'Unlimited tuition fees – does that mean unlimited student loans?' blog discussion

Mariajh_2

And another bad day for the 'Arts' subjects. I'm from a working class background and studied Fine Art, back in the day when grants still existed. Not a highly employable degree! But I've done well in the creative industry and am now in the middle income bracket. Loving what I do, and knowing that the freedom of my degree was the basis to this.

Would I choose the same route now with no grant and uncapped tuition fees? No way!

This Arts in this country has always been something to be proud of - and something which to an extent defines us. (Our creative industries are huge in terms of revenue and export.) But increasingly the working and middle class kids are being squeezed out of taking these creative degree subjects. I find that shameful!

malc_b

teabelly wrote: »

Those that aren't fit for study need to be thrown out at Christmas thus saving a fortune to the tax payer.

I've include a short quote but you say the same thing in another place too.

It's a view that is somewhat to right. Yes there probably are wasters that end up a uni but far less than there were when it was a grant system (in my day). Who runs up debts for fun. And there are a number of reasons why students drop out, or have difficulties. There can be medical issues, mental health (the more creative, the more likely to have mental health problems), or they may just have reached the peak of ability. It's not as black and white as you paint it.

minerva_windsong

I hang out on the Student board here a lot, and the shocking thing that's been coming out of there for me is the amount of students and parents saying that the maintenance loan is not covering the most bog standard rent in halls (and these are not elite or London-based universities either). I graduated in 2009 but every year my maintenance loan covered my rent with a little to spare, both in halls and in houses (which were more expensive), and I think that effectively asking students to get jobs - when the university expects studying to be their job - just to keep a roof over their heads before they've bought food and paid bills is wrong, so I agree with Martin that maintenance absolutely must be covered in the loan amounts.

On the other hand, I also hope this will see the end of the 50% target. I'm not at all saying that bright poor kids shouldn't go to university, but rather that young people who are not particularly academic shouldn't feel pressured to go to university because it's 'what you do' (not helped by schools implying if you fail your GCSEs or for whatever reason not going on to college and then uni means your life is effectively wasted and/or over) and that many vocational degrees could be moved into the FE sector.

Sobraon

WelshGandalf wrote: »

Wales has the same fees as England, studying in Scotland is free ONLY if you are Scottish.


...and the cost of living in general is pretty huge, higher than the UK.


Are you really suggesting the UK spends more on French farmers than on UK universities? I'd love to see the source for that.

Not saying you're not allowed a rant but it's good to get your facts right! What's your solution then? ("don't give any money to the EU" is not an acceptable answer) How about commenting on the specifics of Martin's post (which is what this thread is supposed to be about anyway)?

WelshGandalfm I offer the following support to my earlier “rant”. If you have different figures I would be very grateful to read them.

Welsh undergraduate students studying in a Welsh university have to pay a maximum university tuition fee of £1,200.

University of Oslo recommends about £950/month including housing as a student budget.

France distributes 10% of the total EU budget to its farmers under the CAP.

UKIP says the cost of the EU is £65B but the actual UK gross payments seem to be about £14.6B. Therefore French farmers cost us between £1.46B and £6.5B.

Teaching grant this year in England is £4.7B.

You hopefully see my point?

Oh, and I do think that if we are in such dire straits that we can’t support our young then we should do something radical like cutting back on military adventures to Afghanistan for a start!

Student101

Hi,

I was wondering Was there any mention of postgraduate courses (Masters) rising in price?

And what happens if you are currently studying the first year of your degree now, will the second year be raised up to the new rate of (6-7k) or will you continue to pay the current 'capped' uni fee of £3290? :think:

Thank you!

Kitcaboodle

I enjoyed University and was able to study the arty & creative subjects that interested me. However, they have had no bearing on my subsequent day jobs and I never imagined that they would. I just wanted to get a degree and chose the subjects that interested me.

Had the proposed system existed, I would not have done a degree at all unless it was a business degree sponsored by a company so that I wasn't running up debt.

In my mind, unless you want to do a particular job for which you need a degree - lawyer, doctor, teacher, etc.. it's just not worth it. You'll probably be better off working your way up through the ranks. If you have oodles of promise and talent then the company you work for will probably pay for you to do a day release degree once you start reaching any qualification ceeling.

If I really wanted a degree, I'd work in the industry I wanted to work in (as people always want to hire people with industry experience) at a lower level than my ultimate goal & save up until I had the cash to do it without the loans.

WelshGandalf

Sobraon wrote: »

WelshGandalfm I offer the following support to my earlier “rant”. If you have different figures I would be very grateful to read them.

Happy to oblige...

Welsh undergraduate students studying in a Welsh university have to pay a maximum university tuition fee of £1,200.

This is simply not true. Until 2010-11, all Welsh students studying in Wales were given a grant of £1,890 towards their fees. This has now been abolished. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11515828

University of Oslo recommends about £950/month including housing as a student budget.

Exactly! That's a lot, yes? I was paying around £550 a month when I studied. Plus in the UK you get a grant to cover living costs. So at the moment, a UK student from a poorer family on a 3 year course will have £10k in student debt due to fees (£3,290 times three). Living costs will (mostly if not entirely) be covered by government grants of £7,800 and sometimes more from the university too. (For proof of that amount, see the same bbc link I posted above)

The UK student who has gone to Norway - let's say the course is 6 months a year (it's probably more). so that's no debt, but they would need to have £950 * 6 * 3 = £17,100 in living costs (plus transport there & back). So not only is studying in Norway £7,000 more expensive, this money needs to be found up-front, rather than being lent to the student on generous terms, to be paid back when earning decent money later in life.

France distributes 10% of the total EU budget to its farmers under the CAP.

UKIP says the cost of the EU is £65B but the actual UK gross payments seem to be about £14.6B. Therefore French farmers cost us between £1.46B and £6.5B.

When UKIP is your only source (with no URL) I don't really take those numbers too seriously. I tried to look for the actual numbers but it's a bit of a web and, frankly, I don't care enough to put in the extra time/effort. However a few of the things you are not considering here are....
1) the UK rebate - negotiated by Margaret Thatcher because of the disparity in CAP payments - is around £5bn http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11198960 of this France contributes 31%.

2) Some of the CAP budget is spent on the UK so that should be netted off. Wikipedia says 22% of the CAP budget goes to France and 9% to the UK (as of 2004).

3) EU funding is an enormously complicated web. Richer countries do contribute more and take out less than poorer countries. As a concept do you agree with this? With helping the poorer countries become richer?

Teaching grant this year in England is £4.7B.

Firstly you're not comparing like-with-like. EU payments are paid by the UK, not England. Secondly, where did you get that number from? I've found a source saying the higher education budget for the UK (I assume) is £7.3 billion
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=411703

You hopefully see my point?

I see your point but you've used some bad evidence which undermines it slightly and it's not half as clear-cut as you seem to think it is!

I think the current system works fine but I don't like these new proposals.

Poolie

ladyloulou wrote: »

From what I gather, the Student Loans used to be managed by the separate councils, and then they all sold the whole thing off as a business (with the massive problems in the first year).

Businesses exist to make money, so it was only a matter of time before they tried to charge real interest on loans.

And the problem with increasing the fees, is that every university immediately ups their fees to the top limit, with no regulation. I wouldn't mind paying more for a better degree, but how do you know what you are going to get? The fee limits should be set based on how many students get decent jobs once they graduate!

The local councils used to log into the same system SLC have at the moment. They were not sold off but were merged into one government body (SLC). SLC is not a business and does not make any real money out of the loans as it is all paid for the devolved administrations of the UK.

Poolie

WelshGandalf wrote: »

I started uni around 10 years ago ago, was on a system very similar to the current one. I'm currently paying back at 9% of what I earn above £15,000. I think I will be able to pay it all back within the next 15 years (effectively I'll get a decent pay rise at that point :beer:) but if the rate changes to a commercial rate then it'll add another 10-15 years on to it by my reckoning.

I cannot believe they would change the rules for all the old student loans - we took them out on agreed terms, surely they can't change them now?!

As with Martin I am also against a commercial rate for new students too. What is the point of having a 0% rate for lower earners - they will probably never earn enough to pay it off anyway so it won't really benefit them. Perhaps some sort of half way house would work - if you earn enough to have paid it all off within 10 years of graduating, you have to pay back a bit more in that case...?

My preferred solution would be reduce the numbers going on to higher education, there's a lot of silly/fairly worthless degrees out there.

Lets remember they did change the rules for the interest charge for the loans between 1998 and 2006. I have a loans around the same period and we have benefited from the rules change as we should have been tied to the RPI inflation rate and not got the 0% or having the 1.5% now. So some rules changes have been good for us which we shouldn't really have had if we had been stuck to the same rules that we signed.

I agree that the commerical rate of interest is a bad idea and is not what we signed up for so could come to a judicial review if the government try and force it through as would be seen as unfair to charge all old students the same.

I am about 4 and a half years away from clearing mine so very interested to hear what is going on and when it would take effect as it could add 6 to 9 months onto the length of my loan. If they do try and charge the commercial rate, it would be best to try and over pay to clear it before the commerical rate which could be 4%+ comes into effect. The higher repayment threshold will mean you will not pay as much off your loan and will increase the time as well.

Poolie

Smidster wrote: »

Just one quick thing looking through the report - it is at least NOT a 'commercial' rate of interest

''Students with higher earnings will pay a real interest rate. The interest rate will be equal to the Government’s cost of borrowing (inflation plus 2.2%).''

So yes still bad but not as bad as it could have been.

Presently that would mean a rate of 3.7% compared to 1.5% so more than double the interest rate. I was using the current rate we are being charged and not the actual rate of inflation. I hope the Government keeps this lock in but I suspect it will be lost and we will be at the will of the market.