Am I missing something re tuition fees...

[Pheebe]

OK so tuition fees are not repayable until AFTER uni and AFTER you are earning over a certain amount

So why should your families pre-uni economic status be taken into account? Surely support for disadvantaged students should be focused on ensuring they have access and maintenance grants to support their daily living expenses while they are studying. Once they have their degree surely they on an equal footing to all other graduates?

Two students, both in a 40K job, one from a 'poor' background one from a 'professional' background. Who is more disadvantaged at that point by having to pay off 30K worth of debt?

What am I missing?

I did a nursing diploma. I had to work in the hospital and go to university.
If I wanted more than the £350 a month bursery we were given, I had to get a job. Which I and most of my cohort had to do if we wanted to eat.

I know that had I gone to university properly I would not have had the work load and had more spare time to get a job. I know this for a fact.
My sister has not long finished her degree. I am appalled by the amount of money she owes. Not to mention the interest that is charged during the time it has taken her to get a job that pays enough to start repaying her loan. It is another big squeeze for the banks to make more money!

I also know that had she got off her arse and got a part time job she would not owe as much.

University education is not a basic human right. It shouldnt be free. But those who chose to go should not be used as cash cows by the banks either!!!

Pheebe it's still a repayment that you have to make, which will impact on things like getting a mortgage. For those on low salaries this debt could hang over them for decades.

At the moment repayments start when you are on £15K.

Surely the point of uni is to step people up so they are economically productive able to access decent jobs and are no longer 'poor kids'. Whether the jobs are available is a whole different (but admittedly closely linked) discussion.

A sliding scale where you don't pay the loans back until you're earning over a certain amount seems fair to me.

The argument of the debt 'scaring' people off seems purile to me and based on misinformation and misunderstanding.

It takes a long tine for graduates to start earning a graduate salary - your have the debt from the first day of your course. If it takes you 2 years to earn 21k after you graduate from a 3yr course that is 5yrs worth of interest!! Which could easily add another 1k onto your debt.

ronshar students have always worked their way through university. When I was at university in the early 90s most of the people I knew worked in termtime, I can't think of anyone who didn't work in the holidays.

Really? Have you ever talked to sixth formers from low income families?

Last post aimed at pheebe's purile comment.

Graduated 20 + years ago. Top of pay scale in my chosen, graduate only entry profession. Will never reach 40 K. But have no debt, so am thankful for that.

I've just seen an ad asking for maths PhD graduates for £26000.

I have 3 (and a half) degrees. I earn nothing like £40 000.

I think some of you must be living in a lovely world and I'd like to know what it's like - but it ain't the world I live in.

Pheebe that is not what universities are there for.

If you think that then you might as well shut all of the courses at university apart from about 5, and get rid of everything to do all of the other subjects in the whole country. Accept that cash is king and no-one may study anything for passion, love, pleasure or raw talent unless they are rich.

Isn't that how it was a couple of hundred years ago?

The point is AFAIAK and DH and I have had a massive row about this, that there is no provision for parents to help to the extent that they can. For example, we cannot say OK, here's 3k towards the annual cost to help you reduce your debt. We cannot say, when our lives are easier (perhaps sadly when we benefit from our parents) we will help to pay off some of this loan to reduce the interest payable.

The totally unfair aspect about these loans is that the ineterst is avoided if parents can pay up front which skews the benefit toward the very very privileged. The interest, unlike for any other loan available in this country, cannot be minimised when the former students circumstances improve. That is what is wrong.

The poorest students are those from families of income under 15k.

There are thousands of students whose parents earn more than that (but who are not by any stretch of the imagination rich) who will get very little grant based help, have humongous loans and won't have the friend of a friend pathway into good jobs.

onceamai can't you pay lump sums off then? I didn't know that.

I think you can, it's just that all that extra interest will have accrued in the meantime.

"based on misinformation and misunderstanding."

How patronising, and plain wrong. Like many people affected by this issue, not only have I read the Browne report from cover to cover, I've followed the changes made to it by the coalition closely.

The headline problem is the amount: 9K per year will make English degrees the most expensive "publicly" funded degrees in the world, US degrees at places like Berkeley and UCLA included.

The real problem is that this figure is only necessary because of 80% cuts (and 100% cuts in most subjects) to the university teaching budgets. These cannot be justified on the grounds of cutting the deficit because the new funding regime will cost the government MORE not less.

My university has established that the break-even point for its cheapest arts and humanities course, assuming a 100% cut, is £8,100. That means universities charging less than that will have to institute cuts to their teaching and services.

So students paying 6K will end up getting far less for double the fees, and those paying 9K will see very little improvement for treble the fees. And government will be able to "blame" the universities because they are no longer responsible.

It's completely scandalous, and the students are absolutely right to protest. (Not violently, of course, I'm a pacifist.)

Both Nurses and midwives require a degree. However, entry level once qualified is just over £21K, so they would have to pay back immediately if I understand it right.

Would you honestly want to saddle yourself with all that debt? I suspect many will rethink what career paths they want to take, and thus the profession would suffer.

These are just examples I suspect there would be others...

Oh and the £40K salary for a graduate, one of the funniest things I've ever heard!

Oh no wait, if you are earning £40 000 as a maths graduate then you might very well be working in the kind of place that will give personal guarantees and then when things go wrong just smile, don't apologise and collect your bonus anyhow.

Surely then it is the place of 6th form colleges and universities to go out and find the talented young poor.
Oh wait they cant because the education policy of the past government has been to educate everyone to the lowest common denomiator.

I want my eldest dd to go to uni. But as things stand we wont be able to help her finacially. So there is every chance she wont go.
If the education profession recognised that some children are cleverer than others then there would be pathways set up so clever poor children get the best education at no extra cost to the families.
Then it wouldnt matter about tuition fees because poorer families wouldnt have to worry.

Debt will put off the poorer families. No question.