Extending Mortgage term to fund children's education.

I can only answer for my student who lived in student accommodation and came home every weekend. Her and her housemates do not like to grocery shop. At least once a month, they would wrangle a lift back and would bring stocks of pasta, toilet paper, rice, beans, cereals, sauce jars and frozen products.

When travelling back on the sunday night by public transport they would pack fruit , yogurts, bread, milk etc for the 5 days. They would also text a shopping list during the week to the parents. So basically their preferred food was added to the family shop. The housemates informally had a rota of whos turn it was to supply bin bags , sponges, toilet paper etc.. noone fell out over that. Overall, it didn't cost any more than when student lived at home. A bit of forward planning is needed though.

We then gave €20 per week towards phone, bus tickets, socialising etc... our student had a partime job so she sorted her own clothes and makeup.

Some parents drop their kid back every sunday night via a lidl/aldi. Others bring 'Monday's dinner' in a lunch box. They usually arrive home ravenous on a friday night. None of them like wasting their own money on food. Hth

The €20 per week was transferred over online to their account as they tap their card for everything now such as taxis, coffee etc...

I notice that the govt has indicated that student reg fees will be frozen for the next 5 years. This is to be welcomed, but the rest of the statement seems to be the usual kicking the can down the road. No loan scheme, no improved maintanence scheme, no subsidised accomodation, no increase in the academic year (with subsequent reduction in degree course length). In short, sweet F.A.
The people sending children to college over the next few years will be those who were battered by the recession. They are the people who started families in 2000-2005, who got themselves a celtic tiger mortgage, who saw the price they paid for their modest property plummet by 50%, or more, they saw their wages decrease, or disappear. This group is now facing a large cost for further education and the only way to fund it, for many, will be to take out extortionate loans from the same financial institutions which blew up the economy in the first place.

If the govt is not willing to subsidise full time students, then it should make some effort to provide a loan scheme. This should be for living expenses, not for colleges to gouge money out of people as happens in the UK, and should be modest enough ( say 6000 Euros per year). It should be a not for profit scheme with the interest rate linked to govt borrowing costs ( currently virtually 0%). This loan to be repaid by the graduate upon achieving a salary of 25k per annum, over a 20 year period. Coupled with an increase in the academic year ( Sep to mid July) and a drop in course length to three years for primary degrees, this would make things much more manageable for those who don't have 12k per year, per student in their back pocket.

There is a "squeezed middle" of people like the OP who do not have high incomes, but are still ineligible for grants.

Credit union or bank loans at 7%-8% over long terms are extremely expensive.

The state should do three things:
1) charge fees closer to the economic cost of degrees. Medicine should cost more than humanities. It would also stem the flood of EU students post Brexit.
2) give subsidised loans for fees only at 2% or so.
3) cut third-level places by 20% and incentivise apprenticeships instead.

On the pat Kenny show today, the expert said that 70 percent of student receive grants or bursaries. There must be very few squeezed middle. Or else some of those grants are minuscule.

Figrus said:

On the pat Kenny show today, the expert said that 70 percent of student receive grants or bursaries. There must be very few squeezed middle. Or else some of those grants are minuscule.

Click to expand...

When I went to college, the grant I received covered the bus and rail ticket for the term. No change from it.