I can't believe how expensive Uni is

DomTom

I've racked up £18264 + interest and i've still got 2 years after this year! and this year was a half fee year. how the hell am i ever going to pay that back. and then they're surprised people don't pay up / lie about their status etc. i wish i'd lied now! it'll cost me £30k+ to be honest

alyth

at the risk of sounding terribly rude, how the hell have you managed to rack up £18k + worth of debt in two years? Did you not get a part time job whilst you were studying? I asume you are in england where you have to pay tuition fees, but were you not able to save any money before going to uni? What kind of course are you studying, are you incurring excessive expenses on books, accommodation?

Indie_Kid

alyth wrote: »

at the risk of sounding terribly rude, how the hell have you managed to rack up £18k + worth of debt in two years? Did you not get a part time job whilst you were studying? I asume you are in england where you have to pay tuition fees, but were you not able to save any money before going to uni? What kind of course are you studying, are you incurring excessive expenses on books, accommodation?

Many people do take out the maximum they can get from SLC - I did.

alyth

but a university education is not a free one - you have to pay for it some way or the other. I have £40K budgeted for my four year degree which I start in September, surely if you know that you are going to uni then you start to save and work and buy cheap books? I will take out a student loan, but then invest it so I am earning interest (pitiful though it may be) rather than spend the money.

It sounds to me as if the OP has had rather a fun time at uni without thinking about the consequences.

dawyldthing

I have £19k and still have one more to go, so come September I will owe £21k or there abouts as i'm on the old loan system due to starting in 2005 (i defered a year then defered placement this year due to breaking my ankle on the ice on the first day of placement, but most bills still had to be paid). We are still lucky when you compare it to America as a example as they can pay upto and beyond $50,000 a year, i was flabbergasted when I got told this when I worked as a camp counselor.

It is expensive, but it is the cheapest loan we ever will have, you only have to pay it back after earning more than £15k a year and most of us will never pay it back - check it out on here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/student-loans-repay

Unis a good option if its useful for a field you want to work in. I know if i hadn't done a teacher training degree I wouldn't have bothered going to uni as it wouldn't really have benefited me. I can honestly say that being in uni 27 weeks a year compared to the amount of debt i'm in seems surreal sometimes, but you do get what you put into it.

piratejimbob

Um yeah how do you rack up £18k of debt lol??
I wonder if you shouldn't have brought that brand new car lol

Indie_Kid

piratejimbob wrote: »

Um yeah how do you rack up £18k of debt lol??
I wonder if you shouldn't have brought that brand new car lol

I have just finished my first year. I am already in £10k worth of debt - I live in London and get the bigger loan. (around £7k)

Oldernotwiser

DomTom wrote: »

I've racked up £18264 + interest and i've still got 2 years after this year! and this year was a half fee year. how the hell am i ever going to pay that back. and then they're surprised people don't pay up / lie about their status etc. i wish i'd lied now! it'll cost me £30k+ to be honest

You may never have to pay it back. Don't worry about it and think of it as a graduate tax rather than a loan.

dmg24

A quick look at the OP's recent threads may explain his excessive debt!

MrsManda

alyth wrote: »

at the risk of sounding terribly rude, how the hell have you managed to rack up £18k + worth of debt in two years?

It's quite easy to do this if you take out the max loans. In my first year I loaned £10950, second year: £11214 and for my third year it'll be £11545
Yes I am managing to save quite a bit of it, overpaying my mortgage with a chunk of it but I live with my OH who earns enough for us to live on so the loans only have to go on tuition fees, train fares and books whereas many people are not this lucky.
However I don't think this is expensive for an good education which can take you places which you'd never get to without the degree. I couldn't do what I'm doing anywhere else or get a job doing what I want to do without it. And student loans just work out as another tax rather than a major debt due to the way repayment works so I don't worry about how much the debt is. Which is a good job because it's likely to be higher than my mortgage when I finish

DomTom

that £18000 is only from my SLC loan. and that was only 75% of the loan. tuition fees are £3000 a year, and then my maintenance loan has ranged from £4500 down to £2000 per year.

despite being assessed every time, it seems my parents have crossed the threshold (50k combined) since ive been at uni. I've never received EMA or anything other kind of grant, so no money i've received has been "free".

my maintenance loan didn't cover my accomodation and bills for the 2nd and 3rd year, i've had part time work since my first year to pay for things i wanted, and in my second year needed.


my third year is a year in industry, where i've earnt money, hence the expenses. i haven't included those in my £18000 and i didn't borrow any of that money. BUT i still had to pay tuition fees so took the SL out for that.



i went straight from college to uni...