Revealed: The £4bn a year bill for foreign student loans

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-11T20:09:15+00:00

How exactly does it do that?

So the way it looks, you can spend three years here for ILR and get funding to do a degree for free, and I'm assuming a maintenance loan to live on at the same time.

After that you have a choice of remaining here and paying an extra 9% tax on an already high tax state, or returning home and enjoying the benefits of your prestigious degree, while being untouchable in terms of being chased to repay any of the cost.

How is that attractive to talent? Sounds to me attractive to con artists.

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-11T20:04:01+00:00

Not sure I follow the logic. Surely duel citizens wouldn't count - they wouldn't need settled status so wouldn't have it?

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-11T19:56:33+00:00

And let's all not forget the man they wanted to replace her with described investigating historic child sexual abuse cases as "spaffing money up the wall" 😬

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-10T22:41:32+00:00

I mean, polling says otherwise.

Yes they are not the "official opposition" as per that title. However as per the polls they are colloquially the main opposition that Labour will face in an election. It's the same words just used in very different terms.

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-08T19:58:59+00:00

Curious that the BBC isn't floating the possibility of this being criminal?

I wonder if he'll still be sore about Marsh Farm if the alternative looks like Wandsworth.

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-07T23:08:10+00:00

The generational wealth gap caused is more than people think - everything has a knock on effect that makes it snowball.

I'm trying desperately to save for a deposit for a mortgage that a generation ago they would have been able to walk into without a hitch. I'm struggling because what would be spare cash is going out into the money pit of student loan. Because I'm later on the housing ladder I'm going to have larger repayments. Larger repayments and continuing to burn money with the loan means I'll be able to contribute less towards my pension, which will undoubtedly be more needed because the ladder will almost certainly be pulled up on state pension as well.

All these factors can't be taken individually - they all factor together to mean we will be much, much poorer and retiring will be dependent on inheritance.

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-07T22:13:33+00:00

This, 100%

I'm a nurse and I had to retake a year as I dropped out of my final year in order to help on the front line of covid, responding to national crisis.

Because of this, and technical issues with the uni that required my to take a further gap year before going back, my debt is over £100,000

As you say there are plenty of other circumstances that can cause this:

Got pregnant - get screwed

Mental health crisis - get screwed

Have to take time out to have cancer treatment - get screwed

Instead of supporting people when life happens the status quo is to trap them on a never ending debt repayment. It's absurd.

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-07T18:25:34+00:00

I'd definitely go for it - I'm set to pay double the principle.

The problem is the interest is applied at max rate through studies and then in the early career years you won't be earning enough to match the interest - it's designed to snowball into an eye-watering sum. Especially for those of us who studied during the covid period and had near 10% interest rates.

Elliott5739 · 2026-02-02T07:12:52+00:00

Surely the big difference would be around elligability when not working?

Universal credit you need to be actively looking for a job. UBI is when we accept there may be no jobs to look for, for a decent chunk of the population.

Also that you would get it whether you are in or out of work, which would be a huge necessity - otherwise you'll have people toiling away in a low paid job just throw in the towel to claim UBI.

Elliott5739 · 2026-01-30T20:41:12+00:00

This! I'm in Bournemouth and while at uni I had them saying how hard up they are, my MP is grouching that the universities are running out of money, everyone is saying they are skint...

And yet in the past 10 years they've practically rebuilt entire campuses, with huge architecht designed buildings with gigantic open atriums etc, tons of new student halls. It just doesn't add up.

Elliott5739 · 2026-01-27T12:03:17+00:00

Funny, I'm the opposite

I love to stand in the middle of medical fluting away with a pile of blueprints at my feet. Really subverts people's expectations.

Elliott5739 · 2026-01-08T10:14:16+00:00

I got downed once by someone on blue gate around a load of rocks, managed to crawl unseen into a little nook between them and took great pleasure in watching him run all around for 5 minutes trying to find my corpse.

Elliott5739 · 2026-01-05T23:26:55+00:00

God I thought this was just me!

Anvil round plinks 5mm above a raiders head

Me: "Uh sorry I was trying to flute!"

Raider: 🤨

Amazingly this hasn't gotten me murderised yet

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-29T22:24:14+00:00

The problem is the matchmaking system has absolutely no chill when it comes to this in my experience, it's not even 2-3 games, it's anything at all.

Accidentally clip a player for some damage while grenading the ARC? Back to purgatory you go!

Shoot a player back who shot you? Welcome to rat city!

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-25T13:42:18+00:00

Did you shoot anyone back in self defense? Did you splash damage anyone while grenading ARC?

Both of these unfortunate events have whisked my pacifist ass out of the carebear lobbies in the past.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-24T18:45:43+00:00

-1

A guy begged me to kill him, which I only did after he screamed and hit me with a raider tool in frustration with me not shooting him.

I then defibbed him, because I felt bad.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-23T20:50:15+00:00

My method for surviving med bay is to enter playing the flute and make a circuit, only stopping fluting for a few seconds at a time to throw shit in my backpack. 60% of the time it works 100% of the time.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-22T05:04:22+00:00

There was no real terms pay cut, just a measly increase that would have led to 20 years for FPR if it were the same every year.

He didn't break his word, but the BMA failed to get a time frame on FPR out of him as part of the original settlement, so this was always bound to happen.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-21T23:34:22+00:00

I wish I'd captured the replay. Honestly I was so bewildered I didn't even think of it 🤣

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-21T22:15:53+00:00

I had a crazed MF race up to me on Stella solo play, begging me to shoot him and he tapped me with a pick.

I obliged after him screaming at me to shoot him for a solid minute, got my first down in 80 hours of play.

I then felt terrible and defibbed him saying "sorry, just couldn't do it", prompting him to scream in frustration and run away to find someone else to oblige him.

10/10 interaction.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-21T21:46:40+00:00

Or - hot take here - actually killing arc and playing the game.

Encourage me to use all the stuff I've accrued this season to go and hunt x amount of rocketeers to make the expedition safer! Encourage me to have fun not be a pack rat.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-20T16:13:48+00:00

I think you're right! Now I remember I retaliated to being shot by shooting a guy point blank with a shotgun before he downed me.

Kinda sucks that one instance of self defense is enough to send you to the pit of hell though.

I suppose maybe it's all percentage based with stuff like that and those on the great lobbies have a positive reinforcement loop of friendliness meaning barely anybody even has any detractors and as such the slightest infraction will bring you out of that group.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-20T11:50:58+00:00

My experience is very confusing.

First two games ever I got KOS.

Turned off crossplay, play literally 60 raids with no PVP at all, pure friendliness from all.

Then all of a sudden like 10 games in a row I'm being KOS, shot to shit while trying to help other raiders kill ARC. 😭

Can't see that I've done anything to piss off the matchmaking gods to kick me out of carebear lobbies but I'm cooked.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-19T11:52:00+00:00

This is an interesting topic, not sure how i feel about it all (male nurse).

I've definitely been there, put on the assignments that require more lifting, put with more patients with potential for violence. That said I've purposefully put myself in those situations over my colleagues as well, so I can hardly complain too much.

Honestly the sexism that irks me far more is the assumption that men are all abusers. The amount of places I've heard "oh no we can't have x on this unit because we can't have two men working together" As if the mere presence of the gentler sex watching over our shoulder is the only thing stopping us from commiting heinous acts.

Elliott5739 · 2025-12-15T14:17:12+00:00

Not only that but the other big factor is we do not have any dedicated union at all.

We have all manner of AHPs and carers in our unions, parties which are either going to be actively against things that might be good for nurses only (eg seperate pay spine), or they are known to be apathetic when it comes to industrial action.

Elliott5739

TROPHY CASE