Help-Student fees advice please for parents.

mrs_lds

Hi please can someone help me as regards
to student loans for my daughters fees for next september. With 6 children and my first going to uni. my husband and I are in 2 minds whether to pay the fees or get my daughter to get a loan and pay the fees herself. My husband earns about £90,000 a year but with all the childrens expenses there is little left in the kitty. If someone out there could give us novices some sound advice it would be much appreciated. She is going to do a art foundation course and then a teaching degree and I've heard about a bursary but not sure what it entails??????????

dalepearson

You know your children better than anyone, if you think they will appreciate and not waste your payment for education and you can afford it (90k is mega bucks to me) then go aheard. I went to uni and paid for it all myself, worked during the week and weekend and holidays to fund everything. Many others parents paid, and to be honest wasted alot. If its the childs money to lose / waste for not working, I think they may put more effort in.

3 - 4 years uni fees, accomodation etc is alot of money, and if you do it for 1, then I guess you need to do it for all 6.

I am not a parent, just my opinion.

kawilson00

Hi, am a X student, and the student loan is worth getting, you can make money (i spent mine, but others saved it)

Take the student loan and put it in high interest account, it will grow quicker than the student loan.

Your children will only start paying back when they earn £15k or over and then its just another line on your payslip, a bit 10% tax after 15K.

If you can help them out a uni all the better, but a little work at weekend in 1st/2nd year is possible, less so in 3rd year!.

Living cost should be around 4k a year, you should be able to earn 2k in summer, and about £500 in term.

Pick where you can afford to go, big cities are expensive, London is shocking

One rumour doing the rounds for my eara is to take out a commercial loan with a bank pay off the student loan and then declare bankruptcy. (you can not write of government debt from bankruptcy’s, (well not student loans anyway). To be honest bankruptcy seems a bit far, and it has lasting consequences(6 years of no credit), but some of my friends have £30,000 debt and would never pay it off in 6 years. So its starting a fresh, and you got your education for free, that a teach a so called labour government

Karnam

I'm the oldest of 6 kids, and my parents try to help me occasionally but on the understanding that they will be less able to later on when my siblings go to university. But I wouldnt support them all the way, its a little too much cotton wool when parents effectively pay for EVERYTHING during university.

molemag

The key thing to remember about Student Loans is that the children will never get the chance to borrow such large sums over such long periods for such small cost again - and repayments are geared to income (try to get that from Barclaycard...)

If you think your children will be responsible with the money (and that's critical), and if you can afford it, I suggest that you give them the money they need to get through University, but also encourage them to borrow all they can at the low rate available from the Government, and then place it all in high rate interest accounts - start building up their maximum balances in minicash ISA's, especially, as once they start working this tax free interest will become very valuable.

Once they start working, and hence repaying the student loan, if they need it they they can withdraw the same monthly amount from the savings account, and hence not suffer a cash flow crisiis. Also, they will have an emergency cash fund to draw on, rather than run up a debt.

All being well, the interest earned will always be greater than the interest charged, and the result, as Mr Micawber would have said, is "happiness". If the scales ever tip the other way, they can pay off the outstanding balance from the cash on deposit and sleep at night.

megsykins

Your daughter won't have to pay her fees up-front as she will be under the new system.
They will be deducted from her pay packet (along with tax, NI and student loan) once she has graduated and is earning more than £15k.

Therefore, she only has to worry about her living costs whilst studying (still a lots of £ but at least the £3k fees are left to one side for a while)

gizmoleeds

kawilson00 wrote:

Pick where you can afford to go, big cities are expensive, London is shocking

Not necessarily. Bradford is the cheapest place in the UK to go to University according to a survey I saw. Northern cities (Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester) are all relatively cheap to live in - perhaps it is more of a north/south divide.

Plus, there are more opportunites to get job in a city, and it will be easier to get to a larger variety of shops, so you should be able to buy things cheaper.

You are right about London though (and I'm going to uni there in a year :eek: :rotfl: )

Karnam

kawilson00 wrote:

Pick where you can afford to go, big cities are expensive, London is shocking

this can be offset though. for example i know a lot of students who earn £8+ in london per hour wheras this is next to impossible elsewhere. plus you can bargin hunt easier in london and the job/career opps are soooo much more here.... it all depends.

gizmoleeds

Karnam wrote:

this can be offset though. for example i know a lot of students who earn £8+ in london per hour wheras this is next to impossible elsewhere....

What kind of job is it?

Karnam

Well i earnt £9 an hour doing street fundraising for charities (yes they really do get paid that much!) but I know that this can be from £7-14 depending on who you recruit with. And no it's not commission based.

Also I worked in Topshop in Oxford Circus for £7 an hour which was basic pay for probation period.

I've never done this but apparently Call centres and Data Entry earns around £6-10 an hour.

It really depends on the job and the company, the bigger ones have an insane amount of London waiting on thier wages.