Paying for children at university

Homeownertobe

pigpen wrote: »

PMSL.. expecting adults to stand on their own 2 feet and be responsible is normal.. expecting mollycoddled pansies that need walking through life being led by the nose is not.. I am more than proud that my children are succeeding because they are working hard rather than being snivelling paps being spoonfed at an age when our parents and probably most of us were married with jobs a mortgage and probably children of our own!

How can we have people complaining their adult offspring are behaving like 12 year olds on one post yet here they are expected to be treated as though they are 12??

These over privileged immature snotwipes went the full length of our street and keyed every single car.. there are wing mirrors smashed off weekly, bins put on car roofs, windscreen wipers bent and broken, bins upturned, police raids for drug possession every so often and a street that stinks of weed... this is what they get up to when they aren't at home tied down by apron strings!! And if I've put an end to one 'party' I've put an end to 100 (one lot had a live band in their back garden!!).. usually with several arrests for drink driving and antisocial behaviour. Amazingly very few lock their front door, you go in, open the understair cupboard remove some fuses and leave They wouldn't do this at home, so no, they don't deserve to be anywhere that is a luxury and a pipe dream for far too many.

My offspring are the ones who come home, cook dinner, do their essays, clean their homes and complain about how the revolting minority give the decent hardworking students a bad name.


My daughter had a run in with her personal tutor a few weeks ago. she turned up unwell andtired and he accused her of being hung over.. she had not slept for 3 days due to a poorly child, being ill herself and the idiot students across the road screeching and being morons in the street in the middle of the night when they got home from whatever hole they had been in.. lets just say her reply was far from polite.. but his reaction is what the lecturers expect..

How awful for you. Perhaps you should move? I can't say I've experienced anything like that, but then I went to a decent university.

Jagraf

I don't think asking children to consider financial impact when choosing a university is a bad thing - at what point should they learn these skilks? Why argue that it's stopping progress and aspirations when actually it's helping equip them with the skills needed to achieve their ambitions.

I don't think anyone here wants to stifle their kids education.

Jagraf

mumps wrote: »

I did the alternative route, had a baby just after my 18th birthday and another at 21 and started to study when the younger one started school. My boss agreed to me doing a course which my employers , a large police force, paid forbut I had to cope with a fulltime job and two kids. I did five years of it, my employers were great and paid my fees and bought my books and gave me study leave before exams but I told my kids it was hard and the older two could remember it. I encouraged them to do it fulltime straight from school and helped them as much as I could.

I think our own experiences do impact on what we want for our kids, especially educationally. My mum had a nervous breakdown during my O levels and I failed miserably and spent years catching up. On the other hand, I was over supportive (helicopter parenting!) with my daughter - she got 8 A* and 4A grades - fabulous but really now she's doing A levels and I've backed off she's struggling to be self motivated - I think I made it too easy for her and I was living through her. She wants to do medicine and I will support her any way I can, but there are choices to be made financially as I'm not going to just hand it to her on a plate.

And I would love to see alternatives to acquiring medical qualifications.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I really meant the general standard at each level rather than individual attainments. In the subjects I'm familiar with, A levels are not that much different from O levels in the 60s and the same with the first year or two of degree courses compared with A levels then.

Teaching only became an all graduate profession in the mid/late 70s, up to then it was quite unusual for primary school teachers to be graduates. Obviously that wasn't the case in grammar schools but I remember we all felt a bit sorry for the PE teacher who didn't have a gown to wear at assembly.:)

It is hard for me to compare, my kids tended towards the sciences and languages and my loves were history, English lit, RE. As I said I have never worked in education so my view is obviously influenced by the two excellent grammar schools my kids attended. My kids did all say that they felt their writing skills were higher than alot of students, they felt their grammar school had been rigorous about style, grammar, spelling etc. I didn't do A levels so I have no clue about what they were like. If I hadn't left school early and married early I would have done A levels in 1971.

As you say it was normal to have graduates teaching in grammar schools. My primary school had all Irish teachers from what I remember, mainly nuns and certainly the ones I remember in juniors would talk about their universities with stories of Trinity being the ones I remember most, probably because that was my last two years in juniors. I think they always tried to inspire us about what life could be like, we were almost 100% the children of immigrants living in a very rough inner city area. The same convent ran a private school and our proud boast was that our 11 plus pass rate was higher than the private school, probably aided by liberal use of the cane and strap which tended to focus the mind. From my class of 48 I remember 23 of us went to grammar school and I know some went on to be teachers, university lecturers, nurses and at least one doctor. I did things the wrong way round, marriage, babies and then HE which I wouldn't recommend as I think it is much harder.

mumps

Jagraf wrote: »

I think our own experiences do impact on what we want for our kids, especially educationally. My mum had a nervous breakdown during my O levels and I failed miserably and spent years catching up. On the other hand, I was over supportive (helicopter parenting!) with my daughter - she got 8 A* and 4A grades - fabulous but really now she's doing A levels and I've backed off she's struggling to be self motivated - I think I made it too easy for her and I was living through her. She wants to do medicine and I will support her any way I can, but there are choices to be made financially as I'm not going to just hand it to her on a plate.

And I would love to see alternatives to acquiring medical qualifications.

I think the self motivation is very important. With my youngest two we home educated for 5 years. People were horrified, we let them do what they wanted with learning, I have seen my daughter getting out of bed and coming down with a query about how something worked in maths and I have gone to bed at midnight leaving her and her dad still working on it, she was 7 or 8 but it is amazing what they can do in two or three hours when they have really got the urge to work. I can see a real difference in how they managed their own learning compared to my older two where we supervised, helped, pushed. I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it with the first two.

I think the idea of doing medicine part-time is challenging, already a full-time course is 5 years and is very full on (one of mine dated a med student at uni) so if it was going to be ten years followed by further study as a junior doctor it would really stretch on. After the five years if you want to be a GP it is another 5 years, I think more like 7 more years to become a specialist so doubling up it could be 20 years for your 18 year old to become a GP, not sure if many would have the stamina. During the years as a junior doctor after their degree they are often working 90 hrs per week so even if they went part-time they could still be doing more hours than most jobs and of course studying for exams as well. I can't see it happening.

mumps

indiepanda wrote: »

I agree. There are very few courses you can only choose to study in London. Most young people would love to live in London if they could afford it, but if one child had been sensible and thought they'd choose a cheaper place to live and the other went for the London option for the excitement of being in the capital without it being necessary to do so for their degree, then it seems a little unfair for the sensible child to just get less financial support.

To be honest, I'd expect parents to have a sensible conversation with a child before they selected their university about what support they could give and the child to take that into account when deciding where to study rather than having to make a decision about what is fair once the choice has been made.

I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to study in London as I knew my parents didn't have much money and wouldn't have been able to come up with extra just because I'd decided to live somewhere very expensive. (I didn't go for the cheapest place either I'll admit)

One of mine very much wanted to study in London but chose not to because of the cost. They later did their PGCE in London so had a year living in London, liked it but was happy to leave at the end of the year. Itch scratched:rotfl:

Jagraf

mumps wrote: »

I think the self motivation is very important. With my youngest two we home educated for 5 years. People were horrified, we let them do what they wanted with learning, I have seen my daughter getting out of bed and coming down with a query about how something worked in maths and I have gone to bed at midnight leaving her and her dad still working on it, she was 7 or 8 but it is amazing what they can do in two or three hours when they have really got the urge to work. I can see a real difference in how they managed their own learning compared to my older two where we supervised, helped, pushed. I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it with the first two.

I think the idea of doing medicine part-time is challenging, already a full-time course is 5 years and is very full on (one of mine dated a med student at uni) so if it was going to be ten years followed by further study as a junior doctor it would really stretch on. After the five years if you want to be a GP it is another 5 years, I think more like 7 more years to become a specialist so doubling up it could be 20 years for your 18 year old to become a GP, not sure if many would have the stamina. During the years as a junior doctor after their degree they are often working 90 hrs per week so even if they went part-time they could still be doing more hours than most jobs and of course studying for exams as well. I can't see it happening.

That's why I would like to see the whole complex issue of studying / uni / education revamped. Many degree courses could be completed in a year (not medicine and the likes, but some could).

Rain_Shadow

I have DS1 in his fourth year at Durham and DS2 in his second year at Oxford. They both get the same.


Term 1: £1000 + I match what they earn in the summer vac (up to a maximum of another £1000).


Term 2: £1000.


Term 3 Nothing.

missbiggles1

Jagraf wrote: »

That's why I would like to see the whole complex issue of studying / uni / education revamped. Many degree courses could be completed in a year (not medicine and the likes, but some could).

Fortunately our HE system isn't based on stuffing as many facts into someone's head in as short a time as possible. If that were ever to happen it would really be the final nail in the coffin of education in this country.

mumps

Jagraf wrote: »

That's why I would like to see the whole complex issue of studying / uni / education revamped. Many degree courses could be completed in a year (not medicine and the likes, but some could).

Not sure which degrees you are thinking of, my four had quite a heavy workload plus working to finance it all (except the nurse) and doing volunary stuff to enhanced their experience/CV which was very worthwhile. They are all in graduate jobs in their chosen fields and the experience they got during their time at uni played a part in that.