To think poor students will still be able to go to uni and now it will be fairer on ALL students !

[bereal7]

I've read a few ridiculous comments from posters complaining that their children won't be able to afford university. This is bullocks ; the loans will still be there and even higher now. On top of this, they don't have to be repaid until you are earning more than £21k. Therefore, there is no reason why poorer students can't afford university.

If anything, this is now a fair system. It was not right that some students could get such high grants and loans that they don't have to work whilst other only got the bare minimum and have to work - sacrificing their studies - just because their parents earnt more. Those who didn't have to work would be more likely to pass and have higher paying jobs but not have to pay back as much. It was a ridiculous and unfair system which penalised people whose parents were earning more on paper and I welcome this change. Everyone who wants to , and gets the grades, can go to uni but will have to pay back the loans the same as everyone else once they graduate. Aibu to think poorer students will still be able to go university?

So annoyed by the comments and hysteria so I'm sure there's a few typos in there - apologies

[howabout]

I think teacher training would count as "graduate education" these days which is again part of the problem. My Mum worked in a teacher training college which is now part of a university.

[RedDaisyRed]

I don't. I had not provided a detailed analysis. I suspect passing school cert in 8 formal subjects in the 1940s with enough distinctions or credits ( you had to pass well all subjects or else you had to resit the whole year and all subjects) might well be not too different from A levels in 2015 however.

[Dawndonnaagain]

Interesting that you suggest nurses need A levels but teachers do not.

[RedDaisyRed]

My mother was a non graduate primary teacher who did her 2 years of teacher training in the 1940s, she went to a grammar school and even in her 50s has an IQ nearing 150 and was very bright. I don't think doing A levels and then a degree and then a PGCE and then teaching practice would have made her any better with classes of 6 years olds than she was aged 19 having done 2 years at teacher training college.

[howabout]

This is what I meant about the problem. Many parents cannot afford to fund maintenance of DC even if they stay at home. Also most of the population does not live in commuting distance of the sort of uni which offers law degrees which then lead to city careers. For that matter only a very few law graduates will go on to work in commercial law or equally lucrative career in the city. The Law is one of the professions which definitely benefits if its entrants come from a variety of backgrounds. I am a Law graduate from a prestigious law school. My classmates came from all strata of society. Their career paths 25 years on are equally diverse.
I agree that one of the problems is widening tertiary education beyond what is profitable for individuals or employers (not sure I want a non graduate primary teacher though).

However I strongly believe education is a social good in and of itself. I believe it is a retrograde step to view it in terms of the future earning potential it confers. In fact I have many non graduate friends who earn more than top lawyers but I accept that this may not be typical.

Having successfully pursued a city career myself I will offer it as one route for my DD but I see it as very limiting if this is the only "successful" path. There are many ways to contribute to society and working extended 12 hour days in a cloistered environment while earning a lot of money is only one.

[RedDaisyRed]

You could start with primary school teachers. They can do the job perfectly well if they leave school at 16 and do 2 years teacher training. Then you move on to nurses and have them start nursing after A levels with no degree. Then secretaries and PAs, they can start at 14 really and learn on the job.

[BreakingDad77]

"What we really need to is revert to a system where only 15% of children go to university. Many of the jobs we seem to think need graduates don't need university at all to do the job well."

I would agree that some courses have been created where people would have learnt those skills themselves or vocationally, e.g photography, design etc or degrees in the Management of "X" where historically you would have to spend a few years learning X before you could manage it, not just parachute yourself in.

Also I wonder if people who previously could graft there way up off the bottom are hitting a graduate glass ceiling at supervisor level.

[RedDaisyRed]

hang on - if you're good then your law firm pays you your living allowance and your fees for the post grad year or 2 years as happened with my daughter. If you aren't good we probably don't need you in law and you should not do the courses. Also most graduates even my children have holiday jobs so take out less loan as a result. Plenty also live at home so only have £9k fees x 3 years.

Also if that lawyer couple did drop down to one being a housewife I suspect most of those well educated housewives would end up when the children were about 5 going back to work at more than £21k a year so probably would end up repaying the loan.

What we really need to is revert to a system where only 15% of children go to university. Many of the jobs we seem to think need graduates don't need university at all to do the job well.

[howabout]

I think this is part of the problem RedDaisyRed. When you were discussing your 2 DS upthread you wrote in terms of £54k plus extras for 2 sets of tuition fees. However for 2 students who have to travel to London to live and study the cost of the top legal training would be £54k fees plus living costs of £48k (based on GO top loan level) plus a further year of post grad at £18k plus living costs of £16k. This gives starting loans (or expenses paid by parents) for top lawyer couple of £136k and then I presume a few years of lowly paid traineeship before starting towards the £100k salary which will just be in sight at the point when they start planning a family. With a hefty London mortgage and nanny costs I am not convinced that £200k joint salary would be enough to compensate for this. It may make sense to drop a £100k salary and the nanny and live a bit further out. One of the couple then becomes SAHP or PT worker below the pay back threshold and the £136k loan shrinks to £68k. If the parent who remains working had their studies funded by their parents and the other has loans then it makes more sense for them to stay in work. This is why I would prefer my daughters to have the loan in the first place especially if they were not in Scotland.

[RedDaisyRed]

I never realised the free grants were such a massive cost to the state. I thought a few hundred of the least well off would receive them.

"More than half a million students from poorer backgrounds currently receive a maintenance grant, at a cost to the taxpayer of about £1.57bn a year."

[Dawndonnaagain]

In the news today

[RedDaisyRed]

The dividend change will mean the person who owns the one person company will have less income so presumably less income to pay their ex and children. I suppose if those people change to being sole traders instead they might find it harder to hide income although even there your receipts are not your profits of course - you might buy in nails at £1000 and sell them for £1001 and your income £1 of course and that is not tax evasion or even avoidance, it is the truth.

[RedDaisyRed]

I think a top lawyer who is going to make hundreds of thousands a year but has a lot of student debt is not going to put off a partner whereas a 22 year old with no debt who earns £20k a year and never went to university might. As for the expense - yes but those of us who relieve the state of the burden of educating our children because we pay school fees in a sense find it is just a continuation of the 13 years of that which we have already had so in that sense is relatively painless.

[Mygardenistoobig]

The only way to make nrp pay towards their child's university fees is to take the money directly from their income.

However take a look at the thread about nrp not paying msintenance and you can see that plenty of nrp are quite happy to absolve themselves from all responsibility.

I seriously doubt whether they will pay now their child is 18 when they refused to pay when their child was still at school.

Strange how the government STILL allow nrp to take the piss and relegate on their responsibility. ( sorry to de rail).

Yes let's punish young people instead.

[RedDaisyRed]

Their sisters are City lawyers as am I and one of the younger ones is inclined to that so we're talking £100k by the time you are 30 if you're any good and are prepared to work hard so pretty likely student debt will have to be repaid. However they might both become stay at home fathers for life at 25 - you never know and then I'll be kicking myself for paying the £54k fees (2 children) plus rent/maintenance for the pair of them plus any post grad costs.

[BreakingDad77]

I suspect it is more likely than not they will become higher rate tax payers in their 20s

Depends a lot on the industry they are going to go into, I'm a post grad working in my area for 17rs and still not a higher rate tax payer.

[howabout]

I have 3 girls and am in Scotland. I think current Scottish set up makes it more likely that the majority will repay in full and thus a leveller playing field. This is an issue I have been thinking about in terms of wondering if people will start looking at how much student debt a potential partner carries with them. I also wonder if at the margin it will discourage women from maintaining FT careers.

[RedDaisyRed]

My older children paid £1k and then £3k fees so to treat the youngest 2 on the same basis will be more expensive for me. I accept that if they never earn more than £20k or whatever it is then they would not have to repay the loan so if they intended to be full time sty at home parents by the time they were 30 or run a cafe on a beach in Costa Rica or paint art works which never sell or work in a family business on a pittance or even run their own business but keep their income low and just make capital gains when they sell it then it seems silly to pay for them instead of having them take out the loan but I still stubbornly want to ensure they don't have that initial debt. I suspect it is more likely than not they will become higher rate tax payers in their 20s as have their older sisters too so it is probably more likely than not they would be having to pay it back and they are both boys so in our terribly sexist world it is much more likely they will not give up a good career to look after children on no or a low income.

[howabout]

Interesting RedDaisyRed. Having benefited from having a full grant myself and therefore being financially independent of my parents and financially responsible from age 17 I think I am intending to advise DC to take the full loan amount while they are studying. Further down the line I would consider helping with repayments to put them on the same debt free footing as I was on at the start of my working life but this may not make sense depending on their career / lifestyle choice.

[RedDaisyRed]

I certainly don't like the idea of encouraging young people to get into debt and was lucky enough to pick a career and deliberately always worked full time to ensure my children could graduate without any debt, even when their riche friends were investing the whole student loan in an ISA - even that in my view is a bad idea as the interest is very low and you just end up ensnared in the student loans system with its inaccuracies, errors, problems in proving repayments and subject to changes in the rules over time.Perhaps we should have full grants for everyone getting A* at A level in decent subjects or some other utterly objective test.

[WhatICallAUsername]

They're all fair points.
I think ultimately the concern for me and now students approaching university age is that we will finish university with more debt than any other students before us. Despite the fact that this is being passed off as 'student tax', the fact remains that any amount of debt (however good the repayment schedule is) is a worrying and daunting prospect, and will put off poorer students from going to university. At least with the grant we felt like that amount wasn't completely ridiculous, the new budget will add on £15,000 of debt for a three year course

[WhatICallAUsername]

I think with regards to the last point Howcan parental means test is inherently flawed! Obviously if you do not live with your parents then their income is not taken into account.
It's ultimately a vicious circle- if the parents don't pay then the taxpayer hands over more money (although I hasten to add that we students will soon be taxpayers and pay for the next generation's university fees/maintenance), and if some parents do pay and the taxpayer pays less money then students from lower income families can't afford university at all!
I live in one of the most expensive university towns (outside of London). Without money from the government or my uni I would not be able to afford to live here, to such an extent that even with student finance loans I would possibly borrowing money from other loan services. it's a shitty situation either way, and i'm extremely glad that this new budget will not come into place until after I have finished university