Have students actually got anything to complain about?

I'm VERY happy they have increased student fees. Students have had it easy. They **** money away and use their student loan for the wrong reasons. That's the majority anyway.

The protests are pathetic.

Yes because all students waste their loan :rolleyes:

To be fair, up to 9k isn't the worst, the institutions that can charge 9k will most likely lead to jobs/careers that make it worth while.
 
Can't say that I've been following the mass hissyfit too closely, but from what I can tell it's fairly black and white...

I work full time (above minimum wage), and I have relatively minimal bills.

And yet most students seem to be able to spend money on...

- Clothes I can't afford.
- More nights on the lash than I can afford.
- Laptops/PC equipment I can't afford.
- Consoles I can't afford.
- Games/DVD's/CD's I can't afford.

Etc etc etc...

Now it seems they may have to spend their money on an education, rather than luxury items. Hence the OMG THIS IS SO UNFAIR!

Yes I'm sure I'm somehow misguided. But that's how it seems from my perspective.

Do you even know why they're protesting? Apparently none of us, current students, will be affected by the raise in tuition fees. However knowing the cost of living of an average student, I can only assure you that those that will be studying in a few years will have to bear a debt of approximately £12,000 a year. That is £36,000 for three years and £48,000 for four years of studies. If you think it's fair that a debt will double from the current average of

Max grant you can get atm (don't have to pay it back) is about £2,900 a year. With that you can get a loan of £2,600 or so. That is £5,500 a year for living and still leaves you off with £6,000 debt a year.

A standard cost of accommodation on any campus is anywhere from £70-120 a week, that is £3,500 to £6,000 a year if you pay for 50 weeks of living there.

Add in the cost of food, say £50-70 a week, works out at £2,500 to £3,500.

Average salary in the UK is around £26,000 atm, paying off 9% out of anything above £15,000 means that you pay off £1,000 a year or so.

£18,000-24,000 debt with the current tuition fees will be paid off in 18-24 years after graduating and will take a whole year of your work to pay off.

This is fair in comparison to what is going to happen. Students that start their higher education in 2012 will have to pay off 9% (not sure if that's correct) out of anything above £21,000 a year. Let's assume that an average salary raises to £27,000 by that time, that means paying off 9% out of £6,000, £540 a year. With their debts estimated to be around £36,000-48,000, they won't be able to pay their debts back for 68-89+ years, meaning that they will never pay it back :)

That is not all, the above estimations apply only to students from the low income class families. Those who have parents both earning something around the average salary of £26,000 will have little to none money from the grant meaning that their maintenance loan will be higher and the final debt will increase by up to £3,000 a year, working out at £9,000 to £12,000 after graduation.

There are also interest rates that cover the inflation rate, it is 4.4% for 2011 and isn't likely to back off any time soon.

The most productive students that took 4 years of studies (say a sandwich course) and that come from a middle class will possibly face paying off £60,000 debt. Of course many students will pay less than that but is it fair to set such a high tuition fees rate that doesn't take into account what courses you're taking or where you're studying? I think not.

Now the worst part, these rises will only affect students in England, those in Wales are still on £3,290 rate and in Scotland they won't have to pay anything.

Just to clarify, I don't and would not be protesting. There are better ways to waste my time.
 
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At least it might stop some of those going ott to do silly courses for the lulz.

Not nice for those doing 4yrs (MEng/MSc), Doctors and Architects.

Eyewatering debt tbh Mr Krugga has the nice figures in there!
 
With their debts estimated to be around £36,000-48,000, they won't be able to pay their debts back for 68-89+ years, meaning that they will never pay it back :)

Is it not the case though that the longest they could go without paying their debt back isnt 68-89 years, but 30 years at which point its wiped out? I certainly wish that my first mortgage had a wiped out after 20 years if its not paid up clause :D
 
At least it might stop some of those going ott to do silly courses for the lulz.

Not nice for those doing 4yrs (MEng/MSc), Doctors and Architects.

Eyewatering debt tbh Mr Krugga has the nice figures in there!

I know for a fact that it's impossible to live on your own without any support and off the maintenance loan/grant. This money is not enough for basic living and most students, who want to have all the nice things seek has listed, need to work.

Now can we have a talk about how most universities cut our contact hours? I can't imagine how anyone would have to pay up to £9,000 for 12 contact hours a week for 24 weeks of education. That is a tad over £30 an hour and many of the better universities don't have enough places available for students thus so many people graduating from ****ty unis with no perspective for a good job. And hell yeah, they won't have to pay back their debts unlike those that were successful in their career.
 
You will have to pay it back unless you waste the money that the government (meaning YOU and everyone else in this country) has paid for your education and don't progress with your career. See where the problem lies?

No i dont see the problem, but i grasped the concept of paying for what i get a long time ago, have you not managed to grasp it yet?
 
As with many protests, i'm positive a good majority don't really understand the issue, and clearly a reasonable percentage are just there to have a fight in the street (what's new there.. only got to go out on a Saturday night to see how THAT happened...)

The problem is not that students shouldn't be charged more, it's that by doing so, many will choose to go down a different path. Now I know some of you will say "great, that's what needs to happen" but hear me out.

In the beginning we had the ancients, initially the Oxford colleges and then the rival Cambridge ones, then the largely built up parts of the south caught up a few hundred years later, and finally the built up areas of the north in the mid 1800s. This led to education being available for more people, but still only those for who massive monetary outlay wasn't a problem, or they were well connected.

So smaller institutions started to pop up to allow the more normal, but still deserving general public access to education, these became the likes of Polytechnics. Then, it was decided that Poly's should become fully fledged Universities, allowed to dole out degrees. Clearly they didn't have the pedigree or teaching faculties of the older institutions, so they decided to compete for students on choice of subjects, offering very niche degree types. They grew and grew, and now most ex-Poly universities in this country are a pillar of their community, (even if the community doesn't see it that way), take them away and many small towns and villages around the country will have very genuine problems.

So now fast forward to what the ConDems have just done. Under Labour, they set about policy that enabled basically everyone with half a brain to attend university somewhere in the country, and offset the reasonable costs until later on. The problem is, this wasn't regulated too well, so it has led to the "niche" degrees the Poly's offered growing in number as they try and become more and more competitive. Coupled with schools telling their students if they don't attend University, they are probably going to be failures, we see the rise of the type of student so hated in the media and by the general public today. As well as institutions who don't have a good research pedigree so make all their money from students.

So, the ConDems decrease the amount of funding per student they give to the Universities, and allow them to up their fees to compensate. However, in reality what this will mean is that students who can only attend the ex-Poly type Universities, are now less likely to think its a good and easy choice rather than go straight into employment, so they don't go at all, meaning the overall money the Universities bring in each year decreases (it isn't predicted that they will be able to make up the numbers with more foreign students as, if anything the opposite as the nations pedigree around the world decreases, which it already is).

Now the larger institutions, i.e. the non ex Poly's, will suck it up, tighten their belts, fall back on the fact they have good research pedigrees and private funding, times are going to be hard, no doubt, but they'll survive in some form or other. The smaller ones however, faced with the choice of being competitive on fees or charging the same amount as the places with better standing and who normally quite literally float during the good times, will now sink and they will have two choices. Go bankrupt or try and perform sensible mergers.

So you see the problem isn't that there will be less students, as a current student myself I am all for less dross doing pointless degrees, it's the fact that this badly thought through rushed "plan" is very likely to destroy numerous smaller institutions around the country, and the only people who suffer from that are the local communities, and those employed inside (who it should be said are normally at least 50% non-academic, i.e. normal working folk), as well as the rest of the worlds opinion on what is now frankly one of this countries only remaining home industries... education, and we're already falling down the world-wide tables so many base their decisions on.
 
No i dont, but i grasped the concept of paying for what i get a long time ago, have you not managed to grasp it yet?

I couldn't care less if the tuition fees are rising or not, it won't affect me. It is unfair to give advantage to those that won't use their education to boost the economy and to those that don't live in England. That's just my opinion, agree with it or not, I don't really care.
 
Have you read the proposals?

There are no "additional costs" during the degree itself.
Low paid job = no repayments!
It won't be tougher for students now.

The incentive shouldn't be "as it's cheap innit bruv", it should be to better yourself and go to University - note these two are not related. You don't need a degree to study.

The sizeable debt is an irrelevence, when job hunting. As if you have a lowly paid job, no repayments. If you have a middle job (e.g., me) you'll pay back a little (less than I pay now). If you get a high paid job - congrats! You won't miss the money.

I agree with you but there will be those who will think many courses won't be worth it for the given cost which is shame.

When I went to uni, the attitude was to do something I enjoy, now I would need to analyse the cost v future benefit ratio. The arts and culture courses will be most affected I guess.

The students who did something because they enjoyed it will be put off the most.

Perhaps I'm rambling...
 
I couldn't care less if the tuition fees are rising or not, it won't affect me. It is unfair to give advantage to those that won't use their education to boost the economy and to those that don't live in England. That's just my opinion, agree with it or not, I don't really care.

I actually agree with that, but sadly its hard to tell who the ****ers are until they become ****ers.

So till we get a crystal ball up and running we have the system we have, and better we get 10 decent people and 100 idiots out of our education system than no decent ones.
 
I can only assure you that those that will be studying in a few years will have to bear a debt of approximately £12,000 a year. That is £36,000 for three years and £48,000 for four years of studies.

Ok so a total of £36,000 debt for 3 years studies

Now the worst part, these rises will only affect students in England, those in Wales are still on £3,290 rate and in Scotland they won't have to pay anything.

So the Current rate for Course Fees are £3,290 a year. Thats a max possible increase of £5710 a year, a total of £17,310 increase over the 3 years.

But if they are in £36,000 debt, over 20 grand of that was there already !

What difference does it make how much longer you pay your student loans back for ?

You were in **** loads of debt before, nothings changed. Just the ammount.

And thats before we mention that not every university is going to be charging £9000 a year.

Oxford and Cambridge probably will, but the old former Polytechnics wont be able to attract nearly enough students from poorer backgrounds charging thos sorts of rates.

The figures being banded around by students are silly, because none of you even know how much your fees are going to be yet !
 
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