Average student debt?

Lokolo wrote: »

Haha yes I quite lucky in that respect. I lived in Stafford, which is very cheap!

Perhaps a little harsh to call it codswallop, in that case?

Anyway, back to the OP's original question...

As far as I know, the 12k debt figure is the one most quoted for English/Welsh students pre-top up. I was an undergrad from 2005-8, and got a loan of about £4500 a year (although - I lived in London so got a slightly higher loan). A lot of students who had higher loans when I was at uni, ironically got more help in the form of grants etc, and had their tuition fees paid, which I think is how most of my friends, regardless of social backgrounds, all ended up with roughly the same debts as me (divorced parents, therefore 4 incomes taken into account - rubbish!). My total loan on graduating was about £13,500, but with interest, sadly rose quite quickly.

For students now going to uni, the figure would be much higher because they are actively encouraged to go take out loans to cover tuition fees as well as a maintenance loan. It's a shame, because from people I know who went in the year after me, much less of them don't have jobs like we did, so in a way are being encouraged into a mind-set of debt being ok by the SLC. When we applied, there was no help for tuition fees except a grant for those who came from very low income families, so we had to get jobs for extra pennies once the loan ran out! :rolleyes:

neas wrote: »

What a load of rubbish, 16,500 uneccessary expenditure? oO

I did a 4 year course and only used my loan for 3k of living expenses (ACCOMODATION... something which most DFW dont need to pay as they in council housing... students dont get free accomodation you know) per year. I worked my !!! off for my degree and 16 hours a week for 4 years...

With this i managed to get 6k saved in an isa and 12k of debt.

Don't forget these fag packet calculations:

Student Accomodation Cost per year (£3k)
Student Tuition Fee costs per year (£3k)
Food (£1k minimum!)

If they didnt have any life thats still £7k per year. I'd hardly call tuition fees and acoomodation costs unnesseary. These are the main driving factors why university students are NOW facing 22k+ debt instead of 12k debt when tuition fees were £1k fixed a year.

Im sorry for rant but it sounded ludicrous comparing a DFW board person... who on £4k a year can't be paying the type of rent i'm paying (500 quid per month for a 2 bed private rented flat!)... and prob gets council tax, rent subsidised.

Most of student loan debt is for their digs and tuition fees (approx 80% of it).. the other bit helps then get their beans and their overdrafts help them have a social life. Its pretty hard to spend 3k overdraft on 1.50 pints at a student union (yep you'd need to drink 2000 pints.. or go out 330 times ... 100 times a year).

It's not a load of rubbish kiddo - you haven't read my posts properly, the SIE Survey properly or indeed the 'Live on £4K for a year' thread properly. Most DFWs do not live in council housing many have mortgages, as you would know if you had bothered to research before pontificating. :rolleyes: The £4K a year living costs for a DFW family does not include housing (rent/ mortgage and council tax). The living costs on the Student Income and Expenditure Survey does not include housing either. Therefore it is a reasonable comparison.

Virtually all the living costs cited in the SIE Survey are non-essentials: fags, booze, travel not associated with study, clothing, CDs, magazines. The only item that is necessary is food and there is no need for one person to spend £1700 over nine months on food - that suggests a lot of takeaways. Why should the taxpayer shell out for your lifestyle?

Students may well take out the loan and physically spend it on their accommodation ... because they are wasting their wages on the above list of 'living costs'. I didn't create this list nor the figures, students themselves stated that this is what they spend money on. If students want to spend £6K a year on fags, booze, travel not associated with study, clothing, CDs and magazines then it's your choice, but don't start complaining when you leave university with £15,700 average debt.

Please note that I am a full time student with tuition fees, accommodation and living costs. I have £11,500 of savings, and about £10K of debt. And no mummy and daddy do not give me handouts, I simply live within my means. I'd like to know where you plucked the figure of £22K of student debt when two different sources quoted in this thread have put the average figure at around £16K.

Food isn't £1K minimum during an academic year, it's £1K maximum. I budgeted £85 per month per person during 2009 which has been sufficient for my cupboards to be overflowing. The last two months we have spent an average of £50 per month per person which we eat well on; tonight we are having a full roast dinner made with Tesco Finest free range corn fed chicken. If you want to be really frugal read Weezl74's threads on the Old Style board 'Eat Healthily on 50p per day'.

Absinthe_Fairy wrote: »

Got to agree with neas here. My student debt of around £12,000 (I was under the old-style loan system, luckily) was all spent on accommodation. Basically my loan covered rent and that was it. The money from my part-time job covered absolutely everything else - bills, food, clothes and nights out, etc.

Now, when students have to take out tuition fee loans, that's an extra £9,000 for a three year course, so of course they're going to come out with debts of over £20,000. It's pretty much unavoidable unless you have rich parents (or are a mature student with savings).

Quite simply had you not bought so many clothes and had as many nights out you would have ended up in less debt. The Student Income and Expenditure Survey speaks for itself.

I am a mature student who had zero savings when I started my course, in fact I owed £900 for service charges and had to spend £600 repairing my immersion heater in my first semester. I have worked from my first month of my course - to start with on minimum wage now less than £7 an hour - and last year I held down two jobs for a few months. I do have relatively rich (retired) parents who give me exactly nothing because I do not need their money.

The argument seems to be that most students are spendthrift and the amount of government support given facilitates their foolish spending. I think this argument follows for those from low income families who are eligible for over £6,400 as a mixture of grants and loans.

Accommodation costs of ~£3,000 are achievable at any university outside London I’m confident in saying. That leaves £3,400 for living expenses alone. Even using a 52 week year that’s roughly £65 a week to live off - more than sufficient (I use the phrase purposefully as sufficient is what any support of this kind should be).

For those who aren’t eligible for extra support the majority of their maintenance loan will be swallowed by accommodation costs alone leaving the shortfall to be filled by either parents or a job so the argument doesn’t apply to them me thinks. Unless these students spend their parental contributions/earnings on anything as it’s more exciting than the prospect of saving; this is tantamount to increasing their level of debt which they no doubt bemoan about.

I must say... although I don't think any kind debt is a good idea... a huge part of university life is socialising, going out, meeting people, having fun, enjoying yourself! Most students work really hard to get their degrees and need a good night out to blow off steam and bond with friends. I know without this, I might have less debt but my university experience would be lesser, too.

That's just my opinion. I was far from frugal in my uni days but feel like all that was part of the learning process. Students are often immature, not very worldly wise, a little bit clueless... but they learn from experience and hopefully most of them turn out to be sensible, intelligent members of society.