The 'How much should you save for your child to go to university?' calc

silvercar

You should consider the loan a graduate tax. Unless your offspring are destined for a very high earning career, it makes little sense to not take the loan as 83% of people never clear their loans in full.
If you are determined to pay up front, your looking at least £45k ( 3 years of tuition fees at £9k plus maintenance of £6k)

Spendless

silvercar said:

You should consider the loan a graduate tax. Unless your offspring are destined for a very high earning career, it makes little sense to not take the loan as 83% of people never clear their loans in full.
If you are determined to pay up front, your looking at least £45k ( 3 years of tuition fees at £9k plus maintenance of £6k)

 I think you'd be  looking at  saving for a maintainance  loan of even more. £6K is the cost of my Nephew's rent. My son'swas £5K last year and they're both in cheap areas of the country. If you're wanting to save in advance and not do a parental contribution at the time or assume child will find a job, that'll have to be taken into account. Though I agree with you that it would make no sense to do this.

silvercar

Spendless said:

silvercar said:

You should consider the loan a graduate tax. Unless your offspring are destined for a very high earning career, it makes little sense to not take the loan as 83% of people never clear their loans in full.
If you are determined to pay up front, your looking at least £45k ( 3 years of tuition fees at £9k plus maintenance of £6k)

 I think you'd be  looking at  saving for a maintainance  loan of even more. £6K is the cost of my Nephew's rent. My son'swas £5K last year and they're both in cheap areas of the country. If you're wanting to save in advance and not do a parental contribution at the time or assume child will find a job, that'll have to be taken into account. Though I agree with you that it would make no sense to do this.

Not disagreeing with you at all. My guess of 6k maintenance was very rough and also to round off the figures. Possibly living at home and commuting to university may make this possible. Of living somewhere particularly cheap or grotty.

PingPong1801

I really need help. Daughter has applied for student finance and we as parents have filled in the support forms. We had calculated using Martin's calculator, inputting husband's salary less pension contributions. But the application asked for gross figures and so daughter's loan is almost £1000 less than Martin's calculator had worked out. Martin's calculator states it's less pension contributions, but this now doesn't appear to be the case? Can anyone help please?

TwinLizzy

Can you deduct Gift Aid contributions as well as pension before giving the household income?

GuineaPig37

Hi,
I need to make a contribution towards my child's maintenance loan. MSE Forum contributors say that this is not tax exempt. If I needed to make a payment in excess of £3000 (the gift threshold for tax), what would happen?
I think that I can just pay a bill for my child instead but I'm interested in how this is all supposed to work.

silvercar

GuineaPig37 said:

Hi,
I need to make a contribution towards my child's maintenance loan. MSE Forum contributors say that this is not tax exempt. If I needed to make a payment in excess of £3000 (the gift threshold for tax), what would happen?
I think that I can just pay a bill for my child instead but I'm interested in how this is all supposed to work.

No tax on gifts in this country. 

AllotmentOldLad

I don't understand why there was so little difference in how much I should save between the 3 scenarios... given that one our daughter lives at home, and two she lives away from home (out of London), suggested for the latter we should save £10 more? TEN POUNDS? Sorry, but that makes no sense...?

silvercar

AllotmentOldLad said:

I don't understand why there was so little difference in how much I should save between the 3 scenarios... given that one our daughter lives at home, and two she lives away from home (out of London), suggested for the latter we should save £10 more? TEN POUNDS? Sorry, but that makes no sense...?

Without knowing the values you have entered it is difficult to see. The loan system is quite generous, relatively speaking, for students living at home.