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Struggling to pay your rent? Shelter needs your help!

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  • Red-Squirrel_2
    Red-Squirrel_2 Posts: 4,341 Forumite
    zagfles wrote: »
    It seemed to be. Read the first and last sentence of your PP. You imply that it's not OK that people born into a wealthy family should get more education choices, but that it is OK that people born into a wealthy country should.

    So instead of the UK poor fixing the toilets of the rich, the world poor can fix all our toilets. There's nothing wrong with purely acedemic education - and that often leads to good jobs not because of what is learnt, but because what the ability to learn it shows about the graduate.

    Maths is good example - maths graduates aren't in high demand because loads of employers need people who understand Fermat's last theorem or who can do advanced calculus. Maths is in high demand because the ability to learn it and get a degree shows an ability which is useful in lots of other fields. It's similar with languages, and lots of other subjects.

    Media studies on the other hand does have obvious practical uses - we all use media, we need journalists. Yet graduates who did media studies have worse job prospects than people who did classics.

    I certainly did not mean to imply that at all. I think you took a very different reading from what I said than I would have.

    You're still thinking of education purely in relation to jobs though. That's something that's gone wrong in this country, probably largely due to tuition fees, which make education an investment an individual makes in their own future rather than an investment the country makes in its young people.
  • 2013yearofthehouse
    2013yearofthehouse Posts: 3,060 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic First Post
    edited 17 May 2017 at 6:18PM
    FBaby wrote: »
    Sorry but I'm struggling to see how a single person, earning £22K, with a reasonable lifestyle, and not expecting the life that you get to enjoy when you earn £40K would find themselves unable to pay their rent.

    I have all the sympathy for hard working people on low income, but £22k for a single person is not horrendous, especially if you are young and can look forward to future progression.

    I agree, £22k is a bit high as a threshold, if you're single without children! As a student I was happily living on £8.5k a year (£6.5k loan/grants & £2k summer earnings) and never once struggled to pay my £400 a month rent, as I made rent (followed by bills and food) my priority! Obviously once in work there are extra costs like council tax, extra clothes, possibly higher commuting costs etc., but for anyone near £22k then rent shouldn't be a problem (unless you are renting somewhere very expensive!).
  • Cakeguts
    Cakeguts Posts: 7,627 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Well my post was nothing to do with what anyone had written on this forum is was an answer to the OP concerning building more houses. I keep seeing statements about governments building more houses but governments don't build houses builders do so if we don't have enough construction workers we won't be getting anymore houses.

    There is nothing wrong with people educating themselves but media studies, film studies, fashion, ceramics (pots not semi conductors,) performing arts etc used to be available as evening class subjects so there was no need for anyone to study them at university. In fact more people get the opportunity to study these subject if they are evening classes because they can be studied by people who are working. As these subjects don't lead to jobs but are studied for the benefit of the person there is no need for them to be degree subjects because if you are studying something that doesn't lead to a job you don't need to be awarded recognition that you have studied it. So I think that these hobby type subjects should be studied at evening class rather than at university and someone who is studying for their own interest doesn't need to be awarded a degree. I would also open up study to more of the population. You could argue that studying these subjects shouldn't just be available to people who can afford to not work for 3 years to go to university.

    The universities that offer these courses tend to be the ones that don't offer a traditional level of graduate education because the entry requirements are too low for that and the courses tend to be aimed at the kind of student who would not be able to complete a traditional type degree course because it would be too difficult. This means that any subjects currently taught by these universities will be accessible to most of the population if they were taught as evening classes instead. The benefit of this is that people could then work while studying the subject so that they could concentrate on training for a job.

    There are too many universities and not enough colleges that train people in skills. If the 70 or so universities that offer the subjects that could be done at evening class were converted back into the kind of colleges that offered training in subjects that lead to real jobs the people who wanted to study the kind of subjects offered at the universities where the degrees don't lead to a job could still study the subjects at evening class but they would also be able to do study and training during the day to lead to a job.

    The situation where someone mentioned poor people mending toilets amused me. People who mend other people's toilets are not poor. Plumbers are not poor. Plumbing is an extremely well paid job especially at the moment when there is a shortage of people training to be plumbers. It has always been a well paid job. Plumbing is a skilled job. There is more skill needed to do all the trades than to get a degree from the 70 or so universities that offer the kind of degrees that aren't worth anything.
  • itchyfeet123
    itchyfeet123 Posts: 480 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    zagfles wrote: »
    Maybe even benefits staff themselves have been affected by the propaganda?

    My more cynical view is staff are incentivised to make it as difficult as possible for people to get what they're entitled to.
  • zagfles
    zagfles Posts: 20,323 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post Chutzpah Haggler
    My more cynical view is staff are incentivised to make it as difficult as possible for people to get what they're entitled to.
    In my experience (mainly dealing with tax credits issues) it's more likely to be incompetance. Or bad training. UC is fairly new, most tax credits staff don't seem to understand how they work after 14 years.
  • sammyjammy
    sammyjammy Posts: 7,380 Forumite
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Photogenic First Post
    My more cynical view is staff are incentivised to make it as difficult as possible for people to get what they're entitled to.

    That's not cynical its downright tinfoil hat territory.
    "You've been reading SOS when it's just your clock reading 5:05 "
  • KittenChops
    KittenChops Posts: 327 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper Combo Breaker First Post
    but the country is almost bankrupt, we are no longer a power house and can afford to keep people in the level they are at if out of work. Its personal responsibility to save enough for a rainy day and not rely on the state.
    The housing problem is another issue and something which will not get sorted out whatever governments say. Immigration, BTL, single person households, cheap credit all created the problem
    It really isn't, don't believe the propaganda.
    No propaganda im an accountant and see that we borrow 90bn just to pay the interest on the debt

    You obviously want a benefit life

    I could have sworn that this time last year we were all being told how the UK was the 5th or 6th richest economy, but in less than 12 months we're bankrupt. How did that happen so quickly?
  • Cakeguts
    Cakeguts Posts: 7,627 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    I could have sworn that this time last year we were all being told how the UK was the 5th or 6th richest economy, but in less than 12 months we're bankrupt. How did that happen so quickly?

    That 5th or 6th economy statistic also says that India is 7th richest economy so you can decide whether you think this is a misleading statistic or not? If you want a more realistic one try one where GDP per person is included.
  • Hi everyone

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