Is it time to stop student finance being based on parental income

Absolutely. Don't go to uni then. It's not a divine right, or work hard, save up and go to uni later.

You have to have an average wage of 35k over 30 years to pay off a 40k student loan. Many many students won't. Where's the rest of the money coming from?

If someone's own wealthy parents can't be arsed to help with their privileged childrens' educations, then it beggars belief that they expect the rest of the hardworking parents/men/women of the UK to pay instead!

Unbelievable. Just who do these people think they are?!

SS

Even after tax, it's still substantially higher than people on 25k. I'll give you size of the family, but that's a rarely the issue. It's unlikely that a parent would have say 3 kids of university age all at the same time, but there are also those on lower incomes with more than one child of university age so in that case, the student on a lower income would need it more anyway.

Parents should be helping. If they're on 80k, they have more disposable income than someone on 25k. If they don't help at all, it's because they don't want to, not because they are unable to. I question those parents.

The student finance system does account for siblings (and also pension contributions).

My household income means I'll be getting the lowest loan; we haven't got enough disposable income to fill the gap and pay the rent for uni, let alone feed me.

To get the lowest loan your family is earning 70k+.

That money hasn't just disappeared into thin air - it's been spent on things that were considered more important than their son eating at university.

I'm not too keen on discussing individual situations but the idea that a family on 70k should get their lifestyle subsidised by someone earning 25k so they can spend more on more important things than their son eating at university is a sense of entitlement endemic in our society.

My apologies if you are estranged from your parents or if you've been vocal about not wanting to go to university until very recently.

SS

Ok, maybe it's not quite the lowest but yeah. It's a case of us having been on about £40k a year until very recently (my dad starts the new job that bumps this up in a month or so. Most of the money has gone on trying to prevent the house from falling apart.

As I say, I'm keen to discuss general principles rather than specific situations as I don't know yours. Also, people understandably get defensive so it's difficult to have a rational discussion.

If your family are on 40k or so (this is not rich, by anyone's standards as that's 2 people on 20k each), then you're fully entitled to 6.4k a year as a maintenance loan and with a part time job, that can be topped up to 8-9k. Should be plenty to survive on for the year.

I'm sorry to hear things have been tough for your family recently! Hope things get better soon. It looks like things are on the up.

The bit your parents complete asks about other dependents. Pension contributions are also deducted

http://media.slc.co.uk/sfe/1617/ft/sfe_pff2_form_1617_d.pdf

You said you have a younger sister, student finance accounts for any dependents in your parents care. Maybe you overlooked it

Yeah - main issue is that with my dyspraxia I wouldn't cope with uni and a part time job

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Of course they're entitled to, but they're responsible for providing for those kids. And in what way are university costs ridiculous?

Then that also applies to lower income households - responsible for providing for their kids.

It is not a justification. It is a reality check. That an idea, which seems so obvious to a wealthy 18 year old has not been adopted by any politician at all, ought to send a signal about just how outrageous the idea is.

Politicians, of left and right, accept that that the vast majority of parents who are able to do so continue to provide financial support to their children until they achieve a financial independence equal to that of their parents and to abolish the parental contributions system would be a subsidy to wealthy parents at the expense of the rest of the public.

All means tests are a trade off between completeness and simplicity and government has taken the view that establishing capital wealth is a complexity too far. Government is in a different position to independent schools when fixing bursaries. Government decisions have to be rule based and cannot be impressionistic.

School bursary applicants do have to produce details of capital but schools don't have to get to the bottom of trust funds and other complex sources of wealth. A school can take the view, "we are not giving this child a bursary because Daddy drives a Porsche" or "the more complicated the arrangements to prove the parents have nothing, the greater the rat the school smells". Governmental organisations can't do that.

There is currently a petition calling for student finance to not be based on parental income. I completely agree, why should the government care what income my parents make, why should the chavvy UKIP types studying PE get more money than me because of what their parents earn? Education is a right for everyone FACT so I should not be excluded due to low maintenance loans. I can't wait for 2020 so I can vote for Jeremy Corbyn who will give me free education and abolish these discriminatory loans. Do you guys agree everyone should be entitled to the same amount?

Parents have 18 years to save up for their children going to uni. Too bad, so sad if they spent that on a 2nd car/house. The state should not pick up the bill because your parents wanted to spend their money on something else.

Why should a lower band taxpayer have to contribute towards a rich kids education as WELL as paying for their own children. An absolute mystery to me.

The fact of the matter is, you would subsise the lifestyle of the rich with the taxes of the poor, so they don't have to pay for their children to go to university. Absolutely. Mental.

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They are still responsible but can't afford to help as much as someone on a higher income so we get extra help..

using your logic, why should the taxpayer subsidise the kids of low earning parent? The fact is the higher taxband parent is in all probability already subsidising poor kids as well as their own. There are so many assumptions being made in this thread and double standards. Let's be clear the majority of high earners pay their taxes. They aren't all Starbucks, Google and Vodafone! Why the hatred for people that have managed personal success? Why should those parents subsidise those who haven't? Is it their responsibility to make up for other people's failures to provide funding for offspring's education? Is that not feckless?

The logic is that if you're going to have a system of education is funded, or partly funded by the taxpayer - then the focus should be on helping those who can't help themselves. Not subsidising the already wealthy. Is that controversial?

They are expected to help you, and if your parents have money to give you but decide to let you starve instead then I'm stumped. My mum is on a lower income and she always helps me if I need her.

You are not at the mercy of your parents. They should be helping you yes, but if they don't, then you help yourself. You don't cry about not having money.

I wouldn't call that being on 'perfectly good terms' if your parents are willing to watch you struggle your way through uni when they could be helping you.
If they do refuse, get a job whilst studying, and save through summer. Commute from home. Defer entry to uni. Nobody is forcing you to go to uni at 18.

The taxpayer is paying for their education for the entire time the student is at uni...
Student loans are only paid back once the student starts earning 21k (which a lot of them wont). Even at 21k, they'll only be paying back something like £10 a month so they probably will never get round to paying off the entire loan before its wiped off.

Absolutely. Don't go to uni then. It's not a divine right, or work hard, save up and go to uni later.

You have to have an average wage of 35k over 30 years to pay off a 40k student loan. Many many students won't. Where's the rest of the money coming from?

If someone's own wealthy parents can't be arsed to help with their privileged childrens' educations, then it beggars belief that they expect the rest of the hardworking parents/men/women of the UK to pay instead!

Fair enough, but I still suspect there is a better way of doing this than assessing parental income. At the very least it should be spied with siblings, which is not currently taken into account but has a huge impact on what students receive

The student finance system does account for siblings (and also pension contributions).

When we're talking about students who don't have jobs or money of their own, there's no difference between "rich" and "poor". They're all poor. Yes, some parents may give money to their children, but the point is they're not obliged to, so it cannot be assumed that they always will.

If you expect the children of rich parents to be able to handle themselves in such a situation, where their parents are not contributing, then why should we not expect the children of poor parents to do the same, if it's that easy? Surely that would be fair.

Part of the solution then, must be to alter the rates and boundaries that determine how much the student pays back, and when, so the taxpayer isn't making a loss.

I certainly agree with helping the poor at the expense of the rich, but I think it should depend on how rich the student is personally (i.e. after graduating) rather than how rich their parents are. You can make the repayments higher for high-earning graduates, for example.

If you try to make the system fair by making it depend on the wealth of parents, you incorrectly assume that parents are always totally happy to share as much wealth as need be with their children. In fact, this situation is quite unfair. There are many examples when the child of the rich parent ends up in a much more difficult position than the child of a poor parent due to lack of a maintenance loan and lack of financial help from their parents.