Student loan repayment

[LuckyBenski]

It’ll work exactly as expected/designed. It’s supposed to effectively be a time limited graduate tax for most people who take out the loans. They never expected vast swathes of people to pay off their loans.

There's a really weird thing happening with the numbers though, could be spun in a lot of ways.

Pre-2011, for every £3k-paying student, the government contributed £6k to the university. After that, the fees were "raised" but really, the government just stopped contributing. Students picked up the bill in the form of 200% extra fees, but universities received the same operating income. Except now there was much more pressure to deliver a service/product.

Meanwhile, the government is still paying out the same money, it just labels lots of it as loans owed back, rather than simply funding higher education. Plus, there is interest - not sure if this "belongs" to SLC or the government on paper.

It could be spun as a nice earner of how much the government "is owed", despite probably never seeing most of it. Or it could be spun as "look how big our debt is growing due to student loans". Interest aside, the numbers haven't changed much I think.

 

[Minusorange]

I'm not sure it is feasible with the numbers who want to go these days nor really fair on taxpayers who opt not to go.

I'd support certain areas being free - like nursing, or people (especially those from subject areas where they're struggling to recruit) who opt to go into teaching getting their loan debts wiped in return for X years teaching in a state school etc..

Ditch the bs degrees the snow flake SJW's are all doing and you'll see number be more feasible and have degrees be more focused to what people want to study instead of a generalisation of the broader subject where half of the modules nobody has any interest in learning because it's not something they want to do in the future

It's flawed that one needs spend 3 years learning stuff they have no interest in to only then be able to specialise into a PHD/Masters, let people specialise from the get go to allow them to reach a suitable knowledge level in their selected niche faster, whilst cutting out the fluff they're going to forget once they finish anyway because it's not in their specialisation

You could effectively cut a 3 year course into 1 & half or 2 by cutting out the generalisation fluff and instead focus on specialisation

 

[dowie]

You could effectively cut a 3 year course into 1 & half or 2 by cutting out the generalisation fluff and instead focus on specialisation

That kind of depends on the course and the institution... you don't necessarily get much "fluff" in say a Mathematics or Physics degree and you tend to need a solid foundation in the earlier stuff in those subjects before you go on to specialise. I'd expect the same to be true of various other subjects...

Perhaps the less academic stuff like "business studies" etc.. is a bit different.

 

[Minusorange]

That kind of depends on the course and the institution... you don't necessarily get much "fluff" in say a Mathematics or Physics degree and you tend to need a solid foundation in the earlier stuff in those subjects before you go on to specialise. I'd expect the same to be true of various other subjects...

Perhaps the less academic stuff like "business studies" etc.. is a bit different.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/physics?wssl=1

It's too general 3 years learning a little about everything related to Physics but lacking the knowledge to know a lot about a little

Most of the stuff in year 1 should have been taught at high school or college, anyone who doesn't know classical physics or special relativity and needs a "refresher" on it in the 1st year shouldn't be doing a Physics degree tbh

 

[Buffman]

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/physics?wssl=1

It's too general 3 years learning a little about everything related to Physics but lacking the knowledge to know a lot about a little

Most of the stuff in year 1 should have been taught at high school or college, anyone who doesn't know classical physics or special relativity and needs a "refresher" on it in the 1st year shouldn't be doing a Physics degree tbh

I think it's better to keep degree's general as you have a 40 year career to potentially become an "expert". I did mechanical engineering and I'm glad it was broad reaching from the start. I can now apply various studies to multiple elements of the job. Some people also need the business courses etc to work on "people skills" although my business courses were terrible.

 

[icehot]

Yup, I knew this and it always irked me.

So thankful I paid off my £35k of student debt just over a year ago now. Took me 6 and a half years to do.... I feel lucky compared to most.

 

[cheesyboy]

By the time most people graduating today have a mortgage, wife and two kids it'll nearly be time for them to write it off anyway (30 years).

And if the degree helped you to get the position where you're earning £45k, £150 a month isn't a huge burden to pay. You chose to get a mortgage, wife and have two kids after signing up to take on those loans so if it was a struggle, you only have yourself to blame.

That sounds rather like you're suggesting it's no problem because graduates can wait until they're 50+ before starting families. And that having a family is a luxury that government policy should not take into account, because it's a 'choice'.

And that's all just weird, frankly.

 

[bloodiedathame]

I still owe about £10k I think... About £100 a month comes out of my pay packet a month. I don't give it a second thought.

 

[ultralaser]

Threads like this one really disappoint me. It seems really common these days to undervalue education and it's value to all of us. We seem to forget so easily that those things we love and depend on are created and supported by people that have had the chance to educate themselves. Whether that's engineers, doctors, computer scientists etc, they've powered everything from your ability to visit this website through to helping solve the diseases that kill our family members. Whilst many abuse the system, and the government have supported endless watering down of our academic system we still have one of the best education systems in the world producing some of the best people / talent on earth. When we pay our tuition fees we pay for something that is fundamental to who we are, we pay to understand the world around us, we pay to learn from those that have shaped the world around us, and we pay to gain the skills to allow *us* to shape the world around us. I don't care if it's 3, 6, 9 + thousand a year, we're all so willing to buy some pointless car, or overclocked computer but not to better our understanding of, well everything.....

 

[MichaelAwkward]

That sounds rather like you're suggesting it's no problem because graduates can wait until they're 50+ before starting families. And that having a family is a luxury that government policy should not take into account, because it's a 'choice'.

And that's all just weird, frankly.

I'm not suggesting it's no problem at all. I'm just pointing out the reality.

Most graduates today with Plan 2 student loans don't need to worry about it as a debt, because by the time they're in the situation where £150 a month out of their wages of £2700 a month is a problem, it'll be written off.

 

[Fusion]

Threads like this one really disappoint me. It seems really common these days to undervalue education and it's value to all of us. We seem to forget so easily that those things we love and depend on are created and supported by people that have had the chance to educate themselves. Whether that's engineers, doctors, computer scientists etc, they've powered everything from your ability to visit this website through to helping solve the diseases that kill our family members. Whilst many abuse the system, and the government have supported endless watering down of our academic system we still have one of the best education systems in the world producing some of the best people / talent on earth. When we pay our tuition fees we pay for something that is fundamental to who we are, we pay to understand the world around us, we pay to learn from those that have shaped the world around us, and we pay to gain the skills to allow *us* to shape the world around us. I don't care if it's 3, 6, 9 + thousand a year, we're all so willing to buy some pointless car, or overclocked computer but not to better our understanding of, well everything.....

Interesting post. Also, the whole country benefits from a highly educated population. My Physics degree allowed me to get a more highly paying job, and therefore I contribute more to the coffers. That is the graduate tax! It doesn't quite seem right to effectively be paying twice- once in higher contributions from higher earnings, then paying back a loan on top of that.

Not to mention that many graduates are likely to be working in high net value added industries, so the contribution is multiplied again (higher GDP/employee, more corporation tax etc).

 

[Fusion]

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/physics?wssl=1

It's too general 3 years learning a little about everything related to Physics but lacking the knowledge to know a lot about a little

Most of the stuff in year 1 should have been taught at high school or college, anyone who doesn't know classical physics or special relativity and needs a "refresher" on it in the 1st year shouldn't be doing a Physics degree tbh

Have you done a Physics course? There is some overlap between first year and A-Level, but it's not tremendous. I'd imagine the learning curve is ratcheted up fairly quickly at Oxford!

A-Levels could be tougher and more comprehensive, no doubt (I don't know if the latest syllabuses are, haven't checked them). When I did A-level, some exam boards didn't teach Special Relativity. Even if they did, there just isn't the time to go through it in the same level of detail as you will on a dedicated degree course.

On my particular course, the difficulty jump between first and second year was BIG! It just wouldn't have been appropriate to jump in at that level straight from A-Level. Maybe for the top 15% of people on the course, but not for the class as a whole.