MSE News: £6,000 or £9,000 uni fees? Is it an irrelevant decision?

2sides2everystory

Taiko wrote: »

You do realise that the 9% repayments have been in place since 1998, right? I don't want facts to get in the way of your pointless post, but the current government upped the repayment threshold to £21,000, meaning that actually people will pay less per month.

Remind us again who you represent Taiko that you think you can ridicule a perfectly valid post?

Do you work for the Student Loans Company? Who owns SLC ?

Many of us are not convinced that having had the wool pulled over our eyes for 13 years we should continue to wear it that way now we have lately woken up to how unjust it is to treat our young people so abysmally.

Trebling the fee and upping the threshold is a great example of smoke and mirrors - never mind the other tweaks and effects since 1998.

And it is all designed, as Dylanwing and others have implied, to push the liability off the balance sheet into some future black hole -shackled of course to the students who signed up for it.

melancholly

tyllwyd wrote: »

You still aren't hearing what I am saying - I am questioning Martin's original argument in his article, that you needn't worry about the level of fees charged by the different universities, because no matter the size of the debt that you are taking on, you know that you won't have to pay it all back. Go ahead, spend all you like, no need to try to economise, because in the end it won't make any difference. Is that really the message that we should be hearing about student loans?

but isn't the best message the truth?!

in reality most people won't pay it back and the question isn't really about £6K versus £9K anyway, since almost all are charging above £8K. picking, say the University of West London (TVU) versus UCL because you'd save £4.5K in total over 3 years on fees would be, quite frankly daft in terms of actually getting value for money from a degree!

surely the biggest issue is that the setting of fees in the range of £6k to £9k is a red herring, since even at £6K the vast majority won't pay it back. isn't that the biggest issue that has been neglected so far? that this is a fees and loans system set up so that most people should focus on repayments versus totals.

melancholly

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Remind us again who you represent Taiko that you think you can ridicule a perfectly valid post?

Do you work for the Student Loans Company? Who owns SLC ?

Many of us are not convinced that having had the wool pulled over our eyes for 13 years we should continue to wear it that way now we have lately woken up to how unjust it is to treat our young people so abysmally.

Trebling the fee and upping the threshold is a great example of smoke and mirrors - never mind the other tweaks and effects since 1998.

And it is all designed as a poster on another thread implied to push the liability off the balance sheet into some future black hole -shackled of course to the students who signed up for it.

then write to your MP and make your voice heard. almost everyone on this board unilaterally opposed the fee increase. plenty of people have marched in London or elsewhere in the UK or written to MPs or the Minister for Higher Education. vent your anger at those who made the system, not those of us trying to make the best of what others have decided.

however, no wool has been pulled over anyone's eyes about what student loans involve. all the info is out there and easily accessed. the fact that a lot of people have woken up very late into this debate does not mean that the implications weren't crystal clear a long time ago to plenty of people.

tyllwyd

melancholly wrote: »

... surely the biggest issue is that the setting of fees in the range of £6k to £9k is a red herring, since even at £6K the vast majority won't pay it back. isn't that the biggest issue that has been neglected so far? that this is a fees and loans system set up so that most people should focus on repayments versus totals.

This is what's really confusing me - when I went to uni, I applied to courses on the basis of reputation, my grades etc, not money.

Now they are saying that the fees are a loan, and publishing figures to show how much students will pay - and then on the other hand people like Martin are saying that the majority of students won't even pay back fees at even the lowest level and they should choose courses on the basis of reputation, grades etc, not money. So why are the fees being published at all?

melancholly

tyllwyd wrote: »

So why are the fees being published at all?

well quite! the whole reworking of HE finance is just plain nuts!! i just don't want that to confuse students who may well be making choices and writing UCAS personal statements over the summer.....

the move to look at fees seems to me to be a way for the current government to move the sector towards being privatised, where fees will vary a great deal more. i'm clearly deeply cynical about their motives but i can't see any other reason. this is an ideological change not a financial one.

JimmyTheWig

tyllwyd wrote: »

the majority of students won't even pay back fees at even the lowest level and they should choose courses on the basis of reputation, grades etc, not money. So why are the fees being published at all?

Because even if this is true for the majority it means it isn't the case for the minority, so they do need to publish the fees.

tyllwyd

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Because even if this is true for the majority it means it isn't the case for the minority, so they do need to publish the fees.

So it is important for the minority of eventually high-earning graduates, who perhaps should factor in the cost of the fees when chosing a university course ... but of course high-flying graduates will probably have gone to the top university in their subject and paid top fees regardless ... so knowing the level of fees is most relevant to someone who goes to the cheapest and least prestigious university but has the most high-earning career afterwards.

Hardly seems worth all the money and effort being invested in it all!

Oldernotwiser

tyllwyd wrote: »

Go ahead, spend all you like, no need to try to economise, because in the end it won't make any difference. Is that really the message that we should be hearing about student loans?

But economising to pay off a student loan early is a very different thing compared to making extra repayments on a mortgage. Why would anyone pay more than they have to when they don't know what's ahead and the situation could change to one where no repayments are payable?

Sobraon

At a recent event at DS1's school, on learning of the expected debt level of graduating English university students, a bright young thing in the lower 6th was heard to opine, "£50K!! Sod that for a game of soldiers! I'm out of here as soon as I graduate".

And you know what - I don't blame him.

g24

Sobraon wrote: »

At a recent event at DS1's school, on learning of the expected debt level of graduating English university students, a bright young thing in the lower 6th was heard to opine, "£50K!! Sod that for a game of soldiers! I'm out of here as soon as I graduate".

And you know what - I don't blame him.

You know what - if that person doesn't understand the extremely generous terms of these 'tuition loans', the fact that it doesn't get paid back until there's plenty of income to cover it, or the fact the loan gets wiped out if it can't be paid... clearly that person is unwilling to invest in their future and maybe they are not suited to further education.

People should be smart enough to think beyond the immediate headlines on this.