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

Sorry I was t getting competitive, I thought I was adding to the debate. I think all students should be allowed to have loans which will cover their time at uni fully.

It will stop some of the poorest people going to university as those from severely impoverished backgrounds tend to be less confident about taking on massive debts - quite right too as this group are also most likely to experience graduate unemployment and homelessness. (Think - bedroom tax + abolition of housing benefit for the young = high rates of homelessness amongst poorer students)

But that's not as important as things being more equal for students from richer famies clearly.
For this generation of Tories 'equality' means something completely different to 'equal opportunity'.

Fair enough but it's very hard for a lot of people Head. I just don't like the notion of people like myself (and Frost) being held up as somehow worse off than students from deprived backgrounds.

The real difference isn't in the student finance in itself, but in the lack of all the extras and 'help in kind' that supportive MC parents can offer (accommodation in the holidays, somewhere to go after graduation if you come unstuck, parcels, cash gifts or loans, helpful chats, even laundry) . And the psychological effect of knowing you don't have that fallback. Students from hard-pressed families are often largely in the same boat as those who have parents who have refused to pay the assessed contribution in those regards.

Going back to the students from low income households; Thanks to the so-called bedroom tax and LHA rules, students coming from low-income rented family homes will often find that their families are forced to downsize once they leave for uni and so they won't even have a bedroom 'at home' to go back to. That makes a massive difference.

A lot of middle income families earning about £40k couldn't get grants though, this is hardly rich especially if you have a couple more children as well, or is it only the poor families that should get grants and have lots of children that are paid for by the state and be able to not have to pay back much loan.

and have lots of children that are paid for by the state and be able to not have to pay back much loan.
and here is where you lost your argument.

A lot of middle income families earning about £40k couldn't get grants though, this is hardly rich especially if you have a couple more children as well,

The top limit is £42k-ish plus an amount is disregarded for each additional child, so the limit is higher in practice for families with other children.

or is it only the poor families that should get grants and have lots of children that are paid for by the state

Have a

and be able to not have to pay back much loan.

How is £40k+ SL debt, "not much"?

The real difference isn't in the student finance in itself, but in the lack of all the extras and 'help in kind' that supportive MC parents can offer

But short of taking children whose parents earn less than fifty grand into care (or not, given the horrendous difficulties that people in case have getting to and staying at university), I'm not quite sure how you propose to solve that problem.

OP you mentioned in an earlier post that students from low income families will have their £8,000 loan plus university grant to live in. What university grant is this?

The grants doubtless helped Gemauve.

Yes but at £40k the grant is only small anyway and each additional child didn't add much to it.

DS has just left uni and earns about £25K and pays back very little a month on his student loan and manages to pay rent, bills etc and is not in hardship so how is it different for a person from a low income family to do exactly the same.

I did enjoy my biscuit, cheers.

Oh I agree helpful supportive parents make all the difference in those extra things which they bring.

Money does smooth the path without a doubt. With so many going though it's hard to see how you could provide grants for all though and what cut off would seem reasonable.
I expect we will see more students choosing to study at their local uni.

privilege on a plate comic strip

That comic strip is the best explanation I have seen as to why poor kids need more help.

Ruby Thanks for the comic link. It's excellent. Am going to get both DS's to read it.

I am returning to uni as a mature student. Just in time to receive the maintenance grant.

DS want's to go to uni in a couple of years after his A levels. We will overlap.

I will have less loan to pay back than he does. IF he still goes.

I actually feel sick that I am having it easier than my DS will. The future of our country is dependent on the young. For ministers to smugly talk about fairness - as if they have a monopoly on it - when they themselves received grants and many of them went to uni for FRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE and have jobs that allow them to claim back from the tax payer for every taxi journey they take, is taking the proverbial piss.

And people are so stupid they actually buy their rhetoric hook, line and sinker. I despair.

I don't know that it is affordable for anyone to have their uni place funded now, not with so many going. Unless you wanted to dramatically hike tuition fees for others to cover it.

That invokes its own unfairness, imagine being just in the other side of the cutoff, knowing you are paying more to cover someone whose parents' income is just a hair smaller than yours.

Anyway, if you want real fairness, the time for intervention is far earlier- preschool, not university

Anyone coming from a background of real adversity who has got the drive to succeed and study despite inadequate schools, poor housing, etc is already close to the finish line

Maybe concentrate on those who drop out of the race near the start point- that is wasted potential

A lot of middle income families earning about £40k couldn't get grants though, this is hardly rich especially if you have a couple more children as well

Well, thehead, as Osborne and probably you would say - why would you have 'a couple more children' if you can't afford to pay their way?

For ministers to smugly talk about fairness - as if they have a monopoly on it - when they themselves received grants

Given the age of the ministers (forties) I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of them got zero grant. The minimum grant (the grant you got if your parents earned more than a relatively low threshold) was zero from 1985 until the introduction of maintenance loans for all in 1997. So anyone aged between 36 and 48 went to university under that regime, and given the demographics of both the Tory and the Labour front benches I would be willing to bet they were almost all over that threshold and fall into that age bracket.

Fee loans are a different issue, I accept. But claiming that Tory ministers received student grants is specious: they did, but for zero pounds per year.

yanbu @ OP.

I agree that uni hits middle incomes harder. At one point my parents had 3 of us in uni, family income just over 40k and 13k of this was having to cover our uni expenses because the loan didn't even cover our rent.

It left my parents almost crippled financially for that year. Why is that fair when jonny down the road is from divorced parents, mum doesn't work through choice, Dad gives him 10k per year to live off, he gets the grant as well because he's technically a low income family.

This does make it fairer on all students, and in reality it isn't like a credit card debt, more like a pension you pay into after death and maybe pay enough back one day.

Thank you Gemauve great post. I learned something and stand corrected - although unmoved from my overall viewpoint!

Several posters like to claim that the grant threshold was 'low'. Yet when I went to Cambridge in 1985 I was on a full grant as were many many other people. I think either people have faulty memories or they only knew well off people in the 80s and assumed that this was the norm. Obviously Cameron and Osbourne will not have qualified for grants - they are utter toffs. But the same may not be true of all the cabinet.

Why is that fair when jonny down the road is from divorced parents

Do you have divorced parents and know anything about the financial, emotional and mental hardship that can bring, especially on educational achievement?

mum doesn't work through choice How do you know this? My father left my mother for another woman. She raised us herself. She fell into a deep depression and never recovered. But hey she looks able bodied so.....

This does make it fairer on all students Fairer to which type of students? Those who have encountered all the obstacles you so blithely dismissed in your example - and overcome them to make it to university and then told when they get there 'here's another wall climb up that too' are those the students who will get a fairer deal?