Student Loans 2012

archersluck

Not read everything but just telling you what my parents do. Minimal loan so they're expected to contribute and thankfully do, get £240 a month (4 weeks) Have 12 week terms plus freshers/exam weeks tagged on. Fund those myself as work over the holidays so have extra cash. No money from them in holidays - expected to work.

Not sure why you want to know how much extra to give them for freshers, they want to play ring of fire until they puke - they fund it. You don't want to give them so much they don't have the incentive to work surely, even if it's just over the holiday. Gives them something to put on a CV and talk about in grad interviews too.

Took me a while to learn how to budget properly after paying my overdraft off when I was on a paid year in industry and not wanting to get in it again. If my parents sat down and told me I was to spend £X on food and £Y on clothes each month I would have nodded and ignored them, though their willingness to talk about money in a none judgey way is important.

For me £60 a week is fine, I'm at a northern uni and loan covers rent and bills. So that £60 covers food, socialising, phone bill, train tickets home/to see friends/to my boyfriends etc.

As an aside, while I've love to have zero student loan there is something nice about being in the same boat as everyone else, waiting for it to come in, knowing you're friends can afford roughly the same things you can. It's just part of student life. But I guess things will be changing when the new fees and loans come in. Hope that helps a little bit

setmefree2

melancholly wrote: »

(incidentally, what hasn't been discussed at all is whether it is worth students taking the full loan even if not needed, since the repayment terms are better than any other loan they'll ever get. that way they can have a large sum in savings for use later as a house deposit or something like that - the terms from the SLC won't be as good as they have been but may well be better than any commercial loan. less useful than a few years ago when savings interest rates were higher, but worth thinking about.)

RPI + 3% is not looking lke such a great deal if you think you are going to earn a reasonable amount of money quite soon after graduating imho. RPI is currently a tad under 5% and with the spike in commodity prices is making everyone jumpy about inflation (though commodity prices can fall as fast as they rise so these pressures can quickly dissipate). Indeed, economists are banking on unemployment pushing prices down:o.

Add to that proposed penalties for over paying. Then I'm not sure students who have the option should be filling their boots with SLs like they did in the past but some (most?) will have no choice.

We'll see. The white paper must be out very soon.

setmefree2

archersluck wrote: »

You don't want to give them so much they don't have the incentive to work surely, even if it's just over the holiday. Gives them something to put on a CV and talk about in grad interviews too.

Archersluck thank you (and all you other students) so much for your post. It really, really is useful to find out what amounts of money students can live on.

For his work experience we didn't let our son sit in a friend's office we encouraged him to get a real job. He worked in Wilkinson's for 2 weeks where they made him stack shelves and he spent a morning scraping chewing gum of the floor. The first week he did actually enjoy it (and was very proud of one of his displays;)) but found it more boring in the second.

Most sixth forms expect kids to do community service these days, so my son works in a soup kitchen (for free). Mostly he's worked in the kitchens peeling veg.

minerva_windsong

setmefree2 wrote: »

Oh my - what the heck is freshers' flu?
£30 for a night out - what does that go on? Club entrance, taxis, just booze?

Freshers' flu = basically, because of the halls environment (all living close together), the time of year and the fact that some people might not be eating well or having lots of late nights, the amount of bugs that are around can be amplified and people might get ill. It's normally not actually flu, more just colds and the sniffles (or it was amongst my friends), although we used to get emails about being vigilant for meningitis and not mistaking it for a cold.

When I was at uni, I budgeted £30 a week to go out, which would normally pay for two nights in the pub or a student bar which would normally be £2.50-3 a pint depending where and what we were drinking (I'd normally stick to soft drinks because I don't like lager and student bars very rarely sell real ale), or one bigger night out which would equate to £5 for the taxi, getting into a club which was normally about £3 and a couple of cocktails or JD and Cokes. I also included my bus fare to my internship in that which was about £4 or so for a day ticket as I had to get two buses, and a couple of trips to the campus cinema every week which was about £3 a time.

In terms of the bigger freshers' week nights out, most of ours apart from RAG Ball (think that was about £20) and Freshers' Ball (about £25-30 but that was at the racecourse and they tend to have a 'big' slightly has-been 90s pop band - ours was the Vengaboys) were reasonably cheap - some of the non-alcoholic ones like the trip to the theatre and the pudding club asked for a small charge to cover costs, and I remember paying £10 for a college bar crawl but that included a T shirt, club entry and the first two drinks. I didn't go out every night though, after the first couple you kind of get a bit bored of it and I just needed a break. Most of the sports societies had a 'team' night out two or three times a term, and there will probably be a few social events when the socities first kick in (I was chair of a political society and we had a cocktail night on the weekend after Freshers' Week as an icebreaker for new members), but after that it does slack off a lot, particularly once you hit second and third year because you just don't have time. The events also kicked up a bit around Christmas with college balls and then in the summer as well.

SOandSO

Hi SMF2

I was browsing (lurking) the boards (working from home) and spotted your name in an unusual place. So I popped in as you have been very supportive of my efforts on the other board. I was shocked by the responses to your questions and suppose you must have touched a nerve with some posters (that's me being nice about it). It's shame these posters cannot see how much can be achieved when people are supportive (I recollect game theory comes into it).

Anyhow I am sorry I won't be back to help but wanted to say IMO you are being very sensible and considering the full implications for your son and family in what is the experiment being undertaken with the nations youth.

Thank you again for the help you have given me and I wish I had the stamina to stick through this with you but I think the cigarette intake would increase (haven't managed to give up yet)

setmefree2

Thanks SOandSO for your very kind post and, again, for all the other PMs I've had.

setmefree2 :money:

louise3965

My dd is going to uni in September in Manchester and we will be giving her £60 a week which is the gap between her grant and her accomodation costs + food. She is expected to use her savings and to work to fund her social life and is fine and dandy about this. I think that is a good balance.

Nickynoo1

I am a mature student and I've started saving now for my son's uni fees, and he's only 6!! lol. I'm hoping he would prefer to go to the local uni, or one in another European country that doesnt have such ridiculously hig fees.

setmefree2

This is the first piece of evidence I have found where someone else is suggesting that the new Student Loans may not be a good deal.

By Stephen Womack
Last updated at 10:04 PM on 29th January 2011

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1351755/Cutting-university-costs-I-lived-tin-shack-curb-student-debt.html#ixzz1DAoXhiut

Should you rely on the Government's study loans?
The revamped student loan system will play a part in most students' calculations (see below). Those starting in 2012 will have to repay their loan at a rate equivalent to nine per cent of earnings above £21,000.
Add tax, National Insurance and contributions to the forthcoming Nest pension scheme, and that means an effective 'tax rate' of 44 per cent on some slices of their earnings.
Sharp says: 'Taking these loans could affect your financial life for 20 or more years and will have a direct impact on the ability to borrow for a mortgage.'
So students and their families might prefer the flexibility to borrow elsewhere. At the moment, it is still uncertain if early repayment of the official student loans will be allowed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1351755/Cutting-university-costs-I-lived-tin-shack-curb-student-debt.html#ixzz1DAo8cYXq

setmefree2

From the same article

CRASH COURSE IN FEES: How a loan of £24,972 is cleared after 25 years at a cost of £46,700
The new rules will see tuition fees rise to between £6,000 and £9,000 a year, depending on course and institution. These upper limits will increase in line with inflation.
Students can borrow the entire cost of their fees from the Government and can take out loans of at least £2,763 a year for living costs.
There will also be grants towards living costs - students from families where the household income is below £25,000 will be eligible to a maximum of £3,250 a year.
All loans, whether for fees or living costs, are repaid in the same way after university. Money has to be repaid whether a student graduates or not.
Interest on the loans will accrue from day one of the first academic year. But repayments begin only once someone starts work and is earning more than £21,000 a year. The repayment will be 9p in the pound on all income above £21,000.
The interest rate on the loan will depend on how much someone earns. While they are still studying or earning less than £21,000, the outstanding debt will grow in line with the Retail Prices Index. At £21,000, the interest rate starts to increase. It will gradually grow from RPI to RPI plus three percentage points between £21,000 and £42,000.
This means that the more someone earns, the more they will repay but the faster their debt will grow. Debts will also roll up if you take a career break, for example to bring up a family.
Take a simplified example of someone who borrows £8,000 a year at university. Assuming inflation is constant at two per cent, they will graduate with a £24,972 debt.
Say they start work on £18,000, increasing by £2,000 each year in employment. After ten years, their salary will have climbed to £36,000, the outstanding debt will be £27,052 and they will have paid back a total of £5,760. After another five years, our worker's salary has grown to £46,000, meaning yearly repayments are £2,250. The total repaid is £15,210 but the outstanding debt is still £23,905.
The debt is cleared 25 years after our employee starts work, with total repayments of £46,700. Outstanding loans are written off after 30 years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1351755/Cutting-university-costs-I-lived-tin-shack-curb-student-debt.html#ixzz1DApLWUi2