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 agree 100% peppa, and many people in those professions canearn 40K plus if they wish. As a teacher I earn in excess of 50K and still have lots more earning potential with in me. However that is insignificant in comaprison to the satisfaction my job gives me.

Depends on the course and institution Riven . Typically here I would say around 10 hours contact time a week.

Sciences / engineering tend to do more as more lab based practical work

It may have changed but at my Oxford college albeit nearly 20 years ago I had much more than 5 hours contact time.

Cheeky anyone starting before 2012 will be on the current fees. Studying medicine, tution plus maintenance will cost 30K approx in 2011 but if you are born a year later and go in 2012 it will be 70K as you say.

exactly tingle - I would go out of my mind in a routinejob. I feel privileged to have a career job so like many other privileges I don't mind paying. Spend money to make money as well.

Also if you think about someone setting up a business - they may need a loan / to invest money in that. Or spend years working without profit.

Everything costs. Education is an investment. It can't be taken away.

Fantastic Riven .

Melezka
Some sort of loan. Don't like to be nosey.
The only thing she has said to me is that she needed to get some life insurance sorted out (before she went to the USA to do her practical training) as she did not want her parents to be liable for the loan if the worse happened to her.
Think they must be guarantors.

Ohhh christmaseve thanks for that.

Networkguy - cushion money is taken up on a regular basis with dental appointments, car repairs, boiler breakdowns etc.

I think starting on the debt and never-never bandwagon so young is a bad idea. I don't think it would encourage caution in spending. If you already owe £50K, what's another £1K on a big telly, £2K on a holiday etc? Conversely, what if you can't borrow the extra money until you've cleared your other debt?

The debt is different debt. Unless they change their minds it does not affect credit ratings, mortgage, other loans. No one even asks.

It is not the never-never bandwagon . It is an investment in the same way a mortgage is an investment.

It depends on the subject how much teaching time they get. My 3 older children have all graduated (although I have 2 more children to come under the new scheme) and arts subjects have always had less contact time even when I was at university. Some courses rightly have been criticised for not enough contact time but many others it is justified.

Most students have jobs in holidays etc where they can get them.

Mortgage companies refuse many applicants these days and have lots of affordability tests. I would be surprised if they chose to ignore student loan payments that the applicant is currently paying.

Peppa - "The debt is different debt. [...] No one even asks." You really believe that?

Xenia - quite, I don't see how credit ratings won't be affected by amount of debt already carried. Student loan will be overwhelming.

But Xenia - the student loan repayments will be the same (actually less) than students for the past 10 years have been paying? I have never ever been asked about my student loan for a mortgage or loan.

Peppa - it won't be the same or less. It will be about 10 times as much. Do your maths. Perhaps you'd repaid your loan by the time you applied for the mortgage? Perhaps it was just a piddling amount that didn't matter?

But it won't be 'overwhelming' Cristina!! A graduate earning 35k will be paying back £100 a month out of a take home salary of around £2200.

Even someone on a salary of 50k will only need to pay £220 back a month.

It is not the same kind of debt because repayments stop when you drop below the threshold and are a sliding scale above it.

Cristina I am talking about repayments.

Mortgage companies typically look at what monthly repayments you have. They look at your ability to pay your mortgage each month.

Repayments will be less than currently because at the moment we pay 9% of what we earn over 16k. The threshold will rise to 21k.

It really should not affect someone's ability to pay their mortgage. If someone on a salary of 50k a year which is a monthly take home pay of £3600 cannot afford to pay £220 of that on a loan then something else is wrong. Same for 35k or 25k (who would pay £30 a month).

How will it be ten times as much as what current graduates have? I suggest you do your maths.

And if you want to know I had around 30k of student debt. 15k in student loan form and 15k in graduate loan form for postgraduate fees etc. So not that dissimilar to 3 x 9k.

Peppa - a salary of 50k a year is not a monthly take home pay of £3600. Do your maths and we can talk. Once you get to the right amount (under £3000), take away pension (or shall we do away with that too, I bet the Tories would love to scrap state pensions, in fact working hard on it as we speak), mortgage/rent, childcare, food & bills.

How did you get to £220 a month? I've bought a car and pay that much in monthly repayments. Admittedly, over a much shorter period of time but I can assure you the car was nowhere near £50K. Your sums are wrong. Also, don't you think it's utterly depressing that you have that hanging over your head for the rest of your working life? No, you don't, you're one of the lucky ones who went to Uni at the taxpayers' expense. You're an alright Jack.

For anyone interested in statistics the tuition fees are the first thing covered in yesterdays's Radio 4 More Or Less - It is worth having a listen to the first 10 mins of that.

My sums are not wrong Cristina. Do you understand how they are paid back?? It is not like a normal loan where you split say, 10k over 60 months and pay back £250 a month (or whatever).

The threshold for repayment is going to be at least 21k. Over this salary you pay back 9% of your earnings for that month.

Therefore if you earn 25k you only pay back 9% of £4000 which monthly is about £30.

If you earn 50k then you pay back 9% of 29k. So yes £220 a month.

If your salary reduces, your repayment reduces. If you drop below the threshold you pay nothing. They will be written off after 30 years / retirement.

I apologise if my calculations of what you take home on a 50k income are wrong - I used a quick tax calculator as I don't earn that much

AND I HAVE PAID 8 YEARS of TUITION FEES which incidentally totals around 22k I think. Plus my maintenance loans. Plus reduced earning potential. I put it in black and white that I have 30k of student debt!

Incidentally I am not supporting the rise in fees just wish people would understand how they are paid back.

In terms of pay after uni, having done a lot of graduate interviewing at a big accountancy firm and also a big UK bank, I would have thought that:

• any Russell Group graduate
• who is prepared to work in london
• with at least 2:1 and ABB at a-level
• is articulate & prepared for interviews
• with UK work visa etc
• having done some interesting stuff whilst at uni - either part-time interesting job / student unions stuff / sports / other volunteer work

Should be able (if they want) to get a graduate job paying £30k+ going to £45k+ within 2-3 years.

If a-levels aren't enough to get into a good uni, or time at uni isn't used productively such that the student ends up with a 2:2 and no interesting stuff on CV then pay will be less, and financially anyway maybe not worth going.

Sorry to butt in, but the thing about all this that really gets my goat is the idea that somehow everyone is feeling unreasonably "entitled" to any number of things when it has all been set up in advance over the last 50 years ago by successive governments.

STATE Education has been evolving to a point where "everyone" is supposed to be academic, and be educated until at least 18 and preferably 21, and where the ability to meet the rising cost of living via employment is almost completely dependent on that model because the job market depends it because there are no longer enough jobs to go round.

We have been encouraged to believe that true success is entirely dependent on achieving certain things - a degree, homeownership and a good job.

Education was supposed to level the playing field for all areas of society and reflect true talent and ability in academic fields previously only open to the wealthy. So along came Grammar schools, the 11 plus for all, and free university grants and tuition for those from poorer backgrounds. Sometimes these were the very people most invested in perpetuating a cycle of general societal improvement as a result of their advantages, and because they had a greater understanding of the real problems graced by those in less financially advantaged positions.

It's all very well saying we have paid out too much and need to cut back, but targetting those on lower or even middle incomes with loans and the spectre of debt is illogical. of course it will breed resentment. It's like inconsistent parenting on a massive scale by the state.

And where is all the loan money going to come from, and if it is so unlikely to be repaid in full by many due to the shrinking job market and depressed world economy, how doe that work FGS??