College fees are up, but UAE parents have cost-saving options for their kids

College fees are up, but UAE parents have cost-saving options for their kids

Dubai: The final year school results are coming through, and it’s time for parents in the UAE to put their kids through to college and beyond. With tuition fees going up across the board, it may be time for those parents owning property in the UAE to put it to good use. This is where asset-backed loans come in handy, where in this case the property will be used to tap bank loans. Interest rates on these loans in the UAE are at 5.9 per cent to 6 per cent on a reducing rate per annum basis. Banks such as Emirates NBD finance up to 80 per cent of the property’s value. The run-up in Dubai and UAE property values will be of particular help to these parents, offering them flexibility on the loans they plan to take for the college costs. (The downside is that the loans would carry a higher interest rate than would have been the case last year, after the 10 successive increases effected by the US Federal Reserve since March 2022 and reflected here as well.) The other option is to take a loan against fixed deposits while ‘utilizing savings in their current account as