With tuition fees in England currently standing at £27,500 for a three-year course, or £9,250 a year, your children might need a financial leg-up when they go to university. Fear not, as we have a plan.

It’s easy to see why students graduate with significant debts, particularly as there are rent and grocery costs to consider on top of tuition fees. However, with some sensible planning and a reasonable amount of time, it is possible for parents to save and invest money so their children graduate debt-free or with as little debt as possible. Here’s how you might do it.

CURRENT TUITION COSTS

Tuition fees vary depending on which region of the UK you live in. In England, annual fees are capped at £9,250 for UK and Irish students until 2025.

Scottish students can study for free in their home country, but outsiders must pay £9,250. In Wales yearly tuition fees are £9,000 a year. If you are from Northern Ireland and your children are studying there, tuition fees are £4,395 per year.

Tuition fees can also vary, depending on what subject your children study at university. For example, medicine and veterinary medicine courses are longer – between five or six years.

CURRENT ACCOMMODATION COSTS

When saving for your children it is important to factor in student accommodation costs. These vary depending on the location and the type of housing.

According to a Unipol and the National Union of Students survey, the average cost for weekly rent in the UK in purpose-built student accommodation for 2021-2022 was £166. Private accommodation averaged £155 a week for an en-suite room and £228 for a studio. In London, the average was £212 per week for university accommodation and £259 for privately-owned property.

WHAT ABOUT STUDENT LOANS?

A lot has been said by critics about the rising costs of student and maintenance loans. Interest is linked to the retail price index rate of inflation, which currently stands at more than 10%. The Government has capped this rate at 6.5% as of 1 December 2022.

All students can apply for a student loan to cover tuition fees and a maintenance loan to cover living costs.

While studying and until the following April after graduation, the interest rate is set at RPI plus three percentage points. Once someone graduates, they pay the RPI rate if on a salary below £27,295. Earn more than £49,130 and they will pay RPI plus three percentage points. Someone earning between the two bands has an interest rate based on a sliding scale.

If your children are low earners during their working life, they might never have to repay the full student loan, as it wiped out after 30 years.

WHEN SHOULD I START SAVING?

If you want to help it is best to start early, albeit be realistic about when you will have spare cash. Many people won’t be able to afford to contribute into a university investment pot when their child is young as they face large childcare costs (unless they are lucky enough to have grandparents nearby).

Between five and 10 years before the child starts university is more realistic to start investing to cover the tuition and accommodation costs.

FACTORING IN INFLATION

The big question for parents and children is how inflation will impact the cost of studying in the future. While the Government has frozen tuition fees in England until the start of the 2025 academic year, there are growing calls from those in the university sector that funding needs to improve, particularly as inflation has been so high.

Therefore, it is worth factoring in a rise in tuition fees from 2025 as it is better to tuck away more than you need than have a shortfall and be forced to load up your children with student debt.

Although the Bank of England has a 2% inflation target, many market commentators believe it will be some time before we get back to that level. Therefore, it might be worth factoring in a higher rate of inflation, such as 4%.

Let’s put some of these figures into practice. We will use the example of a married couple called Roy and Lucy who hope their daughter Christine goes to university in September 2033. They’ve got 10 and a half years to save up.

According to our calculations using 4% inflation, the potential cost of university tuition for a three-year course starting in 2033 is £41,097.

The average accommodation cost for a student in the 2021/2022 term was £7,374 according to a Unipol and the National Union of Students survey. If we apply 4% annual inflation to that figure, the accommodation cost would be £11,807 for Christine’s first year at university. Across three years, lodging would add up to £36,856.

The total cost to Roy and Lucy for Christine’s tuition and lodging at university could be £77,953. That sounds a lot but some judicious monthly saving could help them hit the goal without breaking the bank. To hit a goal in 10 and a half years, they would need to invest £507 a month and achieve 4.5% annual return. The calculations assume 0.75% a year charges.

WHAT IF I ONLY HAD FIVE YEARS TO SAVE?

Let’s use a second example of Ram and Kim whose son Mikey hopes to start university in September 2028. They will be looking at a potential £30,292 accommodation cost and £33,779 for tuition, or £64,071 in total.

The monthly investment (assuming 0.75% annual charges and 4.5% annual investment growth) to hit this goal would be £875. That’s manageable for Ram and Kim as they are both working and can share the cost, but it does highlight the challenge for a couple where only one person is working, or a single parent who must foot the entire bill.

While some people will want the full amount on day one of university enrolment for peace of mind, remember the bills will be spread across the three-year course so you don’t need everything at the start.

ALTERNATIVES TO UNIVERSITY

If sending your children to university is a bit of a financial stretch, there are other options to explore:

- Degree apprenticeships. Training and tuition fees will be paid for by the employer and the government, and a salary will be paid for by the employer

- Foundation degrees. Like an apprenticeship, it is a qualification designed to prepare someone for a specific area of work by combining academic study and work experience.

- Higher apprenticeships. The government and the employer fully fund the costs.

- Traineeships. Unlike apprenticeships no salary is offered, but a reimbursement of travel and food expenses is likely.

- Entry-level jobs. Designed for school leavers, your children can apply for a job directly with any employer and be paid a salary without the need for higher education qualifications.

- Work experience or internships. These tend to only last a couple of weeks and are normally unpaid. Some internships have a more formal structure.

Source: Shares magazine, Savethestudent.org

WHICH ACCOUNT SHOULD I USE?

One way to save for your children’s university fees is through a Junior ISA. The allowance for the 2022-23 tax year is £9,000 and investment growth and income will be free from tax.

Just remember that the money would legally belong to the child once they turn 18 so there needs to be an element of trust. Otherwise, you might wake up one morning and see that they have blown all your hard-earned savings on something other than university-related costs.

In Ram and Kim’s case, their £875 monthly contribution (or £10,500 annual) takes them over the £9,000 annual limit for a Junior ISA. They would need to put the remainder in one of their own ISAs.

WHICH INVESTMENTS SHOULD I MAKE?

A decade is a long enough period to take bigger risks with investments as you would have time to ride out any dips in the market.

However, given that university is an important life event for parents, it’s important to strike a balance between having exposure to equities and not chasing the craziest thing in the hope of winning big.

You don’t want to ruin all the hard effort of saving money by being too aggressive with your investment choices, should they not pay off.

THE 10-YEAR PLAN

A sensible approach for someone with 10 years to save up for university bills is to seek diversification and not pay too high a price for investments. One strategy is to spread money across a US equity fund that has a value tilt, a UK equity fund that has both a value style and exposure to companies known as ‘compounders’, and a multi-asset fund that has its fingers in lots of pies.

For the US equity component, you might want to put money into JPM US Equity Income (B3FJQ48) which is a fund full of companies in the oil, healthcare and banking sectors rather than being dominated by tech stocks.

The investment process focuses on company fundamentals like profit and valuation. On a five-year basis, the fund has returned 70.4% versus 67.7% from the IA North America sector. Pick the ‘Acc’ version of the fund so dividends are automatically reinvested.

Liontrust UK Growth (B56BDS0) is also a good option. Don’t be misled by the name as this is not a fund stuffed with fast-growth stocks. Instead, it is more balanced in style and holds positions in companies with a history of good long-term returns. Managers Anthony Cross and Julian Fosh are highly respected and they look for companies with a durable competitive advantage.

The portfolio includes a mixture of defensive stocks in sectors like tobacco, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods, while also having exposure to industrials, energy, financials and a small bit of real estate. Many of these sectors typically fall into value investing territory. The split of assets is roughly two thirds large caps, one third mid-caps. The annual charge is 0.83% and on a five-year basis, the fund has returned 35.7% versus 21.5% from the IA UK All Companies sector.

To complement these two funds, we would add Royal London Sustainable World Trust (B882H24) which is an effective way to get exposure to different parts of the world and various asset classes all through one investment product.

At the end of January, it had approximately 83% of its assets in stocks and shares – roughly half of which is held in US companies and the rest spread across companies listed on UK, European and emerging markets. A further 15% of assets are held in bonds and the remaining 2% in cash.

There is an ethical flavour to its approach as it only invests in companies expected to make a positive contribution to society.

The fund is the top performer in the Unit Trust Mixed Investment 40%-85% Shares sector over five years, according to FE Fundinfo, returning 58.9% versus 27.3% from the sector. The ongoing charge is 0.77% and buying the Acc version of the fund means any dividends are automatically reinvested.

THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN

If you only have five years until money is needed to fund university fees then it is important to be cautious about taking on too much risk as a bad period could leave you without the necessary funds when you need them.

Two investments to consider are Capital Gearing Trust (CGT) which has a bias towards capital preservation – or making sure it doesn’t lose money – and F&C Investment Trust (FCIT) which is highly diversified and therefore should be good at smoothing out any volatility in the market.

Managed by Peter Spiller for more than four decades, Capital Gearing has delivered absolute returns in 39 out of 40 years. Spiller has said ‘don’t fight the Fed’ is ‘excellent advice’ and argues investors should take notice of what he believes is the US Federal Reserve’s message that asset prices should be lower.

Mindful of interest rate volatility and the risk of recession, Spiller has positioned the portfolio defensively with an emphasis on inflation protection and is holding back some cash to invest as and when opportunities arise. The trust trades at a 0.8% discount to NAV (net asset value) and has competitive ongoing charges of 0.52%.

F&C Investment Trust offers exposure to a broad spread of holdings diversified by both geography and sector. The consistency of performance was underlined by a 51st dividend increase in a row in 2022 with a further rise planned for this year.

Steered by Paul Niven since 2014, the portfolio is selected by internal managers at Columbia Threadneedle and a range of external managers. The trust has more than 400 holdings from 35 countries, spanning both quoted and unquoted investments. F&C trades at a 2.6% discount to net asset value and offers a modest yield of 1.4%. Its ongoing charge is 0.54%.

We would also put one third of the university savings into Royal London Sustainable World Trust for the same reasons discussed earlier in this article – asset, geographic and sector diversification. It is suitable for someone with either a five-year or a 10-year horizon.

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