Student Loans 2012

melancholly

stedwell wrote: »

But look at it this way - teacher's pensions going up to maybe 10% of income. With the student loan that is 20% gone before tax deductions. How many graduates are going to become teachers of the future with those figures?:(

i completely see your point in principle, but the SLC deductions are 9% of the income above the threshold, not 9% of the total net salary. details like that make a big difference and in a way, sum up how much confusion there is about this to people who aren't already immersed in student finance! the facts haven't been made particularly clear.

on the upside, the minimum teachers starting salary is above the threshold for repayments so they will start paying back immediately, whereas a lot of people won't. they also have an average salary of about £35K/£37K (http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/TIM/m002016/index.shtml) which is a pretty good wage compared to other sectors. now i think paying teachers well is just sensible - they have a massively important job to do. i would never try to knock that at all, just want to add in some figures.

with SLC deductions (based on a £36K salary) and assuming 10% for pension, that's still a take home pay of nearly £1900 a month. i think it's still a good amount of live off. it's also about £45 a month better off than if the threshold was at £15K rather than the new one of £21K.

in that sense, the new threshold makes the repayments lower for that group on a month by month basis. it means the loan takes longer to pay off, but it isn't fair to say that nearly 20% of their salary is being 'lost' on pension and SLC. in the example i did above, the student loan deductions were 3.6% of the total gross salary.

(here's hoping i got the maths right! my money is on Lokolo finding an error )

stedwell

Thanks Melancholly. You are correct and I know about the 21,000 threshold. Wasn't thinking properly. However I still think 1900 a month for a teacher with say 25 years of experience and a degree will not be attractive enough. Especially if they are going to have to work until 68. That's a hard job to be doing at that age.

melancholly

but i picked the average salary - i'd expect the teachers with that much experience to get more than that and also, after 25 years, to have paid back the loan. if the loan is only taking less than 5% of the monthly salary, then it isn't that much. if it's also the only way to get the qualification to get the job, then it is, inherently worth it. this is also against a national average full time salary of £25K or thereabouts. if someone is only entering teaching for the money, then that probably isn't the best motivation. it's more than a living wage and i would be highly surprised if the new student loans meant we went without a generation of people doing teacher training!

the issues over teachers pensions, later retirement ages and salaries can't be solved with changes to student loans! that's not the problem. it also applies to every sector, not just teaching. we're all going to have to pay more for pensions and work longer.

setmefree2

'Guaranteed university place' for students with top grades

Sixth-formers who gain at least two As and a B in their A-levels could be guaranteed a place on a course at a top university under Coalition plans to allow the best academic institutions to expand.

An estimated 12,000 thousand applicants with straight A-grades fail to win places at Oxford and Cambridge every year. Some 3,500 top achievers are rejected by all of their chosen universities.

Under rules enforced by the last Labour government, vice-chancellors face heavy fines for exceeding their allotted quota of undergraduates, leaving many well qualified applicants disappointed.

But the Universities Minister, David Willetts, is said to be examining plans to open up recruitment at top institutions. A white paper expected next month will allow universities to admit as many candidates with the highest grades as they can attract, according to reports.

Under attempts to trigger a market in higher education, controls would also be relaxed on the recruitment of students to courses with fees of less than £6,000 a year.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, which oversees university policy, described the report as “speculation”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8545303/Guaranteed-university-place-for-students-with-top-grades.html

amiehall

Weeeird. As if there should be nothing more to admissions than grades....

gizzie121

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

What other people are able to do shouldn't affect the individual. Some people live in mansions - life isn't fair.

I don't object to them paying their children's fees. I object to the levy on people who want to pay their fees back more quickly. I was just pointing out the absurdity of any system that puts a levy on early repayments, if the reason, is to stop wealthier people gaining an 'unfair' advantage.

gizzie121

kayr wrote: »

My original intention was for him to get the loans, invest the money to cover them at a (hopefully) higher interest rate than base rate + 1% then probably pay the loan off early, circumstances allowing. I know that is frowned upon here ....

Why is that frowned upon? If the government is so bad as to try and make money on the loans that students are forced to take out, then it seems justified to me, to put that money in a high interest account for 3 years, and use it to earn some, instead of being in debt for years. This assumes of course that the parents have the money to pay off the fees in advance, in order to be able to invest that student loan.

kayr_2

The bit that seems to be frowned upon here is paying your children's university tuition fees - it seems to be generally thought they should pretty much fend for themselves once they are 18. Of course stoozing is OK!

setmefree2

New university to rival Oxbridge will charge £18,000 a year

A group of the world's leading academics have launched a new British university which they hope will rival Oxford and Cambridge, it was announced today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8557555/New-university-to-rival-Oxbridge-will-charge-18000-a-year.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/05/new-university-college-humanities-degrees

melancholly

that's very interesting - all apparently humanities courses, so these are the courses that would have almost no teaching funding from the government. it's good to see that people value these areas even if the government doesn't. (although i'm not sure how one of their big names who'll be teaching is Dawkins, as he seems pretty much in the science side of things to me, but that's not really the point and i guess a lot of his work falls into the philosophy domain too!) i do think it is always 'cheaper' to pay the big names to come in and do a set number of lectures rather than giving them a full time salary for the full year - and a lot of these big names will have been forced into retirement at 65 (as is the norm in a lot of unis!).

however, this article puts across a very different view:

http://educationactivistnetwork.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/new-college-of-the-humanities-boycott/

i guess this new college would be very good for any students that go there (great tutorial teaching system), but there's a bit of a an issue over it using University of London facilities... i should point out that the article linked to is a very strong opinion piece! i'm not sure about how the loans work with this and how the scholarships will work to make this more than an 'intellectual finishing school' for those with money to burn. (but i bet they'd start to get US students coming over as it's still cheaper here than there!)

i'm going to wait and read more and reserve judgement until it's all a bit clearer.... i'm torn - in one way it seems great, but the details seem a lot less clear on whether it really is a good model for the sector..... i'm confused!