Can I afford to go back to uni?

nathan_prentice2001

I currently work for the Police. I have a mortgage to pay and a wife and 2 kids to look after. I have thinking about a change of career, maybe into teaching. But can I afford to go back to uni?

It's just my wage that pays the mortgage and all the bills. If I do a full-time course I would need a loan or grant to cover all these for 3/4 years. Is there any funding or grants out there for people like me wanting to change career?

nimbo

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/Typesoffinance/index.htm

have you been to uni previously????? this would change what you were entitled to in the way of finance...

also you have missed the application deadline for this year, unless you could find a place through clearing.... (they can be rare unless you fancy looking into truly random courses... last year i could have been a maths teacher, or a midwife...)

Derivative

Going to University for 3 years is likely to cost you three years salary + the tuition fees for 3 years.

If you're going for say an undergraduate degree and you make £20k pa after tax, we're talking £90,000 - will the degree help you by that much?

I think that the best way to do it would be to try to save the money and then go. If you can't save for it, you won't be able to manage to pay for it after/during the course.

Samantha22

nathan_prentice2001 wrote: »

I currently work for the Police. I have a mortgage to pay and a wife and 2 kids to look after. I have thinking about a change of career, maybe into teaching. But can I afford to go back to uni?

It's just my wage that pays the mortgage and all the bills. If I do a full-time course I would need a loan or grant to cover all these for 3/4 years. Is there any funding or grants out there for people like me wanting to change career?

Hi Nathan,:)

It is quite possible that you can study for your degree with the Open University, whilst still working full time. Depending on your salary, and taking your wife & two children into consideration, you will be entitled to a grant. There is no harm in trying, anyway. Try this site:

www.open.ac.uk/courses

Good Luck :A

DirtyDick

I'd think very, very carefully, especially if going down the teaching route.

Assuming you have no degree, best route is standard degree in a curriculum subject and then a PGCE in year 4. The BEd/BA in Education is not really something you'd want to do these days, as it's generally less attractive to employers as it's perceived as not being a 'specialist' degree.

This will all cost a lot of money and a place on a PGCE is competitive. It'll probably be more competitive as lots of people seek to retrain and the training courses are restructured. There is also the outside possibility of failing a PGCE - which also have very high drop-out rates due to the workload - or probationary NQT year - or, like lots of others, failing to find full-time employment at a convenient school.

When you start teaching, assuming it's in relation to national pay rates, at present you'd start on £22k. Out of this, however, aside from taxes you lose another couple of hundred a month on student loans and pension (if you don't opt out of it, but given the government is looking at compulsory pensions the teachers' one is still very good). If you factor in other loans, there will not be a lot left over on which to enjoy a good standard of living if you have a family. Annual increments will help, but these increase the % paid in repayments.

Outside of philanthropic organisations, I think it'd down to reductions in fees from Universities, but mainly owing a lot in loans.

Derivative

I suppose it's repeating my post a bit, but I would really focus on the loss in salary. Tuition fees are probably half, or less than half of your salary.

The biggest factor that people ignore when choosing to go to University is the lost income from working.

I am a current student and my gross debt will be roughly -£28k after four years. Thankfully I have some sources of income to reduce that.

Had I worked full time, I would have made at least £40k at NMW if I remained employed for the entire period. You would likely be looking at more.

Either way I still had most of the same costs - council tax and commuting are the two main things I can think of that I don't have to pay as a student. Still only a few grand a year.

However - I have my entire working life to try and make up that 60-70k deficit. You probably have about half of your working life left, and will have to face higher fees (mine are £3500pa).

I would think about this very very carefully. The decision could cost upwards of £100k if you do it wrong.

ViolaLass

I'm going to assume that you already have a degree (you say you want to go /back/ to uni)

1. What degree and what class?
2. What do you want to teach?

If you want to teach e.g. maths and have a 1st, then you could get a £20k bursary on top of any loans and grants. I think physics PGCEs get this too but I'm not sure. If you have a 2:1, you could get about £15k. I think it's £12k for a 2:2. If you have a third, you won't get on.

The PGCE course is only 9 months. Yes, it's enormously hard but drop out rates vary from uni to uni and if you pick your subject well, your odds of getting a job can be good. I'm training to be a maths teacher and I'm not worried about being employed come September.

DirtyDick

Vacancies for subjects change month by month and supposedly there will be a large number of shortage subjects within the next 10 years as there are a lot of teachers in their 50s. Primary is usually oversubscribed throughout, but there is still a push to get men to train in this so it could be to your advantage. Secondary depends on a lot of other factors as well, and shortage subjects change year on year - used to be a dearth of English teachers, for example, but not now; when I trained, RE was a shortage subject even though it's not a bona fide 'curriculum' subject.

While maths and science (physics especially) are usually quite difficult to fill, there aren't the huge numbers of vacancies there were a while back, as people holding degrees in these and related subjects lose jobs in the private sector, went into teaching when better pay and conditions were introduced (now making their inevitable slide backwards), or head into teaching as a more stable career. If your degree is in art, music, drama, PE etc., it would be more difficult to be assured a position, at least in your area (as they're usually smaller departments/single posts and not forming part of the new E Bac 'vision').

silverchair

I would also add that Teaching isn't such a stable job as it used to be. Although its not being advertised in the news, there are a lot of redundancies going on & this includes those shortage subjects.

MoneySavingMission

is there a website which shows demand for subject demand classed by region?
I am also thinking about doing my PGDE following recipt of a 2.1 in business in finance and 10 years in the industry. I dont see the point of training if there are no jobs out there!