Student Loan Debts - How do you view these?

Dr.Shoe_2

I view it as a very good low interest loan. I had one when i was studying for my degree and it certainly took a lot of the pressure off.

The_Tax_Mans_Cash_Machine

It is an insidious scheme to 1) keep unemployment figures down, & 2) to shackle people with debt as early as is humanly possible.

What is the point of having a degree if everyone else has one as well? Younger people today might find it hard to believe, but degrees were originally only for the creme de la creme - for the brightest lights to be educated further to aid industry & commerce. Now you need one to get a tu'ppeny ha'penny job shuffling papers around the DSS.

Has everyone really suddenly become more intelligent so that record numbers of students achieve grade A year after year? The exams have clearly been made easier & easier to get people through the doors - you can compare "O" level exam papers from 15 to 20 years ago, & the same questions are now on "A" level papers.

I know one lecturer who said that the standards have dropped so much that they have to spend the first 6 months bringing the students up to a suitable academic standard - they haven't the necessary knowledge to start the course when they arrive - particularly where maths is involved.

This isn't a dig at people who want to go & take a degree, they're just doing what they think they need to. My gripe is at the way that they are hoodwinked into thinking that they need to go & get a degree to have any chance in life. All that happens is people lose 4 or 5 years of earnings, build up a monumental amount of debt, then spend another 10 years or so paying it all back.

And if you can't get a job paying more than £15K afterwards, what the hell was the point in the first place?

My sister in Law has a degree & has been training as a teacher - she seriously asked me the other day "I don't think my driving is getting any better. My instructor said I'm 80% ready for the test, but a few weeks ago I was two-thirds ready. What's the difference?"

That is the level of education you can expect after 3 years at Uni.

Hereward

The_Tax_Mans_Cash_Machine wrote:

It is an insidious scheme to 1) keep unemployment figures down, & 2) to shackle people with debt as early as is humanly possible.

What is the point of having a degree if everyone else has one as well? Younger people today might find it hard to believe, but degrees were originally only for the creme de la creme - for the brightest lights to be educated further to aid industry & commerce. Now you need one to get a tu'ppeny ha'penny job shuffling papers around the DSS....

And if you can't get a job paying more than £15K afterwards, what the hell was the point in the first place?

My sister in Law has a degree & has been training as a teacher - she seriously asked me the other day "I don't think my driving is getting any better. My instructor said I'm 80% ready for the test, but a few weeks ago I was two-thirds ready. What's the difference?"

That is the level of education you can expect after 3 years at Uni.

People should only undertake a degree course if they are particularly interested in the subject as they exist to further the understanding of the subject (and not to train minds or further industry: that just happens to be an added bonus!). In regards to your Sister-in-Law, you don't mention what degree she read: If it was in English Language, and she was wasn't very good a Mathematics at school, then I'm not surprised that she didn't understand that 80% is better than two-thirds (and to be fair most people have difficulty when comparing fractions with percentages); The university would not have been really interested in her mathematical ability in this case. If she read Mathematics, on the other hand, then I would be seriously worried.

Getting back to the OP, I would treat a student loan, as others have suggested, as a very low level of credit. Personally, I would save any money that I could use to pay it of as I could generate a profit from a decent savings account.

[Deleted User]

I saw mine as a way of having the best holiday of my life after graduation... 5 week USA roadtrip!!

Took me 3 years to pay it off. Don't regret that though, it rocked

hbl_2

Ok, I have £16,000 of student debt. This is mostly from a year of studying in the USA and going snowboarding whenever possible. I also racked this up before I became interested in my money.

I fully intend to pay this back ASAP for the following reasons:

1. Paying it back means at some point it will no longer cost me anything in interest.
2. I would rather pay it back in 2-3 years with extreme prejudice than to have £100 come out of my monthly paycheck for the next 18 years
3. the saving in interest alone would be several thousand pounds - would I rather have a little less spending money in the next 5 years, or have a little less money in the next 18?
4. I was stupid enough to rack up the above sum, and I'm not going to be a headinthesand postgraduate whiney nobody who doesn't think he has to pay it back, because the government took away free education - guess what, I intend to earn more, and when I do I dont want this loan hanging over me
5. Hey student loan company, thanks for the help, it's been swell it really has, and the drop in interest coming this september is very much appreciated, but I'm working 5 hours a month just to meet the interest accruing on my loan, and I dont want to do that until the day I retire, so here's a little more to pay it down

Anyway, just pay it back, but dont sweat it too much. As my dad said at the time I took it out, it's the cheapest loan you will ever get. I wish he'd told me to stick it in an ISA and not spend it in Banff.

lady_fuschia

I love the way they say "its the cheapest loan you'll ever have" as if its just assumed these days that you will have several much more expensive ones over your lifetime! Credit has become so normal...

K9cuddles

Well I earn only just over the threshold and the monthly repayment only just covers the interest!! Which means it would never go down in I only paid the min. I look forward to getting it paid off ASAP and knowing bonus time I'm not gonna lose £200-£300 to the SLC!

waterbaby

hbl wrote:

Ok, I have £16,000 of student debt. This is mostly from a year of studying in the USA and going snowboarding whenever possible. I also racked this up before I became interested in my money.

I fully intend to pay this back ASAP for the following reasons:

1. Paying it back means at some point it will no longer cost me anything in interest.
2. I would rather pay it back in 2-3 years with extreme prejudice than to have £100 come out of my monthly paycheck for the next 18 years
3. the saving in interest alone would be several thousand pounds - would I rather have a little less spending money in the next 5 years, or have a little less money in the next 18?
4. I was stupid enough to rack up the above sum, and I'm not going to be a headinthesand postgraduate whiney nobody who doesn't think he has to pay it back, because the government took away free education - guess what, I intend to earn more, and when I do I dont want this loan hanging over me
5. Hey student loan company, thanks for the help, it's been swell it really has, and the drop in interest coming this september is very much appreciated, but I'm working 5 hours a month just to meet the interest accruing on my loan, and I dont want to do that until the day I retire, so here's a little more to pay it down

Anyway, just pay it back, but dont sweat it too much. As my dad said at the time I took it out, it's the cheapest loan you will ever get. I wish he'd told me to stick it in an ISA and not spend it in Banff.

1. It will cost you less in interest than you can earn by saving it. Net profit by saving it.

2. I can understand that. Not nice to see deductions.

3. You'll save x in interest paid, but you'll lose more than x in interest received.

4. Again, fair enough.

5. If you saved the money instead, you'd have to work less to pay the interest. Your bank would be paying a bit for you.

'A cheap loan' doesn't do it justice. It's a loan that actually pays you to have it, if you hold the money in an account paying >3.2%

The SLC will take their min. payment. With the rest that you can afford, put it in a savings account. You'll be paid (e.g.) £4.75 per year on each £100 that you save, while you pay £3.20 for not giving it to SLC. You're £1.55 per £100 better off than you would have been by paying it to SLC.

Continue to do this and you reach your SLC balance quicker. You'll have enough money to pay it off sooner than you can pay it off by just overpayments, because the bank is refunding you the 3.2% interest, and adding another 1.5% on top.