'Don't pay your kids tuition fees upfront' Discussion Area

Oldernotwiser

pleasedelete wrote: »

Well I have thought about it.

My daughter will be going to do a 4 year course and will become a teacher. If she becomes an assistant ht in a primary school she will earn about 40k in 5-7 years.

I have decided that she will not take on any debt. I have enough saved etc to pay £15k a year for her to go and can add some more each month.

I may make her take out the loans and I will repay them on graduation so that she can't take them out behind my back (which happened to a friend) this defeating thevpoint.

Any obvious flaws? I don't mind if I am paying more than she would repay. That's not an issue.

Sorry to be the voice of doom and gloom but this is a completely unrealistic expectation for your daughter's future. The country is vastly oversubscribed with primary school teachers and it could take her 5 years after finishing her training to even get a permanent job, much less becoming an assistant head!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8382542.stm

pleasedelete

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Sorry to be the voice of doom and gloom but this is a completely unrealistic expectation for your daughter's future. The country is vastly oversubscribed with primary school teachers and it could take her 5 years after finishing her training to even get a permanent job, much less becoming an assistant head!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8382542.stm

So wrong. 50 per cent of primary headships are unfilled at 1st interview. Here it is higher. It's what I do. I spend my life trying to find head teachers. Can't get them for love or money.

We have a crisis in terms of a shortage head teachers
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6067514

Here if you want you will be a ht in 5 years. Teaching head but a head.

All of my colleages children were heads or assistant heads within 5 years. Yes it may change over next few years but with npqh not recruiting again and questions over primary academies I think the shortage will be here for a few years yet. It's been in place for past 7 years at least.

Lokolo

pleasedelete wrote: »

So wrong. 50 per cent of primary headships are unfilled at 1st interview. Here it is higher. It's what I do. I spend my life trying to find head teachers. Can't get them for love or money.

But you can't go straight into being a head teacher can you?

By all means becoming a head teacher could be quite useful after a few years, but you still need to become a teacher before a HT.

pleasedelete

Lokolo wrote: »

But you can't go straight into being a head teacher can you?

By all means becoming a head teacher could be quite useful after a few years, but you still need to become a teacher before a HT.

Yes you do have to be a teacher. There are lots of reasons why some teachers can't get jobs! The colleges need to take more responsibility about who they recruit as a start.

It does vary across the country but again here you can't get a decent eyfs/ks1 teacher at the moment. It has been like that for 4 years. With so many teachers working part time after maternity the demand seems to ve growing not falling. We are still in the middle of the bulge of retiring teachers in a very short window.

After many years of frustration i volunteered to run application sessions for students. Those who do quality applications get interviews- those who get interviews get jobs.

Of 50 nqt applications for posts last year. 20 had either the name of the wrong school or wrong head teacher somewhere ( blame the student not word). A large number had spelling mistakes. Some didn't fill in all of tbe form or answer the questions etc etc. They don't visit the school or even read the website.

FATBALLZ

setmefree2 wrote: »

To be honest until my son was contemplating gong to Uni I hadn't really paid much attention to what was going on with SLs.

How long does that sort of loan you are talking about last?

Depends how much was borrowed, but at the rate I'm going with mine it should take a total of 7 years. But I earn decent money compared to most graduates and I went to Uni before top up fees so I borrowed a lot less. Many graduates on the same repayments terms as me will be paying for the full 25 years, at which point the debt is written off.

A graduate doing a 3 year course earning an average of £25k over the period would have to repay for the full 25 years.

pleasedelete

Anyway back to question. Any other flaws in the plan?

She will be given a small building plot and a sum of money (about 30k) at some point in next 10 years (it's a will bequest so no fixed time as they are still alive! but in reality she will probably just get it even if the giver isn't dead if she wants to build). I thought that being loan free would allow her to get the best from these as she could build a house to live in, rent or sell.

My parents paid for me to go to uni. We just want to try and do the same for our children. We have saved for it for 20 years etc

setmefree2

pleasedelete this is ML's main piece on SLs for 2012

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes


This is a recent ML blog on redemption fees
http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2011/09/26/stop-early-redemption-penalties-on-student-loans-the-mse-consultation-feedback/


This may be off use to you

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11483638



and the BBC Student Finance Calculator here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14785676

and this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12688170


Not an easy decision is it?

Oldernotwiser

pleasedelete wrote: »

So wrong. 50 per cent of primary headships are unfilled at 1st interview. Here it is higher. It's what I do. I spend my life trying to find head teachers. Can't get them for love or money.

We have a crisis in terms of a shortage head teachers
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6067514

Here if you want you will be a ht in 5 years. Teaching head but a head.

All of my colleages children were heads or assistant heads within 5 years. Yes it may change over next few years but with npqh not recruiting again and questions over primary academies I think the shortage will be here for a few years yet. It's been in place for past 7 years at least.

It's common knowledge that it's difficult to fill HT posts, that doesn't mean that it's easy to get a job as a NQT. In addition, there are enormous numbers of AHTs who don't want to take the next step, which means there's something of a logjam at that level.

pleasedelete

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

It's common knowledge that it's difficult to fill HT posts, that doesn't mean that it's easy to get a job as a NQT. In addition, there are enormous numbers of AHTs who don't want to take the next step, which means there's something of a logjam at that level.

I agree. It depends where you are and what age you specialise in. Shortage here of Reception and nursery teachers and has been for several years.

If you are flexible on location and good at what you do, have a clean crb (and unbelievably some new graduates don't and no-one seems to have mentioned it to them before they did a 4 year course) then you should be able to get a job.

Less nqt applications for each job here now than 2 years ago. Still a very big bulge of teachers to retire in next few years.

melancholly

pleasedelete wrote: »

Anyway back to question. Any other flaws in the plan?

She will be given a small building plot and a sum of money (about 30k) at some point in next 10 years (it's a will bequest so no fixed time as they are still alive! but in reality she will probably just get it even if the giver isn't dead if she wants to build). I thought that being loan free would allow her to get the best from these as she could build a house to live in, rent or sell.

My parents paid for me to go to uni. We just want to try and do the same for our children. We have saved for it for 20 years etc

i completely understand wanting to pay for her course - that's an increasingly generous decision by parents. however, she's becoming an adult. give her the information and empower her rather than just deciding for her. the number of people who change their career aims between 17 and 21 is massive. it also sounds like she's picking something you're involved with with teaching. one of the great things about university is the opportunity to see so many more options. there are so many ways things could change that making all your plans with such certainty is very risky.

as long as she understands the cost of living and what the loan involves, then you've done your bit (and in all honesty, better than most!). you can't plan to have this level of control with an adult.