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

setmefree2

Lokolo wrote: »

But very unlikely to stay like that over the next 30 years......

It's gonna be gone in May - it could be gone now but it's too cheap to get rid off.

setmefree2

kayr wrote: »

I'm not sure a 17 year old needs a car unless they live somewhere pretty remote or there are other special circumstances. And most university students can manage perfectly well without a car - it's pretty expensive insuring one at that age, especially for boys. Bikes, public transport, walking - seems to work pretty well on the whole.

and even if they did need a car - why would you make a 30 year committment to pay 9% of your income (over the threshold) to pay for for one?????

setmefree2

Lokolo wrote: »

Why would the wife get the house if he put his own equity into it? She wouldn't.

She can when there are children involved.... I don't know what happens when there are no children involved in a divorce but presumably everything gets split 50-50.

setmefree2

Lokolo wrote: »

You go by what makes most sense, which is the student loan option as you have better advantages over it than a mortgage.

You are assumimg it's an either / or. Maybe we will be able to do both? After all our son is only 17, it could be ages before he is contemplating buying a property. Maybe he'll make so much money he can pay for his own deposit? Maybe he'll inherit some money? Maybe he'll marry a rich girl. Maybe my bonus will be extra massive next year .

Who knows????

What I do know is that I can save him quite a bit of money by paying upfront.

A bird in a hand and all that....

Lokolo

setmefree2 wrote: »

You are assumimg it's an either / or. Maybe we will be able to do both? After all our son is only 17, it could be ages before he is contemplating buying a property. Maybe he'll make so much money he can pay for his own deposit? Maybe he'll inherit some money? Maybe he'll marry a rich girl. Maybe my bonus will be extra massive next year .

Who knows????

What I do know is that I can save him quite a bit of money by paying upfront.

A bird in a hand and all that....

Ok well i dont know your whole financial situation but if the mortgage is gone by may why are you thinking of taking any money out? You could most probably save enough from may to go to uni to supply him with some living costs and pay the terms tuition fees. My uni didnt take fees until january and then may, so plenty of time for you to save.

Now that idea i would definately think you are doing the best thing. I just dont think the taking money out is better than student loan.

setmefree2

Lokolo wrote: »

Ok well i dont know your whole financial situation but if the mortgage is gone by may why are you thinking of taking any money out? You could most probably save enough from may to go to uni to supply him with some living costs and pay the terms tuition fees. My uni didnt take fees until january and then may, so plenty of time for you to save.

Now that idea i would definately think you are doing the best thing. I just dont think the taking money out is better than student loan.

No no - we're not borrowing money. We're net savers. My signature is probably misleading.

From May we will have a spare cash every month which we currently use to pay/overpay our mortgage, so we should be able to pay the tuition fess and maintenance from income and not even touch our current savings. In fact, we probably will still be able to save at least half of the money we currently use to pay our mortgage (plus the other savings we normally do - using our cash ISA allowance, holidays, christmas, pensions, etc). So our savings will still be growing - just not as fast as we would have hoped if the coalition hadn't have raised the tuition fees.

Obviously, we don't want to pay for tuition fees if it's not necessary.

The other thing that has probably muddied the waters is the question of savings versus mortgage when you have a low mortgage rate... but that's a for a different thread...

setmefree2

It's a new dawn and a new day....

and the politicians are muddying the waters again. Here is today's offering from the Labour Party.

Tuition fees: Labour pledges maximum cap of £6,000


Labour leader Ed Miliband says his party would lower the cap on student tuition fees if returned to government.
He told the Sunday Mirror that Labour would limit university fees to £6,000 a year, down from the current £9,000 cap.
It would be partly funded by higher interest on student loans for graduates earning more than £65,000 a year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15050334



A number of first thoughts

• Is this going to be retrospective?
• HIGHER INTEREST (!!!!!!!!!) They don't think RPI plus 3% is enough!!!
• There won't be another election until 2015 and Labour might not win

setmefree2

From the Guardian

Miliband's aides said that, if there were an election now and Labour won, it would implement the policy as soon as possible. But they stopped short of promising that the details would feature in three and a half years' time in a party election manifesto. "This is what we would do now. But in three and a half years' time we might be able to do even more," an official said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/24/labour-tuition-fees-cut-miliband?newsfeed=true

So in three and a half years' time they might decide to go for Plan A - which was a graduate tax??????

Oldernotwiser

setmefree2 wrote: »

It's a new dawn and a new day....

and the politicians are muddying the waters again. Here is today's offering from the Labour Party.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15050334



A number of first thoughts

• Is this going to be retrospective?
• HIGHER INTEREST (!!!!!!!!!) They don't think RPI plus 3% is enough!!!
• There won't be another election until 2015 and Labour might not win

Only for those earning over £65,000, which seems fair enough, except they would probably have repaid their loans (or pretty nearly) by the time they got to that point.

setmefree2

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Only for those earning over £65,000, which seems fair enough, except they would probably have repaid their loans (or pretty nearly) by the time they got to that point.

Ummmm.....well it would appear the student loan system is becoming all about the "redistribution of wealth"...which is an extremely worrying turn of events for most people/students I would think.....