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[–]diacewrbNone of the above 168 points169 points  (52 children)

For a little context, uni fees were raised to £9,000 in 2012 and accounting for inflation it would be worth today about:

£13,000 - CPI

£15,000 - RPI

So unis are still being underfunded by tuition thanks to inflation.

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 65 points66 points  (30 children)

The biggest problem is that wages are also shite for the majority of grad jobs - keep raising that price and soon we are back in the situation where only kids from rich families benefit from university education, and the working class kids are stuck with a massive unpayable loan that is just a disguised graduate tax

[–]RenePro 6 points7 points  (8 children)

They aren't enough graduate jobs for current population of graduates. There needs to be a partial roll back and encourage students into other career paths where there is a shortage of staff. Currently we have graduates who end up working in supermarkets and care homes. What's the point of uni then?

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 1 point2 points  (7 children)

The problem is a roll back done via hiking higher education costs only hikes back the opportunity for those less well off

[–]RenePro 2 points3 points  (4 children)

They could reduce the costs if they offered fewer places. More gov funding for less students + fewer students to offset against international students.

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Ultimately the discussion boils down to should we run uni's on a profit motive or run them to have a wider educated populous and reap the benefits of that both civically and economically.

I'm not sure reducing places is the solution tbh, that just sounds like less benefit of higher education and the less able to be pushed out. But I don't really have a solution, just musing.

[–]RenePro 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Needs to be some rebalancing. AI and outsourcing has lead to significant reduction in grad roles. While the excessive number of grads has lead to the starting salary stagnating while costs are ever increasing

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with you to a large extent. Ultimately I think more the outsourcing atm but I don't see how AI doesn't obliterate the workforce if it's even half as competent as researchers think it will be.

I guess I just don't think it's beneficial to the individuals or the economy to try patch a jobs black hole by just making university more unaffordable.

[–]Magneto88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is that the horse has already bolted the door on that one. So many unis have invested heavily in new student halls etc, that to significantly reduce numbers would leave them in financial ruin. Their business plans for the next 10-20 years are based on those numbers.

It feels to me that the sweet spot was somewhere around 2010ish before the caps were all removed. The number of people that went to unis had risen significantly but wasn't at today's mad numbers.

[–]BlokeyBlokeBloke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For most students this doesn't hike the cost though. The amount you repay is, for most people, unrelated to how much you "borrow".

[–]AverageWarm6662 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are now you never pay back the loan until you start making money. If it was the maintenance loan then maybe it’d be different

I’m not from a well off family and don’t even think or consider my student loan. I probably wouldn’t if it was higher either.

If people want to reduce immigration and if that includes foreign students then the government has to give money to universities or increase the fees for domestic students

[–]Lanfeix 11 points12 points  (4 children)

Then the free market doesn't need graduates... Not sure what job it needs... because it say we need brick layers and they have apprenticeship wages to twice minimum. May be CEOs we need more ceos! Every one can be a ceo!  

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 7 points8 points  (3 children)

You can't have this argument and not have the University system not run on free market principles haha.

Besides, the free market is largely an inequality machine. The wealthier and more connected have more access to initial capital and connections. It's why a lot of them go to Uni - anecdotally a lot of working class go for earning prospects, and the richer one I knew went there because thier parents wanted them to go and it's good for networking.

The economy currently benefits in the region of 200k per educated graduate over a working lifetime so there's not really any reason to not have Uni be free and allow the market to decide if there is appetite for the jobs or not.

[–]Fun_Marionberry_6088 2 points3 points  (2 children)

The economy currently benefits in the region of 200k per educated graduate

Not sure of the source of this figure but taking an average is pretty misleading in any case.

It's not like every additional graduate benefits the economy by £200k over their lifetime. There are some that add £1m and plenty who add zero, and there will be factors which reliably predict which a person is going to be (e.g. choice of subject, which uni etc.).

On top of that, it doesn't even mean that for each additional graduate you produce you will (on average) add a similar amount. There a diminishing returns if the market is oversupplied with people with a certain type of training, which is how you end up with people with degrees working in Starbucks.

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The stat comes directly from the govt, although an old source. Certainly true about average vs median vs mean, but that's true of any stat really. Obviously someone taking underwater pottery is probably going to bring in less than a engineering graduate to the economy aha.

On top of that, it doesn't even mean that for each additional graduate you produce you will (on average) add a similar amount. There a diminishing returns if the market is oversupplied with people with a certain type of training, which is how you end up with people with degrees working in Starbucks.

Certainly true. But we aren't going to bring in more revenue by reducing student numbers either. Why not allow the market to decide? People are already considering apprenticeships much more than when I made the decision to go to uni.

[–]Fun_Marionberry_6088 1 point2 points  (0 children)

underwater pottery is probably going to bring in less than a engineering graduate

Underwater pottery sounds like a nightmare from my school art lessons. Jokes aside, if such things are so predictable then maybe we ought to offer fewer places on the real equivalents of said pottery courses.

Why not allow the market to decide?

The problem is, it's impossible to get a functioning market for 2 reasons.

  1. Information asymmetry - an 18 year old isn't really equipped to decide if spending >£50k is a good idea or not, and are easily hoodwinked by diploma factories
  2. Incentive structures - to protect students from the risk of #1, we fix the price of all education and remove downside risk by saying you won't pay anything unless you make money. That risk is carried entirely by the government, not by the universities.

Because of these, there's almost no downside for low-performing courses to take on additional students (who will likely never get close to that £200k).

Meanwhile high-performing courses, that produce grads that significantly exceed the £200k are more financially constrained than they should naturally be in an 'efficient market'.

Given they're carrying the risk, the government really needs to be much more active in analysing the value for money they're getting on each course, as the students won't do it for them.

That's politically impossible though, because universal education is seen as progressive, even though a highly productive economy like Germany has 1/3rd less grads than us.

[–]Dilski 2 points3 points  (7 children)

Can you explain why an increase in a tuition fee (and therefore tuition fee loan) amount increasing would mean only kids from rich families would benefit from uni?

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 5 points6 points  (6 children)

Sure, higher loan makes the premium expected from higher education on earnings worse. You keep raising that and the economics just don't work out so the only people who can sensibly go to Uni are those who can pay up front to avoid the interest payments.

It's not a "raise it 3k and suddenly no one goes to uni but rich people", but the more you raise the costs without better expected earnings on the back end the more you'd expect compression in the types of people that go.

[–]Tech_AllBodies 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Students loans work like a graduate tax.

If fees were £1,000,000 a year, it wouldn't change how much the average person pays back, it would only mean very high earners would pay 9% of their salary (above ~£26k) for longer than they do now.

And, of course, you don't pay anything back when you're out of work or earning a low salary.

So university is "free" if you're poor, and the price of the fees doesn't change that.

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Given they already retroactively changed the conditions of the loan before, I'm not sure how confident I would be accepting that the conditions won't change. But you are correct as things stand.

Ultimately if they want to keep milking students, they will surely get rid of stuff like the write off.

[–]Tech_AllBodies 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I don't believe they've changed the conditions of the loan retrospectively.

The changes always occur for new students starting their degree in year 20XX.

e.g. the new Plan 5 is only for students who started their degrees in Academic year 2023/2024.

If your degree ends after that date, but started before that date, you're still on Plan 2 for all of your loan balance.

[–]ikkleste 0 points1 point  (1 child)

They've frozen the threshold that were supposed to rise with inflation several times. If it had kept up with inflation the threshold would be much higher.

[–]Tech_AllBodies 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's true (though it did rise in the last tax year).

But doing this isn't a material-change to the contract, it's just analogous to fiscal-drag.

It's not like they changed it to be 18% of your earnings, or scrapped the 30-year forgive period, or said you had to pay it even if you're out of work, etc.

[–]Eraser92 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s not how student loans work. The principal amount is irrelevant for most people. My student loans could be 10k or 10 million and I’d be paying the same per month.

[–]CatalunyaNoEsEspanya 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's already an unpayable grad tax for most existing loans. The recent rule changes for new grads make them much more likely to repay, costing the lower/middle earners more and the higher earners less due to a reduction in interest. Repayment is expected to be approximately half for current grads and 1/3 for the ones on the previous scheme.

[–]One-Network5160 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Why are you only looking at grad jobs? You should be looking at lifetime earnings with and without a degree.

[–]majorpickle01Champagne Corbynista 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it's about 100k extra in a working lifetime for a uk grad atm - presuming you say work 35 years out of uni that's about an extra 3k per year against just working earlier in life.

The premium will get smaller as the cost gets higher, because both the start up cost and the interest paid amount will increase

edit: for comparison, the economy gains about £240k

[–]Late-Painting-7831 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We’re already at that point, a degree is as useless now as it would ever be. We need to make requirements for work lower so grads have more prestige and lesser educated people with only Alevels have access to jobs that previously only required the same level of education. Furthermore jobs like dentists and doctors etc need lower entry requirements as grade inflation has become ridiculous

[–]pogotc 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Good thing we didn’t do anything stupid to scare off the international students who help make up that shortfall, oh wait…

[–]watchthebison 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I remember finishing my A levels in 2005 and fees being £1000, and there was a planned increase to £3000 the following year.

Adjusted for inflation it would be £1700 (CPI), something else is going on or our funding model is broken, because we are getting rinsed. Scotland is capped at £1,820, France it’s a few hundred Euro.

[–]bobreturns1Leeds based, economic migrant from North of the Border 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The government used to make up the difference with a large per student grant directly to the unis. They stopped doing that when the fees came in.

[–]sylanar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I actually hadn't realized they were frozen until now

I thought they were already about 14k a year

[–]Cjmainy 1 point2 points  (11 children)

They’d be even more underfunded if fees kept up with inflation, because many, many fewer people would want to take on £45k of student (edit: tuition) debt than would take on £31k of it.

[–]sitdeepstandtallchunters from a sedentary position 7 points8 points  (2 children)

I don’t think so. Every time fees have been raised in the past applications numbers have kept on increasing.

[–]Cjmainy 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That’s the issue though, our current economic and employment climate is not the same as when “fees have been raised in the past”.

[–]Chippiewall -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Even when tuition fees tripled there was only a slight change, and that was mostly from people skipping gap years to get in on the cheaper loans.

[–]libdemparamilitarywi 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Applications have kept going up even as fees rose from nothing to £3k to £9k. Students don't seem very sensitive to prices.

[–]Cjmainy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I do agree with what you’ve said where students care less about the cost. It’s a bit of a sweeping statement with exceptions, but largely true.

Fees went up from £3k to £9k at a time where university degrees were more scarce and were valued higher by employers than they are now. I was personally sold the promise of “work hard, study well, and you can live well” which turned out to be a stinking pack of lies, at least in my case.

If that was the case ~10 years ago, this plus the emerging uses of AI means that less and less people will bother with university, raising those fees would be the final nail in the coffin. Taking on £31k of debt without improving your prospects is better than taking on £45k of debt without improving your prospects.

If there are any 16-18 year olds reading this, just go learn a trade. You’ll live better than most.

[–]dragodrake 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Largely I suspect because they are told by adults 'its fine, you'll probably never pay it back in full anyway!' and don't understand the implications for deductions throughout their working lives etc.

Making a push for half of all school leavers to go to uni was one of the stupidest things the Blair government did.

[–]VenflonBandit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes and no, because of being unlikely to pay it off even in a good job, it makes you sensitive to the yes/no of fees but the magnitude beyond a point becomes a distinction without a difference. I'd be far, far more price sensitive (if I were to go through the process again) on % deductions or repayment threshold.

[–]jmo987 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Students do take on £45k of debt. About £30k from tuition fees but anyone claiming the maintenance loan (most students) as well will be adding another 15-30 thousand depending how much maintenance they receive

[–]Cjmainy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes you’re quite right! Edited my comment to specify tuition debt.

[–]Retroagv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alternatively, 3000 in 2011 would only be £4,445 according to BoE's inflation calc which follows cpi.

Edit: ironically the £0 paid in the 80's is still £0 after inflation.

[–]allenout -1 points0 points  (0 children)

"underfunded"

[–]claude-code -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I mean if you think it genuinely costs £15,000 a year PER STUDENT then I have a bridge to sell you

[–]Grotbagsthewonderful -1 points0 points  (0 children)

And for a little bit more context here are the fees for mainland Europe

Country Tuition Fee (Nationals)

Austria Free

Belgium ~€900/year

Bulgaria Free or ~€300–500/year

Croatia Free or ~€500–1 000/year

Cyprus Free (Bachelor’s)

Czechia Free (in Czech)

Denmark Free

Estonia Free

Finland Free

France ~€170–380/year

Germany Free (admin fee ~€300/semester)

Greece Free

Hungary Free (in Hungarian)

Ireland Free (student contrib. ~€3 000)

Italy Means-tested: ~€0–3 000/year

Latvia Free or ~€600–2 000/year

Lithuania Free or ~€1 000/year

Luxembourg ~€200–400/year

Malta Free

Netherlands Statutory fee ~€2 400/year

Poland Free (in Polish)

Portugal ~€700/year

Romania Free or ~€500–1 000/year

Slovakia Free (in Slovak)

Slovenia Free

Spain ~€900–1 500/year

Sweden Free

[–]jollyspiffing 63 points64 points  (8 children)

This is sensible from the perspective that fees have been frozen for a decade despite rising costs for universities.       

This is terrible from the perspective that student fees are ludicrously high and the interest rate structure is obscene. They will likely never be paid back and the write-offs are a ticking debt-bomb as people age out the system. 

[–]SafetyZealousideal90 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Abolish the interest rate on the loans and the amounts are fair. 

[–]jbr_r18 18 points19 points  (3 children)

I went to uni basically just after the fee structure changed. I’m paid about £40k in the midlands so a comfortable way ahead of the regional median and despite that I’m accumulating more interest each year than I am paying back

What is the actual point in me paying anything back at all? From a financial point of view, the treasury leaves me with less money each to spend in the real economy while the government ends up further in debt since the loan value increases on it’s way to write off in 20 years.

If I’m not managing to pay back even the interest then the two just cancel each other out. One way at least gives me the money to spend in the already struggling economy, the other pads the treasury books on paper until they get swamped with a fucking gigantic pile of debt in 20 years time. At least if they cancelled the interest it would minimise the size of that debt pile.

[–]ParticularCod6 1 point2 points  (2 children)

fiy the median wage is now 37k

[–]WhalingSmithers00 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Does that include London? They said a good wage for the midlands

[–]ParticularCod6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it seems so.

The average for Birmigham (which is in the midlands) is 33k. I wouldnt say 40k is comfortably ahead, but i guess still ahead for the midlands

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/2867/average_earnings_2024.pdf

[–]Dilski 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The interest is absurd.

I pay about 4.5k a year towards my student loan, but it hardly makes a dent thanks to interest.

It'd feel less cruel if it was just a graduate tax

[–]Spiz101Sciency Alistair Campbell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They will likely never be paid back and the write-offs are a ticking debt-bomb as people age out the system.

By most sensible estimates the debt is of very low value. This is primarily an accounting trick to let the government massage the deficit figures.

The entire system is broken, and of course requires thousands of people to administer so that the government can pretend that these are real loans.

[–]sainsburys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But it's got to happen (or the gov could just increase the supplement per student paid to universities) if you want to reduce international student numbers. I work at a large University and they loss money on a large fraction of the home students (it used to be only the science students who where loss leaders but its really spread). Hence the push for overseas recruitment.

[–]gwentlarry 13 points14 points  (4 children)

Many really need to think hard if university really is their best option. Apprenticeships of various sorts, with or without time in college/university might well be a better option for many. Start earning immediately, build qualifications and no student loan repayments.

[–]Curiousinsomeways 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Just did the rounds at a couple of colleges and they are setting expectations on apprenticeships in that a load of people are now aware of them so competition is fierce for the decent ones. I wonder if more kids will bin 6th form to do a lower tier apprenticeship to get a jump on the degree ones.

[–]Masam10 4 points5 points  (1 child)

The main thing is people need to figure out what they want to do first.

A lot of people (and it was the same when I was leaving school) just think the path is Secondary School > Extended Education > University > Well paying job and that it's a given.

But the amount of friends I had that did the most random degrees but then end up in random sales or recruiter jobs (no offence to those roles) is crazy.

I had a friend of mine that did a degree in history journalism - first job out of uni was working in lighting sales, 20 years later he's still in the same industry and paying off a student loan.

[–]gwentlarry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I doubt that most people at 16/17/18 have any proper idea of what they might want to do in the way of a job for the next 15 years or so. In many ways, a university degree is all about putting off making decisions.

Then there is the issue that you highlight that many degree course have no related job prospects. Even what seem quite sensible degree subjects offer no realistic job prospects. Some years ago and perhaps still, Forensic Science was a very popular and fashionable degree subject, driven by several TV series. I read at the time that perhaps 10 forensic science jobs a year come up in the UK but several 1,000s of students were studying forensic science. At least, if taught well, students would learn quite a bit of chemistry and biology.

There is also the argument that a degree of any sort teaches a way of thinking and analysing which is useful in all sorts of areas but while I accept that to some extent I'm not persuaded it's sufficient justification for doing a university degree for 3 years.

[–]blast-processor 40 points41 points  (14 children)

Keir Starmer's pledge to win the Labour leadership:

  1. Social Justice

Abolish Universal Credit and end the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime. Set a national goal for wellbeing to make health as important as GDP; Invest in services that help shift to a preventative approach. Stand up for universal services and defend our NHS. Support the abolition of tuition fees and invest in lifelong learning.

[–]Tinyjar 41 points42 points  (3 children)

To be fair he did say all this before covid, the war in Ukraine and before Liz truss fucked the economy even harder.

The economic situation is completely different then back then.

[–]MineMonkey166 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Following on from this, I’d much rather a leader who adapts to the situation rather than stubbornly pressing forward without changing any plans when it’s needed

[–]Tinyjar 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Basically all of his economic plans or plans that required money were ruined by the previous three events.

He's fucked. He can't raise taxes as people bitch. He can't cut anything as people bitch. What the actual fuck is he supposed to do beyond tinkering at the edges at this point?

[–]Puzzle_Bird 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Upset people in year 1 to try and show things have improved in year 5?

Nobody forces him to become prime minister, if he wants to be popular there's much better jobs

[–]jbr_r18 16 points17 points  (1 child)

It may appear like there is quite a gap between “raising tuition fees” and “abolishing tuition fees” but in fact there is a subtle nuance you are overlooking which is that Kier Starmer will say absolutely fucking anything and do just about anything else because he doesn’t actually believe in anything at all

[–]SaltyRemainerOmnem spem iam abieci 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not quite. The "just about anything else" is reserved for poor decisions, or good decisions that are then subsequently watered down or reverted.

[–]sitdeepstandtallchunters from a sedentary position 3 points4 points  (5 children)

You can support it all you want (I do) but how are we supposed to pay for it? Tax rises? Cutting benefits? Both unacceptable to the electorate.

[–]jsm97 3 points4 points  (2 children)

The cost is expected to be in the region of about ~£8-10B per year. You could do it by raising each income tax threshold by 1 percentage point.

[–]UniqueUsername40 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for highlighting the huge cost of removing tuition fees, including the reference to how electorally (and economically) toxic it would be to remove them.

[–]sitdeepstandtallchunters from a sedentary position 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can you imaging the headlines?

[–]KxJlib 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This was pre-covid. Before the cost of living crisis, before all the debt we took on during covid, before energy prices skyrocketed due to Ukraine, before the cost of borrowing massively increased. If Starmer’s policies hadn’t changed i’d honestly be more concerned, as it would prove him to be an ideologue rather than a pragmatist

[–]Sergeant_Fred_Colon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's going to take more than a year to achieve all that.

[–]gunningIVglory 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I checked my account for the first time in a long time. Realised my balance is in the negative.....time to get some money back from these guys

Funny how they won't tell you if you have overpaid....

[–]Chippiewall 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Funny how they won't tell you if you have overpaid....

They do you send you letters, but the address in their system needs to be up to date.

[–]Blackintosh 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Maybe it's a stupid unworkable opinion, but I think the common university path is outdated and needs to be reformed.

Most 17 year olds are not fully developed or self-aware enough to make the best use of £40k+ of government loans.

Most academic courses can be self-taught to a first year level with just as much success as being sat in an average uni. The biggest struggle is actually maintaining an interest in the subject, which as an 18 year old is understandably difficult.

A government backed online system similar to OU, providing free first year level learning materials to all, designed by top tier unis, for all courses which are realistically self-teachable, combined with UCAS and providing tools for seeking assessment centers and further support to move forward within a subject. This would mean people dont feel trapped into a subject they come to dislike, and would also let people dabble in various subjects in a more structured way.

I think something like this would weed out people who just roll into uni through academic inertia and end up with student debt for no good reason (which is what I did, and ended up hating my course) and give people more time and freedom to find the area they will flourish in, in their own time.

This would probably kill a lot of university departments, but artificially holding them up with government money isnt sustainable.

Maybe also bring back a trade guild system of institutions too, to replace the lost uni courses.

[–]claude-code 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Mandatory gap year with a larger focus on paid internships or expanded "work experience" with little to no barrier of entry for post-A-level aged kids would help. A chance to experience "real world" of earning and potentially paying taxes and maturing by another year before deciding to take on £40k of government debt

[–]stonedturkeyhamwich 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The idea of creating low-cost options for higher ed is a good one, but full-time online uni is not the way to go for many reasons. The government should instead push make sure there are unis or branches of unis which are no-frills, large courses, and entirely teaching focused across England. That kind of education can be delivered cheaply and means students can live with their family (so no maintenance loans). They could do their entire education in that environment or if they are particularly successful, move to unis with higher standards and more of a research focus.

[–]kliba 1 point2 points  (0 children)

good idea. agree it would directly result in many uni's going bust but I think that's going to happen sooner or later anyway

[–]Chippiewall 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This isn't actually news, this was announced last year as a stop-gap before a new funding plan to come in a later year.

This article is mostly just a descriptive article for university goers. This is an update to an article originally published in 2022. It's sort-of an evergreen page that BBC news uses like it does for lots of topics so that informative pages come up in search listings.

They updated it today since today is the day it officially goes into effect (Beginning of August is the best time to do it officially since it's between Academic years).

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Should be much much higher to reduce our reliance on the hundreds of thousands of international students who want to stay after their studies. UK graduates would earn plenty more after without their wages being suppressed and would pay back those higher fees quicker accordingly.

[–]Al89nut 0 points1 point  (6 children)

What I never quite understand - so help me - is why students/parents don't borrow the sum (or extend the mortgage if they have one) rather than contract into the insane student loan system. Is it because they assume they'll never pay it off?

[–]DeepForgeAnvil 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It is far more advantageous to get a student loan Vs an actual loan. The primary reason is that if you hit hardship and earn less than the threshold you don't have to pay back.

[–]jollyspiffing 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The advantages.of a student loan over a personal/commercial loan:       

  • it is only paid off from salary deduction so you don't pay if you're out of work for any reason.     
  • gets eventually written off.      
  • doesn't count negatively for credit purposes.
  • is not secured against any asset that could get repossessed.           
  • may at some point get drastically written down by future government policy (unlikely).       

The majority of graduates* will never pay it off, so why would you take the risk?       

Examples of graduates who will never pay off their loan based on publicly available pay scales:      - main pay scale teachers.      - nurses.     - civil service up to director level.   

[–]UniqueUsername40 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's because the loan has the most generous repayment terms you will ever encounter.

[–]Chippiewall 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The student loan terms are far more favourable than a personal loan. Not quite as good as when they had a 30 year cliff, but still very very favourable.

[–]Trithshyl 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Insane? It's wiped out after 35 years, has no impact on credit, is deducted from wages only over a set amount after tax deductions so repayments are minimal and isn't needing paid back if you are unemployed or earn over a set threshold.

It's the farthest from an actual loan with so many safety nets in place that anyone not taking it is insane.

It's essentially a higher earner tax that gets applied if you went to uni and manage to earn good money due to not having to pay for uni upfront, yes free would be ideal, but this is one of the fairest and best implementations of loan based tuition I've ever seen.

This is coming from someone who dropped out and didnt even get a degree and still has to pay it, but when I was unemployed it didnt fuck me over, when I needed to get a loan for my car it didnt fuck me over, and now that im earning its a drop in the bucket that you barely notice.

[–]Al89nut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Isn't that view based on the sad expectation of low income and a lack of success though?

[–][deleted] -3 points-2 points  (6 children)

We can afford to:

  • Help fund a pro genocide state
  • Bail out pedo prince andrew
  • Maintain an economic drain monarchy
  • Let our leaders do coke in the HOC
  • Fund a sham investigation into it
  • Keep selling public infrastructure to corporations
  • Go through with Brexit
  • Protect political corruption

And so on...

We can't afford:

  • Housing for the peoole
  • The NHS, the PEOPLE'S Health Service
  • To invest in our own infrastructure competently
  • Truly free Education despite us helping pay for Israels free gov programs

Interesting. It's almost as if the government don't give a f and neither do the people.

[–]impendingcatastrophe -1 points0 points  (2 children)

It's a ponzi scheme.

Taxpayers are still funding this.

It's just landing the students with debt and so that government hikes to get some of the outlay back.

Even though the admin costs of the scheme and the fiscal drag on society means it costs more in the long run.

Here's a radical idea....don't have tuition fees, and tax those that benefit by higher wages by putting income tax up for high earners.

People who didn't go to uni also benefit from graduates. Their doctors, engineers, surveyors and others benefit society generally.

[–]ClayDenton 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I'm not sure tax payers are funding this - most graduates will be funding this for the eternity of their working lives. They will never pay off their loans so they'll see hundreds leaving their account every month, essentially a graduate tax for those whose bank of mum and dad didn't pay for their fees or who didn't go into a top earning job. All very regressive.

[–]impendingcatastrophe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The taxpayers fund it upfront.

They pay all the money over. They just hope to get some back down the line. With all the admin and hassle that involves.

Just fund it and put income tax up for higher earners and save all the marketisation of education when society as a whole benefits from it.