'Stopping graduates repaying student loans early...' blog di

butterfly72

There has to be a case for 2 year degrees. I'm not sure how many hours students spend in 'taught' lectures/seminars, but I've heard its around 10 hrs per week. It should be condensed into 2 years were possible.

If it was me, I'd consider not going to uni, going out to work for a few years, maybe a year of travel so you don't miss out on 'the experience' and I'd wait and see what happened. you never know, a new government and new ways of funding might come in. Also, if you are in work, employers might pay for a degree. The NHS paid for one of mine and are paying for my PG study right now!!

I orginally went to a russell group uni, but there is no way I would have gone with the thought of 60Ks worth of debts! BTW not all russell group students end up in highly paid jobs - I'm a nurse!!

Another thought, if students are paying there needs to be tighter quality control going on. I've heard that some uni's are just awful, disorganised with lecturers not turning up and uni's thinking they are doing the student a massive favour. If you are paying you want excellent service and value for money.

setmefree2

To be honest if it looks like these student loans are going to be prohibitivly expensive I would probably find another way to get the money (on my children's behalf). I can't imagine I'm alone, which means that the only people who would take out student loans from the government are students whose parents can't access money at a reasonable rate - aka as poor people

flossy_splodge

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

You forget that in their (and my ) generation, only 5-10% of that age group went to university, as opposed to the 40% today.

I don't see many current parents complaining about the fact that their children are 4 times as likely to go to university as they themselves were. If we hadn't over expanded HE and allowed educational standards to collapse, we wouldn't be in this situation.

That is the scandal!

Oh how very very true. Well said!

Premier_2

It isn’t confirmed this will happen, though Universities’ Minister David Willetts told the BBC it was important higher earners were "not able to unfairly buy themselves out" of the system by paying their loans back early.

I don't know how he explained it to the BBC, but in his speech to the Commons he implied it would be targeted at the rich (or those with rich parents who are prepared to pay off their childrens loan).

"These mechanisms would need to ensure that graduates on modest incomes who strive to pay off their loans early through regular payments are not penalised."

These Tories seem to be getting more like Socialists everyday ... or is that the LibDem affect?

MSE_Martin

Premier wrote: »

I don't know how he explained it to the BBC, but in his speech to the Commons he implied it would be targeted at the rich (or those with rich parents who are prepared to pay off their childrens loan).

"These mechanisms would need to ensure that graduates on modest incomes who strive to pay off their loans early through regular payments are not penalised."

These Tories seem to be getting more like Socialists everyday ... or is that the LibDem affect?

An interesting note - though for me it doesn't effect the principle - rich or poor people should not be trapped into loans they can't pay off.

tyllwyd

Premier wrote: »

I don't know how he explained it to the BBC, but in his speech to the Commons he implied it would be targeted at the rich (or those with rich parents who are prepared to pay off their childrens loan). ...

And what would they consider 'rich'? As a family with one main earner who earns just over the higher rate income tax band, after the fiasco of their plans for child benefit, we've seen how good this government's judgement is - their student loan plans will still hit children coming from very ordinary family backgrounds whose parents might (probably will) struggle to take on debt to avoid their children signing up to such a bad deal.

Kayfer

I've done a few quick sums and unless I've missed something obvious, it looks as if most students will never pay off their loans.

Let's say you start with a debt of 40,000 and your income averages 25,000 during the 30years between graduation and end of liability for the loan. (Not unreasonable - it might be considerably less if you take time out to raise a family, and spend a number of years working part-time) Then you'll be paying 9% of the difference between this and 21,000.

9% of 4000 = 360.

360 a year for 30 years is 10,800

Masses of interest would have accrued, but this would seem to be totally irrelevant. Won't the student loans company collapse?

For my kids, I'd make sure I scrutinised the terms of the loan very carefully before agreeing to it. Either that, or suggest they look elsewhere. Degrees in most EU countries are free, I believe. And if you need to study in English, what about Ireland....Or India?? Yes, you can do a degree at Madras University for 22,000 rupees a year (that's about 300GBP)

anon_ymous

At least before this, I was pretty much secure, with knowing that I could take out a student loan for my studies, but this is completely out of order. I still intend to go to university, and I do hope that 2011 students are on the old fee system, and we won't just shift to the new 2012 system(it would also mean that there will be a mad rush this year unfortunately )

I think to save money, courses such as "exercising to music" should be scrapped or courses such as "IT and business" where you just learn how to use IT in a business environment and I was also shocked to see two universities(granted they are quite bad-Leeds Met and Bradford) offering some courses to over 21's, where they don't require the students to have any qualifications-just interest in the field.

This is not the way forwards. I was watching "Young person's question time" and I'm not normally a labour supporter(despite my Mum and Dad that way politically inclined), but their spokesperson really did seem to shine out for students unlike the Tory minister

Premier_2

MSE_Martin wrote: »

An interesting note - though for me it doesn't effect the principle - rich or poor people should not be trapped into loans they can't pay off.

They will be allowed to pay them off early ... it's just the rich will have to pay for the privilege, but the early exit sums being suggested would still appear to make it cheaper than not repaying early.

I think what the government are trying to avoid is allowing rich families from getting an interest free loan for say 4-8 years whilst their son/daughter attend university, goes an a gap year or two etc, and as soon as they start work as assistant CEO at daddies company, the loan is fully repaid so avoiding any interest.

foofi22

With regard to the proposed(?) changes in the loan repayment rates/thresholds - does anyone know how this will affect past students (graduated 2007) currently repaying their loans?

It would be very very bad form to go retrospectively changing the terms of the loan like this, however I've not seen any references that it will not apply retrospectively anywhere (that said I've not seen any indications it will apply to past students)