Student loan, or bank of mum and dad?

Two Sunday Times columnists went head-to-head in a feature on student loans.

Should you let your child accumulate £40,000 of debt before graduating? was the question. One said he had paid all his child’s costs so they graduated debt-free. He cited the high cost of a student loan over the long term, where the interest was linked to the Retail Prices Index. The other said taking on the debt made his child realise that a course at Uni was a serious matter, and that by not paying their fees, he had kept his powder dry – and knew he could help them with the deposit they needed to get onto the housing ladder.