Increases in Student Loan fees on the way

[Kronos]

This all comes down to the BS and unrealistic idea that (almost) everyone should go to university and if you don't you're a failure, which simply isn't true. Some people are better at practical subjects, others are better at academic, and yet we seem to insist on trying to push everyone down the same path.

So you end up with a load of people with degrees that they don't need to do the job they do (or even the job they want), with massive debts to pay for those degrees that they never should have done in the first place, in a career where they'll never be earning enough to pay it back! All for the govt. to be able to tick a box stating X% of the population have a university education!

I am in full agreement with this.

Apprenticeships have been allowed to flounder in the belief that if we do not have a university education then you must be an imbecile but we need people with practical skills.
I left school when I was fifteen with no formal education and have done reasonably well for myself. But that is not to say I am advocating this as I would have preferred to have stayed on a school a few more years as I feel that there were certain aspects of my formal education that could have been improved upon.

But I have worked all my days, self educated myself and can even answer one or two questions on University Challenge. Would I have wanted a university education, not in the slightest, but two or three more years at school would have been useful.

 

[Nitefly]

I was speaking to a bunch of school kids from a 'deprived' area recently, in an official context, and they were all so disheartened and put off from careers that required a university degree (mainly due to the implications of debt). It's not easy for families that haven't been to university to recommend it. Fortunately, there does seem to be a big push on appretaships (I do not trust my phone's spelling of that word).

 

[McBain]

This all comes down to the BS and unrealistic idea that (almost) everyone should go to university and if you don't you're a failure, which simply isn't true. Some people are better at practical subjects, others are better at academic, and yet we seem to insist on trying to push everyone down the same path.

So you end up with a load of people with degrees that they don't need to do the job they do (or even the job they want), with massive debts to pay for those degrees that they never should have done in the first place, in a career where they'll never be earning enough to pay it back! All for the govt. to be able to tick a box stating X% of the population have a university education!

Completely agree with this.

 

[Admiral Huddy]

This all comes down to the BS and unrealistic idea that (almost) everyone should go to university and if you don't you're a failure, which simply isn't true. Some people are better at practical subjects, others are better at academic, and yet we seem to insist on trying to push everyone down the same path.

So you end up with a load of people with degrees that they don't need to do the job they do (or even the job they want), with massive debts to pay for those degrees that they never should have done in the first place, in a career where they'll never be earning enough to pay it back! All for the govt. to be able to tick a box stating X% of the population have a university education!

Great post and my feelings exactly.

Blair's ideology that everyone should be equal but the truth is we are anything but. How on earth do you means test a system were everyone's the same?

When I was at school, only a select few went to uni but that didn't mean we were failures at all.. College, YTS, Apprenticeships etc were plentiful and it meant we got real job experience and qualifications.

My daughter's in her final year at uni. She goes in 3 days a week between October and March for a few hours each. I think her longest day is 3 hours. I think I worked out last year that it was costing £55 for each hour she was in Uni and that's without living costs.

edit - seems a popular statement haggisman

 

[gettothechopper]

So many people at my uni 10 years ago who were on a BS course and spent the whole time in the drunk / hungover cycle rather than learning anything

its all messed up in my opinion - For the Uni its become a buisness of making money rather than teaching people and for students its about three years of dossing about

I made this mistake myself and took a good few years to clear the loan I wasted
(Ill never recoup the wasted time mind)
Giving a newly free teenager thousands of pounds with no short term drawbacks is just asking for trouble

So much pressure to "achieve" - I doubt its had much impact on my prospects or job or success over anyone else who just has some experince rather than a qualification.

Im pretty jaded about the whole thing to be honest - first year was great then it seemed to be an exercise in giving you the least amount of help / tutor contact possible to make sure you pass exams rather than to actually learn anything
(although I do hold myself responsible for most of the wasted time/money )

 

[Martini1991]

It's coming: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/e...nt-be-able-to-pay-off-their-debt-9866446.html

I'm 23, not educated in politics or finance. I said that'd happen when they first raised tuition fees and student loans and then raised the threshold at which you pay it back.

Why is logic never applied?

 

[Martini1991]

This all comes down to the BS and unrealistic idea that (almost) everyone should go to university and if you don't you're a failure, which simply isn't true. Some people are better at practical subjects, others are better at academic, and yet we seem to insist on trying to push everyone down the same path.

So you end up with a load of people with degrees that they don't need to do the job they do (or even the job they want), with massive debts to pay for those degrees that they never should have done in the first place, in a career where they'll never be earning enough to pay it back! All for the govt. to be able to tick a box stating X% of the population have a university education!

I've been saying the same.

The youth of today are basically told what to do and pressured into it.

 

[gettothechopper]

The youth of today are basically told what to do and pressured into it.

yeah this - also when you leave uni with a degree you are still completely unemployable and just get left to get on with it with no help from anyone
after being fed years of BS about how many job offers you are going to have chewing your arm off for ten bazilions of pounds a year

 

[Haggisman]

Apprenticeships have been allowed to flounder in the belief that if we do not have a university education then you must be an imbecile but we need people with practical skills.

Well just look at the rates that skilled practical workers command (e.g. plumbers, electricians, mechanics etc.)

At £30-40/hour (or more for emergency callouts or in some areas), even taking away overheads such as transport, tools, training etc. they're still on more than the average wage (according to a quick google, the average plumber's "salary" is ~£28.3k, electrician £29k, mechanic £29k).

That's about the same as most uni graduates would be on after a couple of years, except the uni graduate also has the loan to pay back!

Im pretty jaded about the whole thing to be honest - first year was great then it seemed to be an exercise in giving you the least amount of help / tutor contact possible to make sure you pass exams rather than to actually learn anything

Eugh, don't get me started on that - it's exactly the reason I got out of teaching.

It's all about ticking the boxes to get those exam grades, no-one cares if the kids actually learn anything!

The worst part of that is, the students know that.

The "less motivated" students do the absolute bare minimum to achieve the grades, because they know if they've done X,Y & Z that you have no choice but to pass them, and the better students do decent work for the first couple of assignments, then realise there's no point as it isn't recognised at all and that at the end of it they'll have exactly the same qualifications as the kid who turned up late/stoned for every lesson, and messed around for the whole year.

The education institute is awarded funding for "bums on seats", so there's no incentive to get rid of the disruptive students and help the ones who actually want to learn, the teacher ends up spending 90% of their time on the 5% of the class who doesn't want to be there and is only turning up for their ESA, which basically results in everyone being dragged down to the level of the lowest denominator.

Everyone loses except for the education minister who can turn round and say "90% of students achieved a distinction, so our education system is working."

 

[Kemik]

Has the poor kid in this scenario been to university?

The scenario was on the assumption of three young adults going to University:
1. Who was from a poor background.
2. Who was from a working class (? not sure how to describe it) background.
3. Who was from a rich background.

The system should be equal, not based on parental ability to pay. If you are going to charge fees for one, charge them for all. I personally don't think it is fair that I now have to pay a good chunk of money each month in student loan repayments because my dad decided to work 60 hours a week while a child from the same background but whose parents decided to not work, single parent, etc doesn't have to pay a penny. The rich kid had their fees paid off by their parents.

Years after University it is now a situation whereby those same three children could have got the same job as me, but both 1 and 3 would have more disposable income than me and can afford to buy a house, go on an extra holiday, or whatever.

There does need to be some kind of incentive to stop people just using Uni as a free ride. Should that be a graduate tax? I don't know.

 

[leaskovski]

Student debt is now so high compared to average salaries that many graduates in respectable public sector professions will be unable to repay their fees even by the end of the 30-year repayment period, the Higher Education Commission warns.

So I guess all the arguments about students never actually having to pay the full debt off where true after all then.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

The scenario was on the assumption of three young adults going to University:
1. Who was from a poor background.
2. Who was from a working class (? not sure how to describe it) background.
3. Who was from a rich background.

The system should be equal, not based on parental ability to pay. If you are going to charge fees for one, charge them for all. I personally don't think it is fair that I now have to pay a good chunk of money each month in student loan repayments because my dad decided to work 60 hours a week while a child from the same background but whose parents decided to not work, single parent, etc doesn't have to pay a penny. The rich kid had their fees paid off by their parents.

Years after University it is now a situation whereby those same three children could have got the same job as me, but both 1 and 3 would have more disposable income than me and can afford to buy a house, go on an extra holiday, or whatever.

There does need to be some kind of incentive to stop people just using Uni as a free ride. Should that be a graduate tax? I don't know.

You mean middle class? The poor kid has to pay a good chunk of money each month too if they earn over £21k... The difference caused by the grant would relatively small on a debt of £50k or whatever the average will be. The grant isn't that much either, I still have to find extra income from other sources to get by... and if I do end up a creek, I don't have family to fall back on for support. That's the difference.

See, this is what the rich want - to pit everyone poorer than them against each other. Poor and 'not-rich' students are both getting screwed, but I take your point about those who just aren't quite poor enough getting screwed a little bit more.

 

[subbytna]

I'm 23, not educated in politics or finance. I said that'd happen when they first raised tuition fees and student loans and then raised the threshold at which you pay it back.

Why is logic never applied?

They first said that when you were about 13....doubt you said it at 13 years old. I could be wrong and you could be super advanced for a 13 year old lol

 

[Caged]

The idea of a 'graduate tax' is a stupid one, since the entire selling point of University was a better job at the end of it, hence higher income tax contributions.

Conjuring up an extra tax for people to pay for their university education is an admission that people were sold, and are being sold, a load of BS. And as already pointed out, the apprenticeship option has been neglected for so long that it's almost worthless.

Hopefully soon somebody will realise that in order to buy pensioners votes you need people putting cash into the system, and a bunch of under-employed graduates isn't going to achieve that.

 

[malachi]

So I guess all the arguments about students never actually having to pay the full debt off where true after all then.

Yep, always have been. Some of my friends who I grow up with went to uni for the sake of going to uni knowing this.

They didn't want to deal with the real life trying to find a good full time job or even a full time job for that matter. So they went to uni to a degree they didn't actually need(simply mess around). Que 10 years on and they are still working in supermarkets on the shop floor or bar jobs, wondering why they haven't got that 50K job they were promised all those years ago when they signed up to go uni.

 

[Haggisman]

the apprenticeship option has been neglected for so long that it's almost worthless.

This is a shame to be honest

I got my first step on the career ladder as part of an apprenticeship type scheme, provided by my college as part of a computing HNC. 2 hours (minimum) a week on the IT helpdesk, doing basic stuff like password resets, clearing printer jams, deploying new PCs, hardware fixes etc. I probably wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't had that opportunity.

Similarly, we took on an IT apprentice about 18 months ago - he started out pretty inexperienced, but 12 months later he finished his apprenticeship with a year of experience and a couple of training courses on his CV, walked into a nice job with a decent wage, and has no loan to pay back

 

[Martini1991]

They first said that when you were about 13....doubt you said it at 13 years old. I could be wrong and you could be super advanced for a 13 year old lol

I think it's just logic more than anything.

And I mean when they raised it to 9K a year, in fact, I might have been about 18-19 when that happened.

 

[Casdawer]

So glad I decided not to go to Uni and just do a Higher National Diploma instead. Student Loan will be finally paid off this time next year and I can't wait!

At the rate we are going, we're going to end up like the Americans where their fees are daylight robbery. The amount of times I've seen students on Reddit asking for finance advice because they are 100k ($) in debt is terrible.

Germany & Sweden have the right idea with pretty much free education. I think the long term effects would have a positive impact on the Economy compared to giving money to people who will not pay any of it back.

 

[Kemik]

You mean middle class? The poor kid has to pay a good chunk of money each month too if they earn over £21k... The difference caused by the grant would relatively small on a debt of £50k or whatever the average will be. The grant isn't that much either, I still have to find extra income from other sources to get by... and if I do end up a creek, I don't have family to fall back on for support. That's the difference.

Well my dad is an HGV mechanic so it depends on how you define middle class? Salary after overtime or job?

It's changed now. I was there when it was £3k a year for fees then £3.5k maintenance grant/loan. The students whose parents earnt less than around £30k per year got a practically free run. I was just hateful because my dad's overtime pushed them to just above that level which means I now see a silly amount leave my payslip each month.

I don't blame my parents and I am happy to pay my way. More just annoyed that the system means most others don't when we do the same job...

 

[Caged]

Tieing the funding of people over the age of 18 to their parents earnings is mind numbingly daft, and makes far too many assumptions about how generous people are going to be. You can't make people criminally responsible, able to sign contracts, vote, etc. and still assume their parents are paying their way.