Poll on whether i should take student loan or not

kar

I was wondering what your opinions were on this - just completing my first degree (have 12700 debt to slc already)

I am going to be starting a PGCE in september and was wondering whether or not to get a student loan.

I will be paid approx 150 pw during the course - my lea automatically pays the first 1200 of my tution fees and the rest are calculated on my parents income (up to 1800) - i won't have to pay the full amount and hope that my parents will cough up the fees. - so do i take a student loan and save it or do i not increase my debt to the slc any further?

kar

PS my savings are for a deposit on a house we want to buy when we graduate.

SamMoffatt28

kar wrote:

- i won't have to pay the full amount and hope that my parents will cough up the fees. - so do i take a student loan and save it or do i not increase my debt to the slc any further?

kar

PS my savings are for a deposit on a house we want to buy when we graduate.

Why should your parents cough up for it when you will have the money in the bank collecting interest? If you were getting the loan to pay your fees then fair enough, but I don't think you are being fair to your parents.

whist

TAKE IT!

Take the money and stick it in a high interest account or if you're a a bit of a gambler buy some solid chares. Check out some tips first though.

I wish I had used my student loan sensibly.

kar

SamMoffatt28 wrote:

Why should your parents cough up for it when you will have the money in the bank collecting interest? If you were getting the loan to pay your fees then fair enough, but I don't think you are being fair to your parents.

My parents earn so much that my loan entitlement is lowered. My parents have the money why shouldn't they pay. If i was being assessed on my income then i would pay - it's not - it is assessed on how much the governement think my parents should be able to pay.

By the way my parents have absolutely no worries about paying my fees - they feel it is their responsibilty. what makes you think it's not in my parents bank collecting interest now. This is a MAINTANENCE LOAN we are talking about. Just so you are aware this type of loan is not to pay fees that would be the FEE SUPPORT LOAN. I won't take out the fee support loan if my parents pay for the fees which i assume they will if they don't then i will take out the fee support loan to cover it. I don't need to use the maintanence loan however due to the fact that my OH and I can live off one student loan because we don't spend money on crap.

kar

kar

Hi addieH thank you for your reply.

You're not quite right with the amounts on fees loans and things but that really doesn't matter - the fee loan max amount decreases because the lea give you 1200 for doing my particular course so the max you can get is 1800 or something like that - basically the fee loan is paid directly to the uni and will only cover what ever is left over after means testing and any grants etc.

I still don't get how i'm being unfair to my parents for expecting them to pay the parents contributions and am actually feeling quite attacked by someone saying that.

For the past three years my parents have pay in the region of 1017 (this years amount) - this is detailed in the information sent to me stating - in the fees section parents contribution - it does not state students contribution or 'money to be funded elsewhere' it states parents contribution. My dad says he's business has a bigger income this year and hence feels that he will prob need to pay for the full fees and my loan will be reduced - he even asked if i needed him to make up the loan to the full amount. I told him not to worry cos i didn't really need it and the fees were increasing so much this year. He was unaware of the increase - hence my statement about my parents coughing up - mearly stating he has not confirmed yet that he will pay for the full 1800 if that is what the govn says he should pay and mearly said that we will wait and see. I'm more inclined to think that he is now unsure if the assessment procedure is exactly the same and so doesn't know how much he will need to pay but the conversation had to be ended quickly anyway because he had to go out.

I have decided that i will send off the form asap to find out what i'm intitled to but not apply for any loans yet and see what comes back. Then i will make the decision. It is certainly somethig to think about whether the amount borrowed is affected by slc debts - but then borrowing the money from slc is cheeper than borrowing as a mortgage so even if they take the amount off what you can borrow it may still be worthwhile. Will certainly give it some more thought.

pavlovs_dog

i was under the impression that

a) you did not pay fees to do a teaching qualification

and

b) that after x years of service as a teacher the government pay off your loan for you (as an incentive)