Paying for 25 year old child

Discussing family finances with children can have a downside too. I feel very sorry for children brought up in a 'we can't afford that' sort of atmosphere.

Why do you feel sorry for them ? Thats quite a patronising remark really. It's much better to discuss this with your children than to have to have the difficult conversation later about how you can't afford to support them at Uni because they've been blissfully unaware of any issues !

I can't help feeling that he'll miss out on the experience and that the fact that his mum is a single parent and he's seen signs of money being tight (downsizing home for example) has influenced him.

Of course it's influenced him, but not in a bad way ! The trouble these days is that some children go to Uni exactly for that, "the experience" and not to further their career. Seeing money being tight is not a bad thing. I was left as a single parent when my daughter was 2 and my son was 15. Money was, and sometimes still is, tight for me. My son went to Uni and worked all the time he was there, my daughter goes in 2 weeks, she will get a job if she has the time to fit it in around her workload. She knows i cant afford to offer a lot of financial support, she knows that she has to stick to a budget to manage on her student loan. She's lucky that her loan covers her accommodation and leaves her a bit of spending money for books, resources etc. She knew full well that she couldn't choose to study at a Uni where the accommodation was more than her loan. We discussed it way in advance of her applications.

Because of the way i've had to live on just my salary (no maintenance from my ex) she is brilliant with money. Being a single parent isn't all doom and gloom, far from it. My ex always thought that buying your children gifts was the way to make them love you, this is why he's now an ex.

Tabbytabitha wrote: »

Poor choices or poor results ( the most likely reason) can only be the student's fault and they seem to have missed the three year cut off point by quite a bit, despite what the OP says.

I think it was more the timing of the 25th birthday. Apparently the child has a birthday around now so before the actual start of university terms. What took OP by surprise was that the 'official' university term for administrative and accounting purposes starts on September 1st.


I suppose OP was caught out because she's unfamiliar with 'official' starts/ends of terms in the education sector. This shouldn't really be the case though as children are eligible start school in the year they're going to be 5. That's up to 31st August even though that date's always in school holidays. Most parents make themselves aware of that.

Spendless wrote: »

Is it a full 3 years though? Or 3 years by a certain deadline? If they leave school/college at 18 in June/July and don't find a f-time job until say mid Sept or October. Then would they still qualify for independent status from Sept 1st at age 21 or just miss a full 3 years?

You could be claiming benefits in your own right from when you finish school to starting a job. If you spend those months being subbed by your parents then obviously you can't claim that they count towards a period of being independent.