To believe £27k University debt will put children off?

[Mitmoo]

I am a graduate so value education but now we've seen that so many universities will be charging £9k a year that it will make todays pupils think that a degree just isn't worth the cost?

I know it doesn't have to be paid back until they are earning £21k or thereabouts but they are looking at 20 odd years of debt, more for some and no option to pay it off early if they get a windfall.

Add that to so many graduates not in graduate jobs and others out of work.

AIBU to think we are going to go back to the bad old days when university access won't be based on how smart you are but how much money your parents have?

They'll just have to get a grip and accept the new realities. In the US all higher education is private, though some schools are subsidised by state government and are therefore cheaper. My education cost me over $50,000 and that was 15 years ago. I left with a debt of only $20,000 due to grants from the school and relatives so I considered myself lucky.

While I agree it's pretty crap the bar has been raised by the current regime in power I think everyone should be grateful it was free for so long.

It is being misrepresented by the government (on purpose perhaps?). Most people will pay £60 a month and the debt is cancelled at 50. There will also be bursaries for bright students doing maths, science and engineering.

An actuary would be able to tell you the chances of catgirl's city trader dying of a heart attack before he paid of his student debt.

That's a lot of debt not being paid back in catgirl's examples.

Either you accept that most people won't pay back the debt they owe which leaves us as a country up financial shit creek in years to come. Or the examples aren't really representative and most will end up paying back all their debt and more, better for the country, worse for the individual.

Yes I did second - or close to. About £15k in student loans, £8k on credit cards, £5k overdraft, £4k on other loans.

I have now re-paid the lot and earn an amount I wouldn't be earning had I not gone to Uni, plus I had a great time

tyler80 good point which would mean as a country we've really got this very badly wrong indeed. The government have already been caught out by not expecting so many universities to be charging £27k a degree.

I have also found this which is where they are saying if they do charge the £9k it will come out of funding for students.

"Universities that charge £9,000 in tuition fees could face overall funding cuts, David Willetts said today.

In a speech at the Universities UK spring conference, the higher education minister suggested government sanctions to stop universities across the UK charging the upper limit.

Mr Willetts threatened that if many universities charged their students over the £7,500 average the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills had planned for, the increase would be offset by cuts to government block grants.

"If the average of charges comes out higher than the £7,500 which we have used as a modelling assumption, we will have to consider the option of meeting that increased cost to the student finance budget by making offsetting reductions in the remaining HEFCE grant," he said.

"So your own actions further increase your risk - and none of us want to see that happen."

www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/2/25/willetts-threatens-9k-universities-with-fundi

TheSecondComing, if your daughter is clever enough for Oxford I hope she looks at impartial information on fees herself so she can make a decision and doesn't let you scare her off.

Yabu. If anything it will make it more accessible to those with talent rather than cash, in the form of bursaries and scholarships. 50% attendance is bonkers.

The secondcoming - actuaries earn megabucks! If she is sucessful in this career plan she will be quids in. Do look at the repayment examples above - it is hard to lose out even if you earn a limited amount. My oldest son is at Oxford now, under the "old rules" it is hard to get apart time job during terms because the terms are only 8 weeks long and they have to work very hard. The colleges do find a few hours paid work in libraries or at open days for those who ask. In the holidays he works in a supermarket, a job he has had since he was 16 ( over 4 years now) and saves most of his income.

DS 2 will be going under the new fees levels in 2 years time and I'm encouraging him, although his subject choice is far from vocational. I don't think his future income really affects the choice, if he gets a good job he will pay it back, very slowly and painlessly and if he ends up a total dosser it doesn't matter. Neither of mine have had any problems finding part time work - but you have to be direct, take out your CV and go round the shops, restaurants etc in person. Sending emails and looking on the net doesn't get you anywhere usually. If you have a daughter babysitting is popular and can be quite lucrative.

This system would have meant that I could have gone to University. There were grants available back in the dark ages when I was leaving school but it was very difficult to get a 100% grant and if your parents wouldn't support you, as mine wouldn't, you were stuffed (although people did manage).

I loathe the Conservatives and truly believe education should be free and freely available to all but I don't think that paying for one's own education should put anyone off. No-one seems to mind having a mortgage for years...

Qxford does not like students to take jobs during the (short) terms; the students have work to do.

When do the results come out coming?

Good luck to Young Second

"But she can go [to Oxbridge] now second. 10 years ago she may not have been able to".

But 20 years ago she would. No fees to pay, and there was still a maintenance grant tho it had just been frozen.

There may or may not be advantages to massively expanding university entrance and having degrees where we would previously have had other qualifications.

But improved access to Oxbridge isn't one of them.

i think to many parents put to much pressure on there children to go to uni out of everyone i know who went to uni only 2 of them have graduate jobs the rest work in normal jobs... Neither me or DP went to uni he has a trade and is well paid for it and i have worked in the same company long enough that i am now higher than most of the uni graduates we take on... not to mention the fact most of the uni graduates i know are completely bitten about not being able to get a job being stuck with debt and feeling like they have wasted years of their lives when most people i know who didn't go are quite happy with life as we've worked had for 10 years and are reeping the rewards.

The system isn't great. But outside of changing it and improving it, the very best thing we can do is encourage young people who want to go to university and are talented (like seconds dd) to look at the facts and not let it stop them.

If your dd becomes a sucessful actuary what she earns will FAR out weigh any debt

Good luck to her

Nobody seems to have mentioned the oft-held belief that going to university was as beneficial for the experience and way it changed your personality, as for the amount of money you can make from it.

Do you think that university education will now be seen to only have monetary worth?

That families will just consider the equation of cost of degree to graduate salary?

Finally I also think, as other posters have mentioned, that we really should start comparing student loans to mortgages. In many ways. Value, worth, who can get one, on what terms.

Most parents wouldn't expect to save to pay for their child's first mortgage, but many seem to want to save to pay for/instead of their child's student loans.

Yet to me, going to university is probably more valuable than taking out your first mortgage.

I wouldn't have been able to go to Uni if they had charged that sort of fee then. I barely had enough from my weekend job to cover travel, books, rent etc (thankfully our local pub did vodka and a mixer for 50p otherwise I wouldn't have had much of a social life).

It will probably put off a lot of people who are undecided about what they want to do when they graduate. I would have to be awfully sure of a well paid job to risk going to Uni now. Not sure what the alternative is though as so many jobs expect a degree now.

Your daughter really needs the facts, not the scare stories, TSC. One of the worst things about how the government and media have handled the funding of higher education is the level of misinformation there is. If a bright young woman from a poorer background is put off a good education and the glittering career she is capable of, then the Toffs have won. The reality is that it is easier now than it has been for years for a girl in her situation to come out on top. And let's face it, for us with no pension provision, our kids better bloody take advantage of it so they can look after us in our dotage