Student loan for the under 17s

Zarma

Hiya,

I am a father of 12-year old twins and up until this year, my wife and I have been able to pay for our children's private education straight out of our salaries. Unfortunately, in order to help with their cash flow, the school has decided to impose a 3% charge on families paying by standing orders in order to encourage people to either pay up front or join the School Fee Plan (trading name of Premium Credit Ltd) who pays the fees up front on your behalf at a cost of 2.75% which you subsequently repay monthly.

Whilst I have been reading with great interest numerous threads about student loans, I have found little if anything at all about pre-university loans. I was therefore wondering whether there were cheaper forms of borrowing.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Kind regards,

paddyrg

You want to borrow money to pay for private schools? At 3% APR or less? Not going to happen I'm afraid.

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Hi,

There isn't such a thing since education is free for under 16s and 16-18 year olds. In any case student loans are taken out by the student not the parents.

Could you pay a full year on a 0% credit card then repay monthly at your normal rate?

DCFC79

Yes not likely, send the kids to a public school. You could go for a loan but I imagine that too wouldn't be possible as private school is expensive.

OP why start the same thread 12 minutes earlier here.

Zarma

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice wrote: »

Hi,

Could you pay a full year on a 0% credit card then repay monthly at your normal rate?

I too thought this was going to be the way forward. Unfortunately, just to make things more complicated, the school told me they did not have the facility to take credit card payments. Whilst you can purchase almost anything with your plastic friend, credit card providers do not seem to give you the choice of directly paying into someone's bank account (in our case into the school bank account).

iolanthe07

credit card providers do not seem to give you the choice of directly paying into someone's bank account

Yes, they do. You can ask your credit card provider for a cheque to be drawn on your credit card account They used to send these willy nilly unsolicited, but the FOS stopped it. You will pay an eyewatering interest rate, though.

paddyrg

iolanthe07 wrote: »

You will pay an eyewatering interest rate, though.

IIRC you pay the usual, full APR from day one, no discounted rate, no interest-free period - much like a cash advance.

iolanthe07

paddyrg wrote: »

IIRC you pay the usual, full APR from day one, no discounted rate, no interest-free period - much like a cash advance.

Yes - eye watering, though obviously not in the same league as PDLs.

broad-sword_2

Ask yourself my friend, can you really afford private school fees in the first place?

bouncydog1

What are the fees on an annual basis? What are they monthly? Need to get the interest into perspective so we know what amount you are talking about. In addition if the interest payment is going to be that much of an impact how are you going to deal with additional costs as they get older and are being privately educated? Have already been that route so do have an idea of what is involved.

thorsoak

Zarma - did you not realise that student loans are made to university students - who are over the age of 18 - to fund their university fees, rather than the grant that you probably received (if you went to uni?)