Top universities and MSE call for current student loan statement to be scrapped - MSE News 14 May 2019 at 9:40AM in Student MoneySaving 2 replies 1.3K views

Former_MSE_Naomi

MoneySavingExpert.com, together with the Russell Group of universities, is calling on the Government to scrap the current student loan statement, after 90% said our redesigned version of the statement helped them understand the student loans system...

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'Top universities and MSE call for current student loan statement to be scrapped'

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peterbaker

Still doing the PR for the Government and their banking friends - the ones lined up to quietly take over more tranches of these loans into the private sector?

If the argument that too many people go to university is true, then it is also true to say that MSE and Russell Group are also being terribly misleading themselves by not indicating the huge difference in repayments that is to be expected by those "serious" students who move straight on to SLC funded Masters courses after their initial degree and before their first real employment.

Many do this now as a means of standing out from the crowd in the jobs queue. So why is that group ignored - makes the PR message too complicated? The threshold gross salaries are themselves a pittance compared with what STEM graduates can expect in many parts of Europe where the mickey is not taken. Here in UK, funded Bachelors who then gain a separate Masters qualification pay 15% not 9%, and at the disgraceful loan interest rate at four times competitive mortgage rates, many will end up paying off huge amounts through the nose. And that's purely to support the nonsensical national obsession with low tax (and of course the deliberately depressed low wages that support MSE's long protested argument that aspiring uni-students should not be scared of the SFC debt because they may never earn enough to pay it off) - what kind of awful life lesson is that for English young people?

One-Eye

The current student loan statement is a blunt, misleading tool that is financially dangerous. It prompts often-unnecessary fear and distress from some of the millions who receive it.

If this country's graduates really don't understand their SLC statements or the implications of it, is it reasonable to question the standard of their education?

I agree it is wrong to refer to student "loans" and "debt" and that "graduate contribution" would be far better, but until this is changed I think it is dangerous to be telling millions of people that "debt doesn't matter" and "you don't have to repay debt".