MSE News: Student loans are not big enough

Pincher

Middlesex University last year was full of Ukrainians, Polish and even Africans on UK student loans. I am extremely interested in knowing how the loan repayment can be enforced. It's hard enough to get money out of UK students who emigrate after graduation, but Ukrainian? Will the Ukrainian government even answer the phone if we leave the EU? Threaten to send bailiffs to Kiev?

Stop giving money to foreigners.

I think we are going to have to impose some kind of travel restrictions when people scarper from their debts. We CANCEL your British passport. you can still go on long holidays, but if you are found to be moonlighting and don't pay your student loan back, bye bye to your UK citizenship.

We can only cancel UK passports, so no lending to foreigners.

Sharon87

Pincher wrote: »

Middlesex University last year was full of Ukrainians, Polish and even Africans on UK student loans. I am extremely interested in knowing how the loan repayment can be enforced. It's hard enough to get money out of UK students who emigrate after graduation, but Ukrainian? Will the Ukrainian government even answer the phone if we leave the EU? Threaten to send bailiffs to Kiev?

Stop giving money to foreigners.

I think we are going to have to impose some kind of travel restrictions when people scarper from their debts. We CANCEL your British passport. you can still go on long holidays, but if you are found to be moonlighting and don't pay your student loan back, bye bye to your UK citizenship.

We can only cancel UK passports, so no lending to foreigners.

The only foreign students I've known had to pay all their fees up front and live off their own money...

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Amazing Martin. Never has never never been stretched so far by so few for the benefit of so many :eek:

I'm all for taking the strain off students who really do need routine income and expenditure discipline and definitely do not not need surprise hikes, surprise shortfalls or constantly worries about wolves at the door. But isn't the suggestion of increasing their government guaranteed loans just kicking the can down the road right into the jaws of privateers? Is your suggestion based on some hope that eventually it (the discredited loan scheme) will eventually disappear into long grass or down some drain and get forgotten?

Surely such a supposition would be dangerous for any student to rely upon, especially when the bigger the loan book at RPI + 3% the higher the likelihood it'll be an attraction to uglier and bolder private lenders ?

No debt collectors ? Ever ? How can you be so sure ?

edinburgher

Sharon87 wrote: »

The only foreign students I've known had to pay all their fees up front and live off their own money...

Agreed.

Also, according to the SLC website (one reliable source), 'foreign' students only get finance if they've lived in the UK for 3 years, or have been granted 'settled' status.

If either of these is the case, chances are they (and their families) have been living in and contributing to the UK economy for at least these 3 years.

Granted, not as long as someone who's family have been paying taxes for generations, but it's not as if they just waltz across the border for some free money :rotfl:

Pincher

I was vetting tenants, so of course I quizzed them about how they are financing the course. 90% of them I interviewed were overseas and getting a UK student loan. Half of them didn't even have cash to put a deposit down with, because they have to wait for the student loan to come through after enrolment.

As far as I'm concerned, student loans are money down the drain, and half of it will never be paid back. If UK students don't pay it back, at least we have simply restored the old system of free tuition with grants. Give it to overseas student, then they just scarper after three years.

dimbo61

The universities are now spending millions on new labs, lecture halls, faculties and schools
They are also building new en-suite bedrooms in huge tower block all over the country in many city centres.
Costs are often £125-175 a week on 50 week contracts but you get your own bathroom, A view of the city skyline, single bed and constant party noise 24/7 with staff on hand to look after the new students.
Many councils are using Article 4 to stop private landlords from converting old large houses into cheaper student housing by blocking all applications for change of use!
80,000 students now in Manchester so what do the 3 universities do with £720 million pounds each year? 80,000X £9000= £720,000,000

mr_jrt

I will never forgive my ruddy uni & LEA not informing me I could have claimed all sorts of grants until halfway through my 3rd year instead of all the information I'd ever been given being all there was aside from the hardship loan was the standard loan. I was the first person in my famiy to ever go to uni and I should have started in 2000, had I not taken a year out beforehand to earn the money needed so I didn't have the distraction of employment whilst at uni.

Due to circumstances, I had my tuition fees paid for me (long-divorced parents), but as I say, I had to both take a year out before uni to work and save up as well as take the maximum means-tested living-costs loan of 4k x 3 years. I'm just about down from the ~£12k I borrowed to 4 digits.

The pathetic amount of information given out is staggering. I agree with the article - the terms now are much more generous than my own, though the numbers are in theory bigger, (I just hope the Lib Dems manage to convey this across before the election or they will be annihilated!)

Lokolo

Pincher wrote: »

I was vetting tenants, so of course I quizzed them about how they are financing the course. 90% of them I interviewed were overseas and getting a UK student loan. Half of them didn't even have cash to put a deposit down with, because they have to wait for the student loan to come through after enrolment.

Then they were likely to be lying to you.

emmilou

The cost of accommodation does need to be looked at - my daughter gets the minimum amount of maintenance loan (£3.5k p.a) as me and OH both work full time, her accommodation is £99 a week (just over £4k a year) and so we have a £500 shortfall a year.
Therefore we have to make up that difference and give her money for food, she has a weekend job which will cover her other purchases e.g clothes, toiletries, alcohol etc..

It seems at 18 you are considered an independent adult and yet still penalised by having married parents who work, IMO maintenance loans shouldn't really be means tested

Medstudent

OK I have several complaints with this article. YES student loans probably do need increasing, but this can be pointed out by the simple fact they haven't been increased in line with inflation (unlike how tuition fees do each year...). But I know some of the examples in the article are absurd. Take the southside hall room. That figure is for a PREMIUM single room (link: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/accommodation/prospectivestudents/prospectiveundergraduatestudents/hallsofresidenceug/southsidehalls/falmouthhall )

No one needs as premium ensuite room. It is also in the halls based at the south kensington campus, which are the most expensive. There are other cheaper alternatives (or indeed a shared room in the same halls at half the price).

The issue is real but by taking this out of proportion examples it is not helpful.