To think it used to be free/way cheaper to go to university??

[Univercities]

When I went to university to do my degree it was practically free (republic of Ireland) I had to pay €800 per year registration fee (which I worked/saved for every summer) and that was it!! I was very lucky that my parents paid my accommodation fees(which included bill costs)! Approximately 4K per year. But I worked every weekend and lived off that money!
Then when I did my PGCE in the uk I paid approximately 3k but got it back throughout the year! I had worked all summer and saved 2.5k to live off and then used the 3k to pay rent and other costs (£62 per week)

I know I was lucky! But has it changed dramatically since or were ppl always taking out loans etc?? That was only 10years ago! NC’d!

Whilst it maybe expensive for my oldest two it is very much available to them. I would never of believed I could of afforded university (late 80s) with no back up from parents. Definitely more children from my old council estate go to university now than they did in my era.

It was free and you would have been able to get a grant to live off if your parents didn't earn enough to afford to help you. The only person I knew who really struggled it was because her parents earned enough to contribute but refused to. She still managed by working though because there were no fees to pay, only living expenses and student accommodation was cheap.

I went to uni in the 90s before tuition fees but when loans were introduced so I had a small grant and a loan to cover living expenses. I felt hard done by compared to my parents' generation who had more generous grants, no loans, and could claim dole money in the holidays.

Now potential students should think very carefully about the benefits of going to university and consider if there are other options because the debts are huge. Although the terms of the loans may currently seem ok, the government can, and has before, retrospectively change them.

I graduated in 96. No course fees. I went to my local uni so didn't have to fund accommodation. And I was able to get a (dwindling) grant for the 4 years I studied for.

It isn't debt. Its a graduate tax.

If you do Mathematics at Cambridge then you'll pay the full tax most likely, and if you do fine art at Northumbria you won't pay any of it back because you'll never earn enough.

It isn't debt. Its a graduate tax.

Until they change the terms.

The government used to pay me to go to university. At the start of each term I would queue outside the bursar's office to get a fat cheque. I would then spend it on snakebite and dope. Rinse and repeat next term. Then claim the dole outside of term time. Fell into some high paying job in the City on graduation.

Dunno what today's yoof are complaining about

I was paid to go to University (and could claim housing benefit in the holidays and sign on for the summer).

But the student debt now in England and Wales is more like a graduate tax than a true debt.

I got a full grant in the 80s because my parents didn't have much earnings or savings. I got housing benefit during term time and income support in the holidays.
Fewer people went to university.

It’s never been “free”. Even in the good old days it’s always been paid for by taxpayers. I think some people forget that.

Just to dispel the "only posh rich people went to university back then", my mum left school at 16 and was a nurse, my dad left school at 14 and was in the merchant navy. My siblings and I were the first generation to go to university.

Matriculated in 95 and didn't get a grant because my parents screwed up the paperwork. No fees to pay though. Parents grudgingly gave me £20 a week which mostly went on books. Got the grant the next year and so on until I went down in 99. Grant was about £600 per term I think, exactly the same as the batells (rent plus miscellaneous college levies). I could have got a loan but chose not to, and graduated debt free with about £200 in the bank. Parents made me work to support myself in the holidays although it was against university rules. I think the main cost of university was the opportunity cost of not working, and thus not earning, full time. Plus I then had to sit in interviews being told I couldn't have some crappy admin job because my degree made me overqualified.

It’s never been “free”. Even in the good old days it’s always been paid for by taxpayers. I think some people forget that.

I don't think anyone is under the illusion that there is no cost. It's free for the student.

I went to University in '94 and it was completely free (it was means tested, so students received a full grant, grants at varying degrees depending on their parents income, or if income was too high, no grant at all). There were no tuition fees then.

It makes me realise how lucky I was when I see the amount of debt that students incur today.

Yes of course it was. When I went to University I got a full maintenance grant which paid my hall fees (Hall was catered) and there were no fees.

I graduated 11 years ago. Left with 20k debt which I pay back £130 a month and will keep doing so until it's written off in 15 years time. My parents couldn't afford to support me financially so I worked part time around my studies, like most of my student friends at the time.
New graduates don't have to pay back anything until they earn 25k and it's also written off after 25 years. So no, I don't think it's any harder. Only the rich will pay back all of their loans these days.

Wow I think I was lucky, we had a new build hall of residence where each floor had six individual bedroom with en suites!

Oh and you used to be able to sign on during the Summer holiday!

When I went to university, I didn't pay fees. I did get a grant. Loans came in while I was there but they weren't essential, and they were cheap. There was also 'Access funding' if you were in difficulty.

There are no tuition fees in Scotland

There are if you're English.

Oh and you used to be able to sign on during the Summer holiday!

My mum was telling me she signed on during the summer break one year (she had no intention of actually getting a job), the job centre called her bluff and found her a job in a factory

Of course it's changed, the whole world has changed so much since the 1990s and even 2010.
I went to Uni mid-90s and got a grant (for reminder, the WWW was launched 1995). It was being reduced year-by-year and replaced by student loans. I remember using my overdraft to survive on rather than take out a £1000 loan, which is absolutely laughable now. We had a credit economy back then and debt of any kind was an awful thing to have to go into. Student bank accounts offered overdrafts of £400 upon arrangement only and were not taken on lightly.

Then tuition fees were introduced in 1998, at just £1k per year I think. Again, laughable now, and degrees were still worth it.

Then they went up to £3k a year, about 2004 I think (for comparison, again, Facebook launched 2004). My dh went to Uni in this time, and we were worried sick about such a massive investment. 10k debt he came out with: it was an appalling thing to be saddled with, but it was a necessary entry requirement, and without it then you couldn't get jobs that paid back then. We paid the last of it off three years ago: it was reducing our ability to get a mortgage.

Then they went up to 9k under the Lib Dem/ Tory coalition. The blithely accepted public excuse was to create a marketplace, with lower status Universities offering cheaper courses. Naturally that didn't happen. At the time you still needed Uni degrees to get decent jobs, and so there was a captive market. Every single Uni put all of its standard undergrad courses up on to 9k tuition fees.

The last public waiver for Uni tuition fees, the medical ones, went last year. I would have liked to retrain into the health professions with IT destroying the old economy. 9k debt a year, while working placements? Paying to work? Forget it. Remember that next time you see the number of nurses and midwifes we need, because retraining as a mature student has all but stopped and they used to provide a significant proportion.

In just 20 years, we've gone from thinking that £100 debt is a real risk, to accepting 50k debt as normal for those seeking learning and development. Contrary to myth, that debt is real, it is not "something different" and it does impact the ability to take on other life expenses, such as mortgages, or planning for retirement. Most people my age (late 40s) do not believe we will get pensions or retirement. There will be even less hope for those entering the workforce now. Britain's economy is dead.

I was at Uni from 1996 - 2000. There were no tuition fees - they came in a year or two after I started, I think. If I recall correctly, there were maintenance grants, but these were means tested. I was lucky, as my parents supported me.

*There are no tuition fees in Scotland

There are if you're English*

My post was in response to people saying 'UK' when talking about fees.

Is it really news to people that uni used to be free or that students these days have large student debts?

Tuition fees introduced in 1998, increasing gradually over time.
Tuition fees raised massively in 2012.
Average student debt on leaving university is something like £50k

Isn't history a wonderful thing to know about? Being able to compare experiences of just a few years ago and now. Interesting that it's so looked down upon now, and so readily re-written.

As @SabineUndine, I was at university in the late 80s/early 90s and all fees were paid, and my full grant was £825 per term. Thus was enough to live on comfortably, and I supplemented it by working over the summer. I also got housing benefit for my first year, and in the first holidays of my first year I could sign on I think.

As upthread, student accommodation wasn’t quite as nice as it is these days. I washed my clothes by hand in a bath tub for 3 years, and we had a 12” B&w tv. The phone only took incoming calls! No www, no mobile phones.