Best advice to give to son?

mattpaint

I'm actually outraged you would charge him £200 per month for a part-time shared room with two other people. It seems as if you want him around to keep paying you and not for what's best for him.

No wonder your youngest can't wait to leave.

samroo

My daughter could have taken her degree in nursing at a campus 5 minutes walk from our home. I really wanted her to do this as I would miss her a lot if she left home.

But I let her make her own decision and off she went to uni. This was the best decision of her life. It built her confidence, financial awareness, she eats food that she wouldn't have looked at at home and had freedom and independence.

My son is now away at uni too

My advice would be to let him go

Spendless

My son went to Uni (an ex poly) last month. He's first generation to go. When he came home after 2 1/2 weeks and went to visit his Grandparents, my Dad said afterwards 'who was that?' because even in that short space of time he'd matured from the person who'd been living with us and you could see the difference.

Living away gives them all different skills, budgeting, getting on with diff people, independence, managing their workload etc in a diff way than you get living at home.

If he's only going to receive the min loan, then he'll also need to have a job where he works enough hours to manage financially, otherwise you will need to contribute.

My son did BTEC L3 and didn't get great results. He is on a foundation year because of this. He wouldn't go and look at his university on their open day, can't remember why,but when he applied there anyway, their admissions policy was that he had an interview, so he went and loved it!

The course my son is on, at 18 he's one of the youngest on it. He's said many are in their 20s. Plenty of people decide that they want/need to get a degree later on in life.

Spendless

cjdavies wrote: »

I stayed at home, mainly for cost reasons and have no regrets.

People say move out, it's part ofbtje experience and be independent- yet parents give money, which to me defeats the object.

That's due to the way the maintenance loan works. The amount you can borrow depends on the household income of the parent/s (step-parent/s) where the student lives. The idea is that if you don't receive the maximum the parent/s top up the difference, which is why they give money. If the parent doesn't give money, then student needs a job that they can manage around their studies that also pays enough. Without this additional money the loan may be only just enough to pay their rent and nothing else. In some cases it might not even be enough to pay the rent.

ViolaLass

cjdavies wrote: »

I stayed at home, mainly for cost reasons and have no regrets.

People say move out, it's part ofbtje experience and be independent- yet parents give money, which to me defeats the object.

There's a lot more to running your own life and being independent than earning money. Not to say that financial independence isn't important but there are many other things you have to deal with - cooking, cleaning, paying bills, having clean and appropriate clothes etc.

onomatopoeia99

redmel1621 wrote: »

Some of the halls are more than he would get via student loans. He will get £4200

Why are you not making up the shortfall to the full £8700 maintenance loan? His eligibility for loans is based on the household income - you and his dad. Between you, you must earn way, way too much for him to get near the full amount so the idea is that you are supposed to make up the difference. This would give him more options.

izoomzoom

I can only give our own experience.

We only visited one Uni, first choice with very high mark requirements.

DS didn't want to view any others.

Can't remember what order it happened, but DS started to fall behind at school (a-levels) and he buried his head in the sand. We had a few conversations about whether he actually wanted to go to Uni.

Then he got his acceptances .... and there was none from his First Choice. He was very upset and went through a short period of depression.

Then he visited a Uni that he did get a place at, whilst a friend was having an interview. He loved it.

He went back for another visit (again without us, because we couldn't get time off work at short notice) and the rest is history.

I visited this Uni for the first time when I dropped him off at his student digs last month!

redmel1621

samroo wrote: »

My daughter could have taken her degree in nursing at a campus 5 minutes walk from our home. I really wanted her to do this as I would miss her a lot if she left home.

But I let her make her own decision and off she went to uni. This was the best decision of her life. It built her confidence, financial awareness, she eats food that she wouldn't have looked at at home and had freedom and independence.

My son is now away at uni too

My advice would be to let him go

I have never said that I'm not going to let him go lol.

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Why are you not making up the shortfall to the full £8700 maintenance loan? His eligibility for loans is based on the household income - you and his dad. Between you, you must earn way, way too much for him to get near the full amount so the idea is that you are supposed to make up the difference. This would give him more options.

I've redone the calculator using a few different incomes. Based on our last years income, he would get the full amount. Based on our current income he would get £7000 but based on what our income will be from January (assuming Dh manages to stay in work) he will get the £4000.

I suppose it all depends on what income SFE use to determine his award. (Edit: I have now found that our. Although It also says it takes his income into account, but I can't see anywhere whether that is his current income, or the same year as ours lol)

I have only recently completed 5 years of university, but my award was calculated completely differently to his. I am not entirely sure how they calculate his, but I am assuming it is using the previous year income figure?

This higher loan figure will allow him to not worry about accommodation costs

redmel1621

*max* wrote: »

I have a feeling you're thinking about this with pretty much only money on your mind. You mentioned you would lose tax credits for him once he goes to uni. And then that you will charge him rent once he goes (!!!). So you're maybe relying on getting that money you're losing in the form of him paying you rent instead? Which means if he goes away, you won't get his money.

I hope you've not told him this, it's extremely unfair to him to even mention any of it. He might feel a need to stay in this cramped situation and sacrifice his prospects just so you don't lose money.

Hopefully it's not the case. The choice should be based on what HE wants to do, and the best option for HIM, nothing else.

I think you have completely misread the situation and my intentions If you reread all of my replies to other posters, you will have more of an idea of which option, from the 3 he has, that I am leaning more towards.

Ultimately it has to be his decision. I just needed a few ideas of areas to guide him towards researching, in order for him to make the best decision for him :beer:

mattpaint wrote: »

I'm actually outraged you would charge him £200 per month for a part-time shared room with two other people. It seems as if you want him around to keep paying you and not for what's best for him.

No wonder your youngest can't wait to leave.

No need to be outraged

I wouldn't necessarily charge him £200. I was just giving an example to compare to paying for halls.

I would charge him 'something' though. He works part time (which he would continue to do whether he stayed at home to went away to uni) and if he stayed at home he wouldn't have to worry about food, toiletries, household items, etc etc etc... So yes, I probably would charge him something to get him use to 'paying his way'.

I would suggest he cuts back his hours a bit as his main focus should be his studies.With this in mind, I would obviously reduce the amount I would want him to pay.

I do think that was a bit of a hurtful comment about my other son though.(who is not my youngest btw!)
He has his own reasons for looking forward to flying the nest and none of them are to do with me.

maman

I heard Martin:money: on the radio last night discussing the parental contribution. I don't remember the details but the gist was that it's based on out of date figures of parental income. So if your circumstances have improved recently that helps IYSWIM.


Whether to take 'board' from your child is a different discussion entirely, often aired on here. Personally I think there are many other ways of teaching financial education than taking money from them but I realise that some people disagree or are desperate for a contribution.