'm sorry this is so difficult for you Tallulah. Might your dd be able to study in your home town, and live at home? I know that isn't really the 'university experience' that everyone wants, but it's better than nothing.

I found as a student in one of the most expensive areas of the country, that it is possible to find 'cheap' accommodation, if you live out of the traditional student areas - I managed to find decent housing for about £30 a week, with the average rent being £55, and it wasn't a total doss house. The other thing I found useful was that uni terms are only 10 weeks, which meant I could work during the holidays, for up to 22 weeks, and this helped a huge amount with financing.

If you have 3 children at uni at the same time, I think that is taken into account when calculating fees/expenses etc. They don't do them individually. So you would probably have more help then.

I suggested she go locally but she wasn't happy about it. The nearest Uni doesn't offer the course she wants. Apparently we still have to pay the fees if she's local & she gets a lower loan because she's at home! Looks like we can't win.

She'll have to work as well, there's no getting away from that. I just feel sick worrying where the money is coming from. (& what we'll have to go without as a family to find it.)

tallulah - you're right that it's not fair that they go on the previous year's income and it sounds like things are difficult.

The best solution I think for both you and your daughter would be for her to take a gap year (she can apply to the universities now and have her place deferred. This has several advantages:

1. university is often wasted on 18 year olds. Really. When I was at university you could tell who the students who'd taken a year out were (I was one of them) almost instantly in the seminars - they made more thoughtful comments and generally did better in the exams.

2. During her year "off" she can do things that you don't get a chance to do when you leave university with enormous debts - in particular voluntary work, or working for 6 months and then going travelling for 6 months on the proceeds.

3. A year at this age makes loads of difference - she may be more confident about moving into a shared house (non-catered) at 19 and that is much cheaper.

4. She may also be able to save a little money too - even a full loan doesn't provide for a marvellous standard of living.

5. (for you) they'd use this year's income to calculate her liability to fees.

Finally, this would set a precedent for your other children!

Certainly an option worth discussing with your daughter anyway. If not, then certainly you should look into alternative accomodation or possibly the university in your home town. Working part time is an option, but not really if she takes a science degree.

good luck anyway.

I suggested she go locally but she wasn't happy about it. The nearest Uni doesn't offer the course she wants. Apparently we still have to pay the fees if she's local & she gets a lower loan because she's at home! Looks like we can't win.

She'll have to work as well, there's no getting away from that. I just feel sick worrying where the money is coming from. (& what we'll have to go without as a family to find it.)

PS if she lives independently for 3 years before going to university, then they don't take your income into account at all. Perhaps a bit drastic, but not as drastic as your ideas.

Oh, tallulah, been there, done that!

DD1 (just turned 21) is in her 2nd year at uni (she's at Leeds, an hour and a bit away which is a good distance). She did a gap year, no funky foreign travel, she spent most of the year working at Sainsburys, squandered half her money and didn't even learn to drive (still hasn't).

She pulled her socks up after Christmas and a bit of a bollocking, and by the time she started the next September she had just over £3K in an ISA, from which she pays her tuition. DH's income means she does get nearly 3/4 of maximum loan - however we know people with pots of money and huge houses whose finances on paper mean their kids get free tuition and maximum loan, pisses me off no end but what can we do? Anyway with loan plus overdraft plus working 16+ hours a week at Sainsburys she manages quite well, doesn't have impossible debt, still has a great social life and new clothes too.

The allowance of £75 pa (!!!) for each other child at home - after they stop paying child allowance of £10+ per week for the child at uni - is RIDICULOUS! It was the same when I went to college 30 years ago!!! And pension contributions are allowable against income but mortgage payments aren't!!! It makes me so mad!!!! (I keep banging on about this to anyone who will listen:

family A - income £30K - no mortgage - 1 child only, now at uni - pension contributions £500 pm - free tuition, maximum loan.

family B - income £30K - £500 pm month mortgage - 4 children, 1 at uni - pension contributions £0pm, allowance for other children £225 pa - maximum tuition, 3/4 loan.

family C - parents divorced, mother remarried to millionaire but no paid income. Free tuition, maximum student loan.

Any MPs listening?

PS Tallulah, we were also assessed originally as having to pay all her tuition plus a large (forget how much) contribution towards living expenses. We just didn't have it and couldn't do it.

If you can't either then your DD has to make arrangements like ours. Cruel but fair. If you haven't got it, without leaving the other kids short, you can't pay it! (Don't feel guilty. The Govt moved the goalposts.)

Oh, Janh, I coud have written your posts. Student funding is one of my bugbears too - I can feel my BP rising as I type! It's all so grossly unfair - I know somone on an income of 100K a year and they got every single penny paid because he was self employed and could fiddle his books. And then there's the unfair council tax issue, another gripe of mine. We have to pay full council tax even though we are living round the other side of the world, not using any services, but we're denied a vote in both the Scottish Parliamentary and council elections!! How fair is that?? Grrrrr! But I'm getting off-topic here.....

Tallulah, I don't have anything much to add, except that we're in the same position too. DS2 is currently at uni and, for various reasons, delayed going for 3 years. He then became eligible for all loans and so on, but I do appreciate that most people wouldn't want to delay that long. He is doing Pschychology and quite honestly, it's such a rigourous course that he just wouldn't be able to work as well.

One thing that has just occured to me - what about contacting the Student Union at the unis your DD is interested in? They might be able to help you out as I'm sure they must see plenty of this type of problem. Maybe contact your MP, too, to register your disgust at the system? It won't help you now, I don't suppose, but it might give her/him something to think about.

Best wishes - I hope something crops up and you can work it all out.

Thanks all of you. I felt sure other people must be in my position. I'll admit, it was such a shock to read the literature last night (esp after DH & I had just had a long chat about which insurance policies we should cancel to try to cut down our outgoings) that I over-reacted. I'm still furious but not quite so desperate. Haven't had chance to chat to the little princess yet, but I did read the brochure for the local Uni & they DO have the course she wants... It's not the same as moving away but she'll have to cut her cloth accordingly I'm afraid.

I also felt it was unfair to get her to pay the fees, since they are assessing OUR income, but if janh & lucy's kids can do it, so can she!

Thanks everyone

tallulah, if it's swings and roundabouts financially between her going away and staying home, I'd say encourage her to go away, as long as it's not really far. Halls don't have to cost that much - the catered ones do, but they miss half the meals anyway, mine went into a self-catering flat attached to a hall and it was much less and she still had all the facilities.

If you don't want her to have to pay her own tuition, then her savings from a gap year could be used instead of having an overdraft - but I honestly think it's good for them to take full responsibility for their own finances as early as poss.

The gap year also gives them a good break from the pressure of study/exams, grows them up a bit and makes them appreciate the social and other aspects of uni when they get there. I think too that if they have been doing something fairly menial it gives them an incentive to work harder. (Mind you, have to admit that living with DD1 while she was working was sheer hell - totally self-centred, no time for any of us, treating the place like a hotel, etc etc, usual stuff! She's a different person now after 2 years away, appreciates everybody much more.)

They shouldn't be assessing parental income for fees at all - they should make them all pay the same (or nothing) and take a post-graduate tax instead.

PS re your original option (b), another dodge is used by families where one partner works away during the week and has another address; they just claim to be separated.
Gnash gnash.

PPS Meant to mention this before - the assessment applies to all the children in a family, not each individual, so if you did have 3 going at once they would each pay 1/3 of the assessed tuition fee requirement, and if you were supposed to contribute £300pa that would be £100 each. (Hope that's clear!)

I suppose that would be another argument against her paying her own tuition - if she had to pay £1200 the first year, and the following year a sibling only had to pay £600 - not fair!!!

Is there also a possibility that a new Labour govt (presumably they will get in again...) will change the present arrangements? Can't remember the details though. Tuition not paid upfront, maybe.

The proposal was that all upfront tuition fees would be scrapped, and they would be paid, up to a ceiling of about 3000, as a graduate tax - i.e. once the graduate's earnings reach a certain amount, it would be taken as a tax. I personally think this is much better than parents having to find fees for up to 4 (or more) children!

Oh Tallulah I sympathise. I went through the NZ university system , where 70% of fees are paid by the govt and EVERYONE else pays the remaining 30%. The student grant was pathetic, and, due to changing courses half way through, I had no grant for two years. Coming from a large family, my parents were in no position to give me any financial support.

However, if my experience is anything to go by, it can be done. I worked the summer to pay the fees upfront, then worked up to 3 jobs at a time to keep myself fed and housed. Perhaps you could negotiate with your daughter just which part of the funding is going to be your responsibility and which part will be hers. Good for concentrating the mind in those lazy teenagers. "You save that £1215 or you just can't go." Sounds cruel, but what are your options? Go bankrupt? At least then your other children will have their fees paid for. Keep in your mind that she is the one who will benefit from this eventually, and as such it's not within the bounds of reason to expect her to contribute to her future.

If I'm honest, the financial depravity of my student years did me a lot of good. I've never wasted money on fripperies because I know the value of a pound. I got into very good financial habits during those years, which have served me well since. Yes it was hard living in tiny cramped accomodation living off brown rice and tomato sauce during the lean weeks, but I paid my mortgage off when I was 36, not because I have a high paid job (teacher!) but because I learnt during those years the true difference between a luxury and a necessity.

Good luck

just in case it is any use, there was recently a thread packed with money saving tips, here .

good luck, the funding of higher education is one of my bugbears as well - for different reasons though as ds is only 20m, and dh is a uni lecturer...

janh, I'd be very concerned about her going self catering because she'd "save" money by not eating. She lost over 2 stone she couldn't afford to lose through glandular fever in September, & since before then had been skipping breakfast & lunch, going straight out after school & coming in late just grabbing cake or biscuits.. (hence my concern)

We had originally told her she'd have to work for a year.. this may be an option. She worked all of last summer & I didn't take any "keep" but told her to save at least 1/2 towards uni. She has spent the lot. Her argument was "oh well, it wouldn't have been enough" ! If she works this summer (what am I saying, IF?!) I will take it off her on the pretext of keep, towards uni.

This is a huge worry, isn't it? Everything seems to be so diffcult at the moment, never any chance ever to get a bit better off - and yet we have a reasonable income. Its just that it all goes on things like mortgage, utilities, council tax and horrible endowment that isn't going to pay off. I can't even begin to grasp the difficulties of how we are going to pay student fees - except that we are pinching and scraping now to pay off some of the mortgage no longer covered by the endowment, and will just have to get better at it. But really I never thought that by this stage in my life I would be pinching and scraping more and more every year. Over the last 14 years we seem to have had a total of about 6 months of feeling 'comfortable'.

On a less gloomy note, if you have an arty child, they can apparently do a year's foundation course at the local art college free if they do it straight after A-levels. Take a gap year and you have to pay fees. I'm really hoping this still applies when dd (aged 14) is old enough to take advantage, as it gives us another year's grace to find some spare money.

I payed my own way through college and uni, but at least tuition fees hadn't come in then. If they had I don't think I could have done it. I was working p/t in an OAP home whilst at Uni (night shifts), the money was awful and I remember being so tired I couldn't study properly. It's all very well the g'ment saying students could work during the summer holidays, but students get assignments to do during those holidays, and are also expected to do work experience in their chosen field - for free! In my last year I had my dissertation to do, as well as move house, and work for the local council!

My advice for any student would be to take a year out before they go to Uni, get a job, any job, and save like hell. Then two years in they should take another year out to work before doing their final year. Employers are more interested in your cv if you have some work experience behind you, even if it's only waitressing. It's far more preferable to them than employing a student who has known nothing but school, college and Uni. It also shows determination and initiative.

When dd (and the unborn one) leave school, we won't have the money to fund them to go to Uni, so they will have to work. But in a way that's preferable at it does teach them about life. I just hope by then that they do have a choice to go to Uni, and aren't punished for having working class parents with no money!

Tallulah, has your DD considered a Scottish university? Unless I'm completely out-of-date, it would mean she wouldn't have to pay tuition fess, at least. It might be worth considering. The other thing would be to choose a city with as low a cost of living as possible, as she will almost certainly wouldn't want to stay in halls the whole time, and average student rent varies enormously. I do feel for you.

By fess, I mean fees of course. Doh.

tamum, unfortunately they've plugged that particular loop-hole. She got a brochure for St Andrews & it says Scottish students go for free, then pay £2000 back to the Uni after they graduate as a sort of thank you. Students from England & Wales have to pay the normal tuition.
(& I haven't seen her since Wednesday night, so we still haven't discussed it)
Copper, I agree with everything you said. It'll be our 20th anniversary this year & we haven't had one year in all that time where we haven't had to scape by. I thought things were supposed to get easier/better as the kids got older, but they haven't yet. We pay out more & more, and get less & less back.

I can understand your worry Tallulah, but I think it's possible for your daughter to go uni, provided she appreciates that she has to contribute towards it. I went to uni 10 years ago. Grants were just coming to an end, but I worked during the term and holidays to clear my debts, and was careful with the little money I had. It has since stood me in good stead, and taught me to manage on a budget. My parents contributed nothing at all during the three years I was there.

Conversely, my younger brother (he's 12 years younger than me) is now at uni, in the third year of a four year course. My parents pay for everything - fees, books, living expenses, they have bought him a car, he has no shortage of new clothes/shoes and a healthy social life. In addition he had to spend a year abroad last year which again, was funded by my parents, and wants to go abroad this summer for work experience (again, guess who's paying). In all the time he's been at uni, he has never had a job, and my parents have not put any pressure on him to get one.

I think what I'm trying to say is perhaps that students' expectations have changed somewhat. I expected to manage alone and to go without when I was at uni. Going without is not something that has crossed my brother's mind. Make it clear to your daughter that she must take some responsibility for the cost of uni, including getting a job - in the holidays at least, if not during the term. This may mean that all her money is spent on clearing her debts - is this such a bad thing if she's going to benefit in tne long run from having a degree? She should definitely take a Gap year - longer if necessary. I didn't go to uni until I was 26: all the mature students on my course got at least a 2:1, and most of us had already acquired work skills that could be put to good use to earn money in the holidays.

tallulah, you might like to run this idea past her - it's what my DD2 has suddenly come up with, she has been a real ratbag for weeks and ut turns out the idea of doing a single dreary workworkwork gap year has been preying on her mind.

What she now plans is to work for 2 years and then spend a year travelling - or maybe 1 year + 6 months travelling, and then the same again, and THEN go to uni. (Apart from anything else she would then be 21 and parental income would be irrelevant. Also apparently unis love "mature" students.)

I think it's a great idea - she is not nearly ready for uni, does need to grow up a lot - DH is not so keen, not sure why, but he doesn't get a vote! DD1 will have finished uni next summer and intends to be a travelling companion some of the time. DD2 is a different girl now she has made this decision.

DD2 says she definitely will go to uni when she's done roaming - she will still only be 24 at the end of a 3 year degree course after all.