The cost of sending your child or children to University is already significant and is likely only to rise.
This is my viewpoint as a mother of two teenage children with aspirations of attending University and my desire for them to exit successfully with a good degree and as little debt as possible.
So when is the best time to start saving for this? The simple answer is as early as you can!
Debts of £50,000 or more for a typical 3 year degree course and with no guarantee of a job at the end of it, would be daunting for most people, let alone a young person embarking on a career and independent life away from the comfort of mum and dad.
So whilst there are finance options available for students many parents, like me, will want to contribute towards some or all of the finances required for funding our children through University.
So how to fund it? Investment Trusts? Child Trust Fund? Junior ISA? Equity Funds? Childrens Savings Accounts? Or a mixture of them all?
Seeking expert advice will help you make wise investments that could ultimately assist in meeting the costs of university.
So how to approach this?
- Determine what your financial objectives are. How much money are you likely to need to fund your child or children through University?
- What financial investments do you already have that could contribute towards this?
- What other financial demands do you have on your income, what commitments do you already have?
- What is your attitude to risk? What is your capacity for loss? This will affect which type of investments you would like to make.
- So now you know what you need, what you have, what you already have committed to and how risk or risk adverse you are. Now you need to look at all the products that are available to meet those requirements.
- Once you’ve drawn up that list you need to choose!
But, if like me you are not a financial expert, after all I’m a marketer, and that all sounds a bit daunting then the best route may be seeking advice.
Seek that advice from someone who knows what they are doing. That might be a financial adviser. For me, an independent financial adviser was the only, and right route for me. One of the advantages of Independent financial advisers is their ability to research the whole of the market to select the right products for my needs.
Finding the right financial adviser for you might take a few attempts until you find one you are happy with. It is often so much more than someone simply being able to dispense good advice. There’s the feeling that you are happy to share your personal financial information with someone else and put your trust in them.
The right adviser for you might be one from TFA. At Tom French we take a considered approach to match clients with the adviser we feel can best meet their needs both in terms of your product requirements and in terms of the personal ‘fit’. A client’s first appointment with an adviser will be free of charge to enable you to see if that ‘fit’ is right.
If you’re wrestling with the dilemma of how to fund your children through University why not take a look at our website and see if there is something that we can help you with.
By
Charlotte Malcolm
Mother to teenagers Emily and Ben and Head of Marketing for TFA.