Young people better prepared for the future

IT_nerd

Paul_M wrote: »

Sounds familiar, except the guys who had a similar idea in my school did it instead with smokes. They would buy a box of 20, which was around £3 back then, and sell them as singles for 20p or 25p each -- profit of between £1 and £2 per pack.

And of course plenty of the wannabe rebels bought them, being that they wanted to smoke (cos it's cool :cool:) but didn't have the £3 required to buy a box.

Interestingly enough, at least one of the guys pulling off this little business was a non-smoker. He did it purely for profit, rather than to fund his own smoking habit. And no, it wasn't me (although maybe I wish I had thought of it first!)

I'm quite anti smoking :P
I went for offering kids diabetes rather than lung cancer :P

lostinrates

I had a small cc bill at uni, larnt my lesson about believing bank sales men and paid it off. I worked during FT degree course too, and set up my business, never had debt 'problems' again (b.1979-), not that it was a ral problem, dalt with in one month, and was in debt, but more understood even though bigger, during business startup. My sister however is in her fifties and has yet again had to have my pensioner mother bail her out with CC debt and bills. I don't think this is an issue that can be pinned soley on my generation!

treliac

Debt can be due to a multitude of things other than pure irresponsibility

• unanticipated expense for any number of reasons
• lack of sufficient earnings for all sorts of reasons
• the unexpected and just downright misfortunes of life

Whilst solid learning about management of personal finances can only be good and set us up as far as is possible, life is full of its ups and downs, fortunes and misfortunes, and cannot always be controlled.

lynzpower

treliac wrote: »

Debt can be due to a multitude of things other than pure irresponsibility

• unanticipated expense for any number of reasons
• lack of sufficient earnings for all sorts of reasons
• the unexpected and just downright misfortunes of life

Whilst solid learning about management of personal finances can only be good and set us up as far as is possible, life is full of its ups and downs, fortunes and misfortunes, and cannot always be controlled.

youve forgotten

"getting yourself a world class education" :rolleyes:

This government as we know rebrands debt as all sorts of things, including "invesrtment in education" Shame they hadnt really thought about investing in companies to give enough grad level jobs for the staggering no of grads who pour out of our ever increasing list of universities.

They see nothing wrong with this :mad: it drives me mad to see SO many people pouring into universities on "advice" as I did from parents and careers services. Why do they perpetuate it?

The number of students starting full-time undergraduate courses in UK universities this year rose 9.7%, figures show today.
The total applying was 582,6576, up 9.5% on 2007 figures (531,898), according to the university admissions service, Ucas, and higher than forecasts released over the summer.
But the figures included more than 13,000 nursing and midwifery applicants that in previous years would have gone through a different admissions system, NMAS.
Without them, there was a 6.3% increase in students accepted on to courses this year - 451,871 students.
"These final provisional figures make 2008 a record-breaking year in terms both of those applying and those being accepted to full-time higher education courses," Ucas said.
"The increase in both applicants and acceptances is particularly strong in England, but all parts of the UK saw higher numbers.
"Last year saw a rise of 5.4% in the number of applicants, so this is the second year of very strong growth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/oct/15/accesstouniversity-clearing

Total debt of graduates and undergraduates stands at £21.95bn

.http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/saving-and-banking/student-finance/article.html?in_article_id=443195&in_page_id=52

treliac

lynzpower wrote: »

youve forgotten

"getting yourself a world class education" :rolleyes:

This government as we know rebrands debt as all sorts of things, including "invesrtment in education" Shame they hadnt really thought about investing in companies to give enough grad level jobs for the staggering no of grads who pour out of our ever increasing list of universities.

They see nothing wrong with this :mad: it drives me mad to see SO many people pouring into universities on "advice" as I did from parents and careers services. Why do they perpetuate it?

I've noticed this is a particular interest of yours lynz. What subject did you take at uni? What relevance did it have to being where you are now?

I agree with you, especially on the point of govt set meaningless undergraduate targets regardless of whether once graduated, they are going to be able to offset their debt with meaningful, well paid careers.

My DD is at uni and DS hopes to go soon. Both are working to the heavily laboured (by me) principle of taking a useful subject that both interests them and will lead to a career that will have made it all worthwhile.

Having said that, I am worried about the debt being knocked up and this has all been taken into account in career planning. But as I said in my previous post, you can only hope you've taken all the right things into consideration but you can never be sure.

neverdespairgirl

lostinrates wrote: »

My sister however is in her fifties and has yet again had to have my pensioner mother bail her out with CC debt and bills. I don't think this is an issue that can be pinned soley on my generation!

Blimey, your sister is 20 - 30 years older than you?

treliac

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Blimey, your sister is 20 - 30 years older than you?

Late baby - these things do happen

lynzpower

treliac wrote: »

I've noticed this is a particular interest of yours lynz. What subject did you take at uni? What relevance did it have to being where you are now?

I agree with you, especially on the point of govt set meaningless undergraduate targets regardless of whether once graduated, they are going to be able to offset their debt with meaningful, well paid careers.

My DD is at uni and DS hopes to go soon. Both are working to the heavily laboured (by me) principle of taking a useful subject that both interests them and will lead to a career that will have made it all worthwhile.

Having said that, I am worried about the debt being knocked up and this has all been taken into account in career planning. But as I said in my previous post, you can only hope you've taken all the right things into consideration but you can never be sure.

Well, I went to a top uni, and read Politics. Honestly though, 99% of my mates went to university, and did a raft of different things- Architecture, Zoology, Social Science, Law ( couldnt get a placement) Textiles.

The only people I know that use it is those of them who are nurses or teachers. However, BOTH of them had done an undergraduate in other subjects first before realising they were useless then converting. In some subjects there might be VFM but in my course some semesters I only had 6 hours tuition a week - from bumbling coffin dodgers who taught so poorly, onecould barely speak.:o Im glad I wasnt
paying fees for that.

Saying that im constantly toying with the idea of going back to Univ, but simply cannot justify getting into all that debt for a job that only pays 25k PA

baby_boomer

lynzpower wrote:

Total debt of graduates and undergraduates stands at £21.95bn

There is a misunderstanding about student levels of debt.

Current levels are still subdued because the £3K+ inflation tuition fees legislation of New Labour has not yet worked its way through the system.

£35K will be the norm before too long.

Before the crash, my rare appearances on the MSE housing board were usually to point out that the long term effect of this would clobber the housing market around about 2016 when these graduates would previously have been trying to get their feet on the property ladder.

Paying off £35k of debt + saving £30K deposit is a lot of money to earn in your 20s .

treliac

Yeah, the vocational subjects are more obvious routes and that's what I did years ago as a mature student. But whatever you do, it's a gamble. At least changing of career paths is more common and is possible nowadays.

Footnote: I'm always intrigued by the numbers doing media and various off-beat subjects that, while they might be fun, you wonder if they'll be regretted one day.