Student Loans 2012

Lokolo

setmefree2 wrote: »

They also used to tell everyone not to pay off their mortgage. Instead, they used to argue, you should in invest in the stock market!!! Funnily enough, when the stock market crashed they stopped trolling the MF board and most of them changed their usernames....

... you're right, I never go near that board, why would I want to :rotfl:

TBH when rates are so low, paying off extra mortgage isn't very MSE at all, but what can ya do eh.

setmefree2

Lokolo wrote: »

TBH when rates are so low, paying off extra mortgage isn't very MSE at all, but what can ya do eh.

The trick is to pay off mortages when interest rates are low that way you get rid of more of the orginal loan faster, so that when interest rates rise the mortgage is hopefully gone. Our mortgage will be gone in 12 months. Our current interst rate is 0.95%. We pay £56 per month in interest to borrow £65k. The monthly repayments we make are all reducing the mortgage. It's not easy to earn high rates of interest in this environment, particularly when you are a high rate tax payer, so we believe that paying off our mortgage makes excellent sense.

And by the way, we fill our annual cash ISA allowance, buy some shares, have cash savings and invest in pensions. Paying off our mortgage is only part of our strategy to a happy life

setmefree2

Lokolo wrote: »

I am honestly struggling to believe you are an accountant.

If I was you I would assume I am not an accountant and do your own research. This is the internet and you never know who you are talking to.:) Even if I am an accountant, lots of accountants have money troubles, so I could be the world's worst accountant EVER. I started this thread because I'm a parent.

setmefree2

David Willetts issues warning over £9,000 tuition fees


The Coalition is threatening to cut higher education funding to stop universities imposing blanket £9,000 tuition fees.

In a direct warning to vice-chancellors, it was claimed the Government would be forced to slash university budgets to cover the increased cost of student loans. David Willetts, the Universities Minister, said serious pressure would be placed on the public purse if institutions attempted to “cluster” fees at the maximum possible level.

Financial modelling carried out by the Treasury suggested that universities would charge average fees of £7,500 next year.
In a speech to vice-chancellors on Thursday, Mr Willetts said: “I want to be frank with you: we will all face a problem if the sector tries to cluster at the maximum possible level.”



“We set the maximum level at £9,000 because we think there are some circumstances where fees of this level could be justified,” he said. “If graduate contributions end up higher than £7,500, we would reluctantly be forced to find savings from elsewhere in [higher education].”
Mr Willetts also accused universities of “rushing” to impose higher fees even though the extra cash was often not needed. At many universities, the most common courses cost £7,000 a year to run, he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8331580/David-Willetts-issues-warning-over-9000-tuition-fees.html

setmefree2

The comments came as the Government published a report setting out plans requiring each university to draw up “student charters”.
For the first time, institutions will be expected to give students written guarantees on issues such as support and feedback from tutors, the number of lectures and tutorials and standards of accommodation.
Documents – expected to be around two pages long – are expected to give students clearly defined “rights” in exchange for a hike in tuition fees.
The report – by Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, and Prof Janet Beer, vice-chancellor of Oxford Brookes University – said charters would also “help prospective students to get a ‘feel’ for the institution”.
Mr Willetts said: “Students have a right to know how they will learn, how they will be supported and what they need to do themselves to reach their potential.
“At a time of significant change in higher education, students have increased expectations of their university experience. I want a system where students have real choice and universities respond to what students need.”

Same Article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8331580/David-Willetts-issues-warning-over-9000-tuition-fees.html

setmefree2

U.K. Universities May Need to Bid to Offer Places, Times Says

By Svenja O’Donnell


Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. universities may be asked by the government to bid for the right to offer degree places under emergency plans being considered to cap tuition fees, the Sunday Times reported, citing David Willetts, the Cabinet minister in charge of education.
The proposal may involve 10 percent of places being set aside and universities applying for the slots if there was high demand for some their courses or if they were offering them at a low price, the newspaper said.
Ministers are concerned more universities are planning to seek to charge the maximum of 9,000 pounds ($14,600) a year, after Oxford University, Cambridge University and Imperial College already announced their intention to do so, the newspaper said.

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=awIIVFmuXTjc

setmefree2

Universities have been warned that if they raise tuition fees too far, the sector will face a fresh round of public spending cuts. David Willetts, the universities minister, told Sky News on Sunday that high course charges for students “will mean that the budget is less in the second year”.

Current policy does not permit competition to limit fees. The government controls costs by capping the number of students at each university. But there are more applicants than places, giving institutions enormous pricing power. Dr Tim Leunig, a London School of Economics academic and chief economist at CentreForum, a think-tank, said: “If the government does not introduce real competition, then almost every university will charge around £9,000 for every course.”
One way to inject competition is known as the “core and margin” model. This allocates institutions a “core” allocation of places to fill. Those remaining places are put into a central pot and institutions may then bid for more slots from this reserve.
The model could be designed to cut places allocated to expensive institutions whose graduates go on to perform poorly in the labour market.
Cheap further education and for-profit colleges could be allowed into the market through this route in order to bring down average prices immediately.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/19729718-3d2d-11e0-bbff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1EZysl8Cj

melancholly

you know, i feel for Imperial more than most unis. they only run science and engineering degrees (and business too i guess). but they don't have large humanities departments which only need lecture theatres to subsidise the expensive courses needing lab classes. it would be tragic if a result of the emphasis on money over anything else increased the trend for chemistry department closures. if it will be a free market, it will be psychology and media studies all the way - right or wrong, those are the courses students want to study....

given that most people in unis expected a lot to push for top end fees, it's staggering that Willetts didn't see this coming and is now looking at new emergency regulation! he really can't know his sector at all. if he showed more evidence of understanding HE, then it wouldn't be so scary. i don't know of any undergraduate course that doesn't have a course handbook, including details of all assessments and feedback with dates and deadlines. or where there isn't already a student rep who goes to teaching committees to discuss any problems. i'm sure that in many cases the system isn't effective, but the new proposals aren't exactly reinventing the wheel. surely working with current systems is more cost effective and demanding new, overlapping ones?

there's a lot of bluster from unis (saying that blocking foreign students is racist as the UEA VC did doesn't help the debate stay adult!) and a lot of bluster from the government (claiming to have reinvented the wheel whilst back pedalling and trying to patch over holes in their HE policies!). given that Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial rank in the top 10 unis in the world, i'd be inclined to think they want to preserve that position at all costs.... HE is one area where we have been world leading. if that changes, everyone loses. i'd like to hope that the new finance structure will end up being ok, and once the dust settles everyone will calm down, but i only see uni redundances and a sector that won't shrink on the merit of the research or the teaching, but on the merit of finance administrators. here's hoping unis have good business managers because things will be in their hands now!

setmefree2

Liverpool hope is the first university to announce it will not charge students the maximum £9,000 in tuition fees next year.
The vice-chancellor, Professor Gerald Pillay, told staff it was not fair to transfer all of the government debt to graduates.
A spokesman said that details of the fees would be released once they were approved by the university's council and it had received information on added responsibilities to ensure poorer students were accepted on courses.
Cambridge and Imperial College have decided to charge £9,000.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/liverpool-hope-will-not-charge-top-tuition-fee-2222630.html

Lokolo

It'll be interesting when universities do release how much they are going to charge.

My university is now having interviews for prospective students, this will determine whether they get an offer or not. Not surprised really as the dropout rate is extremely high, so I suppose they want to keep this down rather than having to pay for extra staff and resources for just the 1st year dropouts.