Parents 'worried about tuition fees'

A new finance guide has been launched to help people estimate the total cost of a university education.

Standard Life has developed a calculator that allows an independent financial adviser to show parents or grandparents who want to send their children to university how much they will need to save.

The device calculates a total cost of university and then users are given a start date to display when they need to start putting money away and how much needs to saved to make a university education possible for their children.

Savers need to know several facts for the calculator to be accurate, such as yearly fees and living expenses, inflation rates, length of study and course start date.

A recent study from the bank demonstrated that 44 per cent of parents in the UK plan to save for their child's university fees.

Office for Fair Access figures show the average fee for a university course in the 2012-13 academic year will be £8,393 and this has led many parents to worry about increasing debt and credit issues when their children graduate.