Just wow at the student loan changes… eeek

[juliajo]

Students beginning university study this year upon completion of their studies will have to pay back 9% on earnings above £25,000 (aka, almost all full time wages now pay rises have been granted - national living wage is not far off that even if you decide to work in a supermarket after going to uni). It will now need to be paid over 40 years too so most of your working life, right through the expensive mortgage years and childcare years etc

I think this is catastrophic tbh and removes some of the incentive in education. I really hope schools spend time making sure cohorts fully understand the financial implications of university study, and think really carefully about what subject they choose. It’s a huge decision to make at 16/17 (when applying)

No that is right. If you have a high starting salary you'll pay back more per month at the start, but because you'll be paying more off you'll pay it off sooner so won't pay as much interest.

You might need a plumber but that doesn't magically mean other people want or have the aptitude to be one.

This sweeping generalisation that teens should either be Oxbridge or plumbers or get an apprenticeship at a huge corporate is so peak Mumsnet.

One of my son's flatmates works the equivalent of full time hours over the year. "Active" University teaching is only 2 terms per year, 10 weeks per term, so that's just 20 weeks. Exam season is approximately 4-6 weeks. So basically, they're only actively learning/studying/revising, etc for half the year.

His flatmate works in a supermarket - on a normal/active week, she works Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and depending on modules/timetable, she may work an extra shift or two during the week. When she's up against it with test revision, essays, etc she may drop a shift, and she usually takes the 4-6 weeks of exam season off completely.

She works full time in the holidays between terms, being Christmas, Easter and Summer, in fact, some weeks, such as the week before Christmas, she works longer than normal full time, and sometimes works every day, some days double or 1.5 shifts when they're really busy. DS says that over the year, she earns around £15k which is pretty close to "full time" on minimum wage for that age group!

It's enabled her to be self sufficient (parents wouldn't/couldn't pay her any maintenance etc), buy and run her own car, and she's even got some savings.

The thing is, she doesn't go partying, doesn't do sports, etc., so that's a shedload of time that she's got free compared with her peers - she can study/work Friday and Saturday nights, isn't hung over most of the weekend, can work Wednesday instead of doing sports/clubs.

Another of his flat mates works in McDonalds, not quite so many hours, but still pretty substantial, and again, virtually full time equivalent in the holidays.

The time is there for those who wish to, to work quite substantial hours, if they want, and still have time for the studying, but it's at the expense of partying/clubs/sports, etc. The average student will easily spend 30-40 hours per week on those activities. It's just a matter of priorities.

Yes. Priorities. If she's not sociable and doesn't do any sport why on earth is she working so much? Running a car at uni I guess is a massive luxury.

Her life, her choices. She has her reasons, mainly that she gets not parental support and minimum maintenance loan. She also has no intention of going back home to live after Uni, so needs savings to get her own flat when she leaves Uni. Everyone is different. She wanted a car to be independent. Reading between the lines, obvious problems with her home life/parents, so she has to fend for herself.

All I'm saying is that working alongside studying is perfectly possible, Of course, that means compromising, prioritising conflicting demands on your time, etc. As I say, her life, her choice, but she does seem to have her head screwed on with long term plans rather than short term gratification!

This.

Putting it in perspective helps.

The thing is health care, social care, mainstream education to 18, benefits etc all need to be paid for. Current government, think we cannot tax the rich anymore so either people pay for what they get, even if it takes a lifetime OR remove them and find a government that will tax the rich more so people on smaller incomes don't pay?

Amazing that you know so much about her!

It's a sad situation really. She can apply for a full loan if she's estranged from her parents.

Dd works twice a week in a coffee shop to fund her hobby and clothes addiction. She doesn't have a car and isn't trying to build up savings quite yet.

@Kazzyhoward sounds like a sensible girl, good for her.

It sounds exhausting and sad. She could choose to have less savings or not run a car and have some friends or a hobby instead.

You might need a plumber but that doesn't magically mean other people want or have the aptitude to be one.

This sweeping generalisation that teens should either be Oxbridge or plumbers or get an apprenticeship at a huge corporate is so peak Mumsnet.

So true. It's such a ridiculous viewpoint and reduces education down to something functional. Society as a whole benefits from a more educated population.

The chart is correct. Under the new plan most students will pay more than double what they pay under the current plan. The only beneficiaries of the new plan are students with starting salaries of £50k and up.

“I suppose the question is could you get a job with the same salary trajectory without a degree?”

There are studies showing that for some career fields you can actually have the same or almost the same lifetime earnings with a degree as without.

read this article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41693230

My husband had to do this when he was a student, a long time ago now, but he got the standard £50 (yes, fifty) per year and his father was supposed to make this up the the maintenance level - but didn't. He worked all the way through university, most evenings and weekends and all the holidays. His course was really full-time, no days off, so he couldn't work any weekdays. He still had a good time!

It's really hard on people earning decent salaries. It's 12.5 percent for higher earners, so a doctor is paying back 8000 or 9000pounds/year. That's a massive disincentive to get a graduate job with very long hours. Their debt will have grown to over 100k after 5 years at 9percent plus interest, so they will pay back much more than they have ever borrowed. The government is also entitled to change the conditions of the loans anytime, so everyone with a student loan is subject to that. Tomorrow it could be repayments are 50% of everything over 5k.

I worked full time alongside studying accountancy part time, so same, but just reversed. I worked Mon--Fri, 9-5, and then had to do the accountancy studying in the evenings/weekends via a mix of self study, evening classes and distance learning. Yes, it was exhausting and hard work, especially as I was on very low "trainee" wages too, and took five years in the end, but it was worth it, and I had no debt/loans to repay. The worst year was when I had 2 evenings per week of evening classes from 6 to 9 pm, an hour away from where I worked, so had to rush out of work at 5 to get to the college at 6, no time for an evening meal, except a quick drink/snack whilst driving there! I took a couple of weeks of holiday leave to revise for the exams - the employer "kindly" gave me exam days off and paid for exam entry fees!

That's probably similar to those advocating the modern degree apprenticeships - they're hard work and involve doing the study/revision in your own time, outside work.

I still managed to have a social life, hobbies, etc., but the difference was that I had to plan things thoroughly and had to be efficient with my use of time.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all for today's Uni students to do some kind of part time work to earn money to contribute to their living costs, especially if parents can't or won't contribute. Not sure why they expect the taxpayer to pay for them to laze around or party several nights per week. Obviously depends on the course and how much time they actually "have" to be on campus - i.e. a lot more for "hands on" courses that require lab work, etc. But nowadays, especially with so much more either being online or recorded live to watch later, there's plenty of time for a bit of earning/working.

@CurlyhairedAssassin @Skinnermarink theres definitely enough hours in a day! Simple maths, there’s 168 hours per week. If you have 40 hours contact time that leaves 128 hours. Then approx 40 hours of work leaves 88 hours. 88 hours over 7 days is an average of 12.5 hours per day to do whatever you need with. Assignments, sleep, hang out with mates whatever you want. If you add in annual leave and term breaks that’s even more time.

It’s not that hard to fathom and there have been a number of examples on this thread of people who have done it, myself and @ReadingSoManyThreads included.

why are you trying to say that’s not the case? Just because you don’t believe you could do it yourselves?

I understood a full time degree to require 35-40 personal study hours a week, outside of contact time? This is what my lecturers told me. I don't think you have factored that in to your sums.

Very true! Like we want to live in a country entirely populated by Oxbridge grads, plumbers and corporate workers. We would certainly need much higher immigration to fill all the other jobs.

Yes, the outside study and research and coursework writing time is not included,

I worked three part time jobs while at Uni such that I only had Monday afternoons “off” in the sense that I could do a 3hr bike ride. I still had Uni in the morning and study/coursework in the evening.

So I don’t dispute that one can work all the spare hours they have and it add up to 40hrs/week or thereabouts, what I do dispute is that this level of working earns enough money to pay tuition fees plus living expenses.

It would have when tuition was only £1k/Yr. Probably might have when tuition was £3k/Yr if you earned good tips or were paid a bit more than minimum and lived very cheaply. But with tuition at £9,250 a year and accommodation costs having increased at more than twice the rate of inflation such that it’s £8k/Yr in many Unis and no cheaper in private rentals in Uni cities. It’s not possible today to go to Uni and work to pay your way through to graduate with no debt.

Hasn’t been since around 2012, I’d say. And that’s why we can’t really compare between generations on this. The circumstances are too different.

I understood a full time degree to require 35-40 personal study hours a week, outside of contact time? This is what my lecturers told me. I don't think you have factored that in to your sums.

Depends on the degree. I probably had about that amount of personal study, but only had 8 hours of contact time in third year. Not much more in first and second.

@user9630721458 I don’t think it did require that from me and I did very well academically. I also completed multiple post grad degrees while working a very demanding job since. I don’t know anybody that did that level of work outside of uni hours.

@ReleasetheCrackHen never claimed it did. I said I had to do it to be able to do my degree. It plugged the gap (my parents couldn’t afford to give me anything and needed financial support themselves) and did slightly reduce my debt I left with after 6 years. Was merely disputing those that claimed it ‘impossible’ to do so when it’s not at all. But then again people have told me getting to the position I have from the background I have is ‘impossible’ also…

It’s so frustrating when people start telling you that the life you lived wasn’t true. It’s such a mumsnet thing to go around telling people they didn’t do something when it’s their lived experience. It’s batshit.

It depresses me how much UK kids have to pay compared to many in Europe.
My ds wanted to go to uni in the UK but decided on our local university in Italy when we saw the huge difference in price! He'll be able to graduate without debt here.

@Nextsizeup Well done then! I had to study pretty much 30 hours a week on top of contact time to get my first. You are blessed to achieve that without independent study.

Why couldn’t the Gov just not charge interest on the loans, so people on pay the exact they were loaned. You can get other types of credit on 0% finance. It would also mean more people pay off their loans and it would solve some unfairness between those who take the loan and those who can pay upfront.

"Just not...". Where will the millions of pounds of lost interest, some of which is never paid back already, on the £20bn that is loaned out every year come from? Increased taxes, reduced services, magic money tree?