Hi,
I have kids in school and looking at saving for their Uni rather than start their career with debt.
I was curious how much does it cost for generic 3/4 year full time degree in mid-range university as domestic student? What are the types and options?
Thanks
Are you mortgage free? Pay down your debt first then worry about the kids.
Thanks & Agreed, but kids come first, then parents.
Master Windu…
TightBottom has tried to help you with some very sound advice, which you have summarily dismissed.
If you have a mortgage it makes sense to pay it off with that money because :
Overall, by paying off your mortgage first you are in a better position to help pay for future education, and even more important you will be in an EARLIER position to do so.
Thank you @TightBottom & @tsunamisurfer for reply. I will do further calculations & change my understanding if required.
It was interesting to see people downvote for the opinion "kids come first, then parents". 21st century I guess…
At monash uni it was $600 per subject so for the 3 year course so 24 subjects x $600 = $14,400. Probably has gone up since then
Actually looks like it is now $9185 for CSP. Not sure if that's how the CSP works
https://www.monash.edu/study/courses/find-a-course/2018/scie…
B.Sc was ~$23k for 2012-2014.
If it is $9185 that would be $27k in total. Holy crap that's expensive! I paid ~$29k for a double degree at Monash 2012-2015. You will need to factor into administrative fee as well which is about ~$250/year.
Don't do B.Sc though, you don't end up any where.
Also OP, why can't your kids use HECS? My parents didn't have to pay a cent towards my uni fee. I also received scholarship which your kids could definitely work towards to. It will help with living expenses.
Depending on the discipline your kids end up picking they'll fall under certain bands. This is largely the same for all public universities.
This will give you an average idea of the annual fees.
Exact figures will end up depending on the exact subjects and the year they enrol in.
If you want an exact figure, you could even contact your preferred university and they could give you a possible outline for a particular course and the average fees based on this year's figures.
roughly $1000 per subject. If it helps I go to unsw and do engineering. The general norm is 4 subjects per semester. 2 semesters per year i.e ~$8000 per year. But unsw is changing to tri semesters. 32k for 4 years or 24k for 3 years.
Thank you all, I got the general idea. We have current setup with ASG, may be we will fine-tune that.
You mean this asg?
https://barefootinvestor.com/australian-scholarships-group-a…
Just make sure they get into uni and full time
Thanks @TightBottom. We will review our position on ASG.
Thank you very much for link. We will investigate bonds option.
Cancelling ASG membership & transferring funds into loan account 👍
wow, I wish my parent's gave a crap about my uni fees
Paying for your kids uni fees is a bad financial decision. By the time you die and they get an inheritance they will be way better off if you paid off your mortgage and made good investments the rest of the time instead of saving to pay their fees. The inheritance minus inflation "interest" on their hecs will be way higher than the inheritance where you saved for their uni fees rather than paying down your mortgage. When you have a mortgage every cent that is not being put towards the mortgage is a cent that is being poorly used (only meaning investment/saved cents not ones spent on feeding oneself etc)
If this was not the case then everyone would be withdrawing everything out of their mortgage to apply to this fantasy investment that was better. Or even taking out second and third mortgages and making a big profit
Sorry Quantumcat, I posted another comment mistakenly rather than replying.
My parents saved/paid for my education so I can persue career & buy property rather than pay for the education. I appreciate & respect my parents more due to that (their sacrifices).
Isn't it my turn to do the same? What are the chances I leaving any inheritance if I live 80 years? They would be 45 then and running late due to their education loan.
Happy to be corrected.
The hecs repayment system is more than fair. If you just have an average job you pay back very little, if you have a higher paying job you pay back more.
If your parents (who seem to have very admirable qualities) invested in property instead of a bank account for your uni fees I am almost certain your family would be a lot better off now.
What your parents did is like hand you cash regularly, instead of putting the money in a bank account and letting it earn interest, then giving you the total later. You were worse off. You shouldn't respect them, you should regret their lack of numeracy.
We did not have HECS or any gov support from where I come from, hence the question about uni…
If you or your parents were to take out your savings to pay out tuition fees every year, they are basically taking out money that could be invested into an account that provides you interest.
3 or 4 years of interest at 3% for instance, isn't a lot, but it's better than not earning any interest at all. It makes sense to make your money work for you whenever possible.
Just work with a solid investment portfolio rather than saving money for their university fees, or just leave the amount in your mortgage to reduce debt obligations = more wealth. By the time they do get to uni, you would have a bigger bucket than you had before.
Within rising cost of education, I would say it would approach $1500-2000 per subject within the next few years.
A solid $40,000 will do wonders for a 4 year degree and set up your child for a good debt-free education. Depending on their curent age, it might be even more expensive afterwards.
But again, as others have said, think less about keeping them debt-free, but think about maximising family wealth first. Then it can be your choice to distribute them some of your wealth (regardless if it is for education or for other personal reasons).
We have it very different to say USA where students have to take out astronomical amount of loan (which is pretty stupid for allowing this but whatever) which has high interest rates at which they have to start paying off as soon as they're done with uni.
Here in Australia, HECS debt only goes up with the inflation rate (1%) which is probably going to be the cheapest loan you can take out. Plus you don't have to make payments until your income reaches the threshold.
So I have to agree with what everyone is saying here. It is better to pay all your other debt first, then save up for your kids' uni fees.
When buying a property a 20% deposit is ideal to avoid Lenders Mortgage Insurance fees which are an absolute rip-off.
Save your money and help your kids buy a property when they're earning good money and can get a mortgage. They can buy sooner rather than spend years having to save scrimping and saving that 20% deposit whilst renting.
Thanks everyone. We will review our position.
just graduate from Latrobe Uni with Bachelor of Science(majoring genetics), not sure this is a good choice for future career
Everything you need to know can be found by looking at the university handbook.
example
3 year Bach Sci
https://courses.mq.edu.au/2018/domestic/undergraduate/bachel…
Tuition Fees
Domestic CSP
Estimated annual fee AUD $10,754 (Notice: Fees may increase every year)
Fee per credit point AUD $448.08