Wendy

Saving for Education

If your children are planning to study in the future, it is a good idea to start a savings plan now.

Saving for education involves working out costs and the expected timing (take inflation into account), and then working out how much you need to save — either to put aside now as a lump sum, or to save on a regular basis.

Use our calculator to help you plan this now.

Long-term savings strategies 

  • Long-term savings could include investments in things like bonds, stocks or shares.
  • Deposit accounts at banks or building societies. These have the lowest risk, but lowest rewards.
  • Bonds — either government bonds or large corporations. These have medium risk and medium rewards.
  • Equities — stocks and shares in commercial businesses.

Specially-tailored plans

  • Alternatively, there are specifically tailored plans marketed by insurance companies to help you save.
  • These are based on life assurance policies, so that as well as being able to save, your children’s education would not be adversely affected

Take out a loan

If you have not saved sufficiently, you may have to take out a loan to cover tuition costs. If you have a flexible mortgage you might be able to use some of the available money in that account, at probably one of the lowest interest rates available.

Use the calculator to help you find out how much you need to save every month.

Further information

You can obtain more information on tuition and living costs from our higher education section.

The Student Loans Company has an excellent web site. There are also calculators to find out how much of a loan you would qualify for, and to tell you about repayments you will have to make.

www.slc.co.uk

Support 4 Learning runs a web site with all you need to know about student loans and government and other grants for higher education, with many links to relevant sites.

www.support4learning.com

Department for Education and Science. This government department has a section on its web site devoted to help and support students:

www.dfes.gov.uk/studentsupport

National Union of Students. This site has useful support information, including discounts available to union members.

www.nusonline.co.uk

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