to be worried there is no thread about what is being done that will affect our children's futures?

[granted]

I have become increasingly concerned both at the measures being taken by this govt (and the last too, though obviously nothing we can do about those now) that will impact on the next generation.

Articles like this:

www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1328228/Revealed-30-year-graduate-debt-trap.html

on top of high house prices, increasing unemployment, climate change - we spend so long on this site debating the tiny things, like bedtimes, number of baths, bla bla bla - just surprised that I haven't come across other threads discussing this.

Do other mums feel like this, and if so, what can we do? Am thinking about situations where women campaigning together have made huge changes eg I think in Norther Ireland women were drivers for the peace process etc.

I feel strongly that a load of super-rich and entirely male politicians have no concept of what effect the raft of policies they are implenting will have on ordinary families and ordinary children - who after all, have no vote to make their views heard - and the current lot will probably have retired by the time they're old enough to make their views known.

Anyone else?

Granted, I'm sorry, we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.

I find it really really patronising that you are trying to suggest that people from low-income backgrounds are too shortsighted or stupid or whatever to be able to see that a univeristy education will mean they will more than likely earn more over their careers and therefore the 'debt' they accrue to pay for their degree is an 'investment' and they will get more than the cost of it back in long run.
Or maybe that you think they can't live without £100 out of their pay packets in later life.

Of course in an ideal world, everyone would go univserity if they wanted to, and they would get grants and have no debt.
But the reality is there is a fixed pot of money
That pot can either pay for 10% of people to go to university for free and with grants
Or it can pay for 20% for free without grants
or 30% with £1k fees and loans
or 40% with £3k fees and loans
But at the point at which we want 50% plus of the population to have a degree, then it will cost more. Money can't just be concured from the ether

conjured, not concured.
Although it can't be concured either

sparechange, sadly SOME people from low and even middle incomes will be put off, this isn't patronising, it just means across the classes there will always be debt averse people. Sadly the wealthy can get around this by stumping up the cash. I am not saying everyone will be deterred, of course many can see that the benefits of a graduate job and salary can outweigh a large debt...but not everyone will. Many families have not lived with debt themselves, and so the idea of a £9k x however many yrs debt...lets say £36k to be conservative and assuming of course we're looking at a uni with max fees, can be quite disconcerting. I know my own parents would have been terrified of me being saddled with that sort of figure coming out of uni.

My secretary at work is already really worried about the fees her son will have to pay through the loan system and they are both looking at alternatives to a degree. How awful if they conclude that avoiding the debt is more important than a degree. :(

Regardless, we dont even know all the fact, Granted, and using a Daily Mail article as the fountain of fact is wrong. Let us wait for the system to be ironed out properly before panicking too much.

Studying medicine will cost 9K x 5 yrs = 45,000. 5k x 4 yrs = 20,000. 5th yr should give something towards living expenses so 65K in total.

Current fees £3290 x 5 yrs = £16450. Loan maybe £2K x 4 = £8,000 (Good academic bursaries available atm) = £24,450. SCARY!

Abouteve, don't the NHS offer fairly good bursaries for students doing medicine/nursing/physio?

I assume they would remain?

AFAIK the NHS will provide a bursary for year 5 and I have factored that into my calculation.

Most students who want to study medicine aren't going into it for the money, it's a vocation, a calling even. They have to jump through so many hoops to get onto a course and the responsibility once qualified makes the salary seem fairly modest. So to be saddled with paying off such a huge amount doesn't seem fair.

I am as left wing as you get, but I agree with lucky in that entitlement is pervasive in society at the moment, and that goes for the rich, the poor, everyone, basically. we're all guilty of it because we eat food in supermarkets that we know wasn't grown in our own country, but in some poor country. We wear clothes and goods that we believe we need when we know deep down that the very women and children who made those goods could never buy them themselves.
It runs very deep

but I disagree with lucky's idea that people should only go to uni to study something which will be useful in the world of work. SOme of the greatest literature and philosophers and thinkers have come from the UK and that is because the UK has traditionally been a country that values study and thinking for its own sake.