Student Loans/Grants

[brightn'ove]

No guarantee of a job after Uni either, and you leave with 40,000 of loans. Glad I'm not 16........

Which you don't have to pay back until you are earning. Surely you can see why kids choose 3 years of boozing over getting paid £2 an hour to be a plasterers bitch?

 

[sir albion]

We need more youngsters straight into work from 16 just like the good old days...You'll learn far more that way.

 

[dazzer6666]

Which you don't have to pay back until you are earning. Surely you can see why kids choose 3 years of boozing over getting paid £2 an hour to be a plasterers bitch?

I can........wish they bloody wouldn't though. At least not all of them. Some of the money pumped into funding Unis should be directed towards proper jobs (apprenticeships)

 

[crookie]

The whole system is broken.

Living costs are too high. Even students need somewhere to live.

Tuition fees are too high. How long does it take for a graduate to pay their debts these days?

Salaries are too low. Even the "middle classes" mostly doesn't have a pot to piss in, as for the working classes...

...and what has the average graduate got to show for it? Thousands have been duped into investing in utterly pointless degrees (sorry philosophy, media, drama, etc graduates) by the education minister of ten years ago. While those who get the more practical degrees are often sucked into irrelevant jobs or industries which are dull, unrewarding or lack career progression now that degrees have become so common and meaningless.

Agreed, my niece has just started at Exeter, she is in Halls of Residence, her student loan doesn't even cover the rent for that ffs, how is she supposed to eat/drink/buy books etc. My brother doesn't have much to spare to give her any more. The price of property in this country is shocking, and successive Governments have been happy for this situation to develop over the past 20 years, celebrating house price rises like lottery wins, as we ensure future generations will be renting into their forties. Shame on us

 

[stripeyshark]

No because she'll earn an average salary and will never pay it back...Only 50% of student grants are ever paid back,so obviously many who get good qualifications choose lower paid jobs instead of higher paid jobs to avoid paying it back.

The system is defo broke

I hope you're fishing because that's the biggest load of shite I've ever read (since a segment of FIFA's report this afternoon).

1. A grant isn't supposed to be paid back (see the definition of the word). I think you mean 'loan'.

2. No graduate benefits from getting a lower paid job. The more you earn, the more you pay back, but you keep more aswell.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Older generations should be ashamed! They go to uni for free, get qualified and then pull up the ladder and let future generations pay for their education. It is quite dispicable really.

'Older generations' is a pretty broad brush. As someone mid forties, who campaigned against education cuts, marched on the streets against the (original) introduction of loans, worked at least 20 hours a week to support myself through university, who has never voted for or otherwise approved of tuition fees, and who now needs to shortly find up to £60k to pay for fees for my two teenage sons,I'm not prepared to accept any share of the shame you wish to bestow on us.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

so obviously many who get good qualifications choose lower paid jobs instead of higher paid jobs to avoid paying it back.

Don't believe that at all - you've made that up. If people are really doing that then they weren't really intelligent enough to go to Uni in the first place.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Older generations should be ashamed! They go to uni for free, get qualified and then pull up the ladder and let future generations pay for their education. It is quite dispicable really.

Whilst I accept our generation has indeed let others down I am like HKFC. I have done nothing but oppose loans and fees and in principle support the right to free higher education. I cannot ever see this changing either.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

This whole tuition fees thing has never QUITE got the juices flowing for me. I just can't get angry about it.

I went to uni and studied for a relatively job specific degree. I realised towards the end of it, despite LOVING the course that a career in it probably wasn't for me.

Subsequently I've come out with a degree and gone into a career not really related to it. I think I came out with about 16k of debt.

Is this debt CRIPPLING me? No. About £30 or something (I genuinely have no idea how much) comes out of my pay each month. I've never seen it, it's never bothered me.

Has this debt against my name caused me problems? Nope. Credit cards accepted, mortgage application approved etc etc.

What part of it is actually so bad? Genuine question. I've never quite understood it?

 

[brighton_girl87]

Don't believe that at all - you've made that up. If people are really doing that then they weren't really intelligent enough to go to Uni in the first place.

Exactly, I pay around £50 a month which comes straight out of my wages and I don't even notice it. Why on earth would anyone take a job paying less than the threshold (which is around £17k) just to avoid paying their loan back?

 

[Gazwag]

Older generations should be ashamed! They go to uni for free, get qualified and then pull up the ladder and let future generations pay for their education. It is quite dispicable really.

Many of us just got jobs rather than wasting 3 years if their lives

 

[Pantani]

This whole tuition fees thing has never QUITE got the juices flowing for me. I just can't get angry about it.

I went to uni and studied for a relatively job specific degree. I realised towards the end of it, despite LOVING the course that a career in it probably wasn't for me.

Subsequently I've come out with a degree and gone into a career not really related to it. I think I came out with about 16k of debt.

Is this debt CRIPPLING me? No. About £30 or something (I genuinely have no idea how much) comes out of my pay each month. I've never seen it, it's never bothered me.

Has this debt against my name caused me problems? Nope. Credit cards accepted, mortgage application approved etc etc.

What part of it is actually so bad? Genuine question. I've never quite understood it?

I suppose the thing is you owe £16k. So must have been in the early years of loans. Now you can loan up to £9k per year on tuition fees, I think. So £27k in tuition fees, for three years, plus maintenance loan outside of London of £15.5k. So you can finish University at the age of 22 with a debt of £42.5k! That is a pretty serious amount of money by anyone's standards. It is all well and good for those of us who had the earlier much cheaper version of this system (that includes me) saying it is easy enough, but University Students these days are looking at a debt three times the size of the one we have.

 

[Badger]

I suppose the thing is you owe £16k. So must have been in the early years of loans. Now you can loan up to £9k per year on tuition fees, I think. So £27k in tuition fees, for three years, plus maintenance loan outside of London of £15.5k. So you can finish University at the age of 22 with a debt of £42.5k! That is a pretty serious amount of money by anyone's standards. It is all well and good for those of us who had the earlier much cheaper version of this system (that includes me) saying it is easy enough, but University Students these days are looking at a debt three times the size of the one we have.

I agree with this, the amount of money current students will owe is ridiculous. I finished uni 8 years ago owing just over £12k for my student loan which I should finish paying off next year or possibly the year after. I've been lucky enough to earn a fair bit over the last couple of years so my payments have increased against it. At my previous job (still earning a fair bit above the average salary) it would have taken me about 13 years to pay it off and that's with a lower threshold (I believe it's still around £15k). For new graduates the threshold is higher (around £21k?) so they pay it back more slowly. That's good in terms of having more of your salary to take home but for the majority with debts of £40k+ they will NEVER finish paying it off before they reach the age when it gets cancelled. They will have an extra tax on their income for pretty much their entire working life unless they are in a high paying industry.

 

[Creaky]

Exactly, I pay around £50 a month which comes straight out of my wages and I don't even notice it. Why on earth would anyone take a job paying less than the threshold (which is around £17k) just to avoid paying their loan back?

I can't imagine anyone who would! However I do know three young people who have recently gained good degrees who with debts in the region of £40k have now emigrated.

The chances of their loans ever being repaid is minimal.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Some were against but clearly not enough to dissuade their mps, who were probably privatly educated via parents funds and have no idea of what life is like outside their little rich social circle, from voting for the fees.

So because I was not personally able to prevent tuition fees from coming into being, by petitioning my local MP, I should feel shame, that the fees now exist?

Seems a little harsh.

 

[dazzer6666]

So because I was not personally able to prevent tuition fees from coming into being, by petitioning my local MP, I should feel shame, that the fees now exist?

Seems a little harsh.

Think you might have misread this HKFC, I took this as a pop against the MPs.........

 

[synavm]

I noticed a few comments that degrees are useless. A degree on it's own is useless. A degree is a good subject coupled with a good attitude and whatever experience you can cobble together is valuable. Pretty obvious, I know, but it's true.

I would add, I do think there are too many graduates. I'd like to see a new vocational qualification that includes a years mandatory industry experience. Keep degrees but only for sciences, maths etc.

 

[brighton_girl87]

I noticed a few comments that degrees are useless. A degree on it's own is useless. A degree is a good subject coupled with a good attitude and whatever experience you can cobble together is valuable. Pretty obvious, I know, but it's true.

I would add, I do think there are too many graduates. I'd like to see a new vocational qualification that includes a years mandatory industry experience. Keep degrees but only for sciences, maths etc.

I agree, my degree had a mandatory years industry experience and it was probably more beneficial than the rest of my time at uni.