MSE News: Only one third of pupils understand the new tuition fees system

2sides2everystory

I do think the sarcasm is a bit unnecessary ONW - my son has a solid track record now. He disciplines and applies himself and flies perfectly well on his own thanks very much. He isn't a product of any apology of a system which teaches teenagers that the griound is soggy and that they might fail. He knows life has ups and downs because he's lived some. He is already behaving like a very balanced adult.

Thank goodness at least that long era of ingrained mediocrity where students were afraid to be seen to excel academically above their peers for fear of being ridiculed, is over.

Trouble is, at the other end of the pipe now, there's 83 graduates applying for every job according to the BBC News this evening. Thank goodness too then that many months ago my son already found himself a real job he can thread around his university study if he wants to do so. He has created for himself a few other substantial irons in the fire too. Sadly, I don't think any careers advisor has helped him and certainly none helped me. Good ones are few and far between, aren't they?

My son is a product of a few good and passionate teachers (yes there are now a better number of those than ten years ago I think), but in my son's case that has all been supported and complimented by parents who had a good education and so could fill in the gaps the system left. So we can confidently say that he will go to a good university if he continues to set his mind to it. Call it irresponsible optimism if you like - i am not normally known for it, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Here's a possibly interesting snippet for you as someone with your declared interests ONW - I happened to catch Wesley Went to Winchester on Radio 4 last Monday. Pity they only re-broadcast it on iPlayer for 7 days. The year Wesley went, I turned down the same opportunity which for me was more or less already on a plate. I turned it down because I'd heard or read in the Beano that boarding at a public school was beastly and I wanted to stay at home in the cosy village council house I was born in with my hard-working Mum & Dad. I think at least four from my school went that year to a mixture of Winchester Eton and Rugby. No-one in my family or immediate circle was capable of advising any other course and I found myself making the decision myself aged 12 before my voice broke

No harm done, eh? And I am not sure even now that being a guinea pig like that was a missed opportunity. I did ok by staying at the state school and as it happens one day at university I met one of those that "went". They'd changed somewhat and I did feel a bit like a hick from the sticks and we didn't meet again ! It took a few more years before I gained a BBC accent at work in London and people started accusing me of coming from a posh background !:D

Winchester is £30,000 a year now apparently so I suppose that kind of lends credibility to wozearly's estimate of the real cost of some types of full-charge private education. Winchester College fees were £762 10s in 1970 (before decimalisation!)

I found it fascinating when it dawned on me last Monday morning in the car what scheme I had been invited to be part of and had skirted around !

Just 300 boys between 1945-1975 "went" through that free bursary scheme. T'was a sign of those times too that girls didn't get their chances so easily, did they, until quite some years later ?

We boys never had it so good did we?

wozearly

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Sadly, I don't think any careers advisor has helped him and certainly none helped me. Good ones are few and far between, aren't they?

It might be more that people who know exactly what career they want to take and so can benefit from direct advice are few and far between.

The careers advisors I came across during secondary school probably cursed me under their breath, as from 14-18 or so I was quite content to pursue the subjects I enjoyed with only half an eye on what I might actually do with them.

I planned to go to university, but no specific idea which course or where, but I'd tactically taken an A-Level science and an AS maths (before the days when everyone took AS levels in the first year), so that I wouldn't be barred from any courses that required that.

I could almost hear the poor woman tearing her hair out. I'm not by nature a planner, making a relatively snap decision to take a gap year shortly before applying to uni for a deferred place. And frankly, its pretty darn hard for someone to help you plan when you intentionally have no fixed plan!

The careers guys at university were great, though. Their advice on CV building was an absolute godsend...and by the end of uni, I did have a much better idea of where I wanted to work. Even though I actually ended up working somewhere else, doing something completely different.

Funny old world.

Taiko

That judical review will end up dismissed, as there's no financial barrier stopping people attending. It'll just amount to a waste of time and taxpayers money.

Oldernotwiser

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Just 300 boys between 1945-1975 "went" through that free bursary scheme. T'was a sign of those times too that girls didn't get their chances so easily, did they, until quite some years later ?

You're forgetting the fact that the bursary scheme you describe wasn't needed when we still had a flourishing grammar school system, where children from poor, working class homes (like me) could have a free education as good as anything that could be paid for. They even let girls (like me) go to grammar school, you know!

NB. Unless your son is educated privately (or you live in Scotland or Wales) he won't have seen a Careers Adviser as they don't exist in the school system any more. Connexion's Personal Advisers have a very different role and are unlikely to have had much contact with a well motivated, intelligent student. In fact, only the few remaining remnants of the Careers Service are actually qualified in this area, as opposed to having a qualification in "Guidance".

gadgetmind

Lokolo wrote: »

Assuming that your daughter is going to come out of university earning loads is a very big assumption.

It's an assumption, but not a huge one.

gadgetmind

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

As you've obviously researched the situation, I fail to see how you can genuinely believe this to be the case.

I believe it to be the case because it is the case. Investment will be required up front, and this money will have to come from my income or capital, or from her taking out a massive loan at a very high interest rate.

How is this anything other than a massive up-front investment? Does the loan system really blind people to the fact that they are paying up front, incurring a massive debt, and then have to spend a long long time paying this back?

gadgetmind

wozearly wrote: »

The world for graduates has changed a lot since, say, 40 years ago. There are a lot more of us - we can't all earn massive salaries.

We still struggle to find good grads, and we therefore reward those we find, and we even part fund people through their degree as long as they agree to work for us for a few years afterwards. I guess what I'm saying is that even though HMG have turned up the taps to increase the quantity of grads coming through, their magic wand doesn't seem to have provided industry with much more volume at the quality end.

Fortunately, or sadly depending on how you look at it, we are getting a lot of qood quality applications from Greece, Spain and Italy.

So in your daughter's case, assuming all goes to plan (fingers crossed) then yes, the new system is going to be horrible.

Fortunately, I got a science degree myself, and have had a career commensurate with this, so do have the ability to take away some of the pain. TBH I could take away it all, but the parts of the new system I most despise are the very high interest rates and the (threatened) penalties for early repayment, so it's those aspects that I'm considering defanging.

Oldernotwiser

gadgetmind wrote: »

I believe it to be the case because it is the case. Investment will be required up front, and this money will have to come from my income or capital, or from her taking out a massive loan at a very high interest rate.

How is this anything other than a massive up-front investment? Does the loan system really blind people to the fact that they are paying up front, incurring a massive debt, and then have to spend a long long time paying this back?

When students first had to pay fees the money did have to be paid up front with no loans available. Since fee loans were introduced this is no longer the case and is the one improvement in the existing system.

When someone buys a property with a mortgage, the only "up front" payment is the deposit, nobody would describe the actual mortgage in this way; tuition fees are exactly the same.

gadgetmind

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

When someone buys a property with a mortgage, the only "up front" payment is the deposit, nobody would describe the actual mortgage in this way; tuition fees are exactly the same.

No, the up front payment is your deposit and your mortgage as this is what has to be transferred to the vendor to make the purchase.

If you buy a £100k house with a £10k deposit, you have removed £10k of cash from your balance sheet and have replaced it with a £100k property and a £90k loan. However, your up-front investment in the property is £100k.

Say you then make some ongoing investment, perhaps £25k for an extension, you need to look at the cost of this investment rather than the initial capital outlay. If you fund £5k from capital and extend your mortgage by £20k, your total investment in the property is now £125k. Anyone who thinks their investment is £15k will have a shock if they sell the property for £50k and expect to make a profit! Similarly, if that £25k extension adds just £15k to the value of the house, you have lost £10k by doing it (£15k-£25k) rather than gained £10k (£15k-£5k in the zany world of "only capital spend counts").

Student fees are just the same. While it could be argued that you're not paying up front, this is moving into "word play" territory as you're definitely paying even though someone is loaning you the money on unattractive terms. True, repayments on the money you have borrowed to make this up-front investment into your education are deferred, but interest is accumulating, and the debt isn't going away any time soon.

kayr_2

Just read this thread and am struck by the way we all come at the subject from such different backgrounds and experience. One of the problems is that a "graduate" now covers such a wide range of people that it isn't really a very useful term. As a parent, it is sensible to consider possible future earning patterns, even if we can't be sure they will be followed. So if your child has a place to study Medicine or Law at Oxford, you are likely to take a different view from someone whose child is aiming for a less well paid career path e.g. performing arts, youth work, however worthy - they are just not well paid. I went to a "competitive" university and at a recent reunion was startled to realise that a large number of my peers were earning 6 figures plus (in many cases, definitely plus plus!), while a few of us had made lifestyle choices (vicars, actors, housewives [not many] etc) and then there were the academics - no idea how much a professor makes - and the odd teacher. So some of us may have a skewed view of earnings based on what our peer group achieved, but I do think that financial decisions need to take possible earnings into account. The new system seems to be least attractive for those likely to earn around £40k so it's worth thinking about these things and not blithely saying they probably won't have to repay it. I still think my younger son will! My elder son will be on the old system (assuming the mistake in his A level paper doesn't mess up his university place) so he will be better placed because of the more favourable interest rates.

I have also been surprised by the number of friends and acquaintances who have said that their children are reconsidering going to university "because of the fees". These are usually people who will get grants and bursaries, so will actually have a lower debt than my kids, yet still have the same potential earning power. It just shows how our emotional attitude towards money can affect our financial decisions. And shows the need for financial education.