To be astonished at how much debt nurses have to take on?

[ArgumentativeAardvaark]

Just reading this article in today’s Guardian about student nurses and debt www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/21/we-are-risking-our-lives-support-grows-to-cancel-student-nurses-debt?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

One of them is going to graduate with £48,000 of debt. I find that astonishing given the low pay that they receive once working- how can we possibly expect young people to take on that much debt to work for the NHS? Is that figure normal, or is she perhaps an unusual case?

My son with three children is starting uni in September to be a theatre nurse.
I dread to think the debt he will accrue ..they are quite poor at the moment.
At least you only pay back after you earn £25k and they are allowed a 5K bursary now

I think they should be written off after a certain amount of years service with the NHS

It is. Most nurses will pay back hardly anything of their debt and it is written off after 30 years, ie early 50s for most graduates.

Someone one £30k pa, so a nurse with a few years experience, pays back less than £40 pm. Only the very highest paid nurses will pay off all their student debt, ie nurse practitioners or senior managers etc.

Most who spend their entire careers as band 5 or 6 will pay back not much of it.

Ideally graduates who work in the NHS should not face the same student loan costs as people in the private sector, but the reality is that very very few of them in lower paid grades like nursing actually pay back more than a fraction of the frightening headline £48k debts.

It really does stink.
DD is in her final year of nursing, has to pay 9k a year to train, on top of working full time when on placement for half the year for absolutely nothing. No bursary anymore
Yet let's all go clap the NHS every Thursday. I'd prefer them to have a look at how shite this lot of nursing students have it compared to the previous years and sort it out for them.

I was responding to this post -

LilyE1234

The difference with other uni courses is most students don’t have to work long shifts, sometimes nights, for absolutely no wage. Student nurses, midwives, paramedics, doctors etc are paying £9k a year to work. They should at least get minimum wage for all hours they contribute during placement.

"But here we are months later, and it’s still not back."

Like I said, the culprit seems to be the American model of forcing students to borrow a lot. The government loves this model. This means that education spending now becomes an asset on their books. And they base their predictions on what will be repaid on overly optimistic models of how much graduates will be earning. Colleges love this system too because it allows them to charge more.

That’s the case for all students. But when working in the public sector e.g nurses, teachers, there is rarely an opportunity to work privately and therefore earn a decent amount of money.

Isn't it the same with other courses though, about £10k a year in fees? Not all graduates go on to highly-paid jobs, many chose a subject and career they are interested in or enjoy rather than just chasing money.

Surely you can understand that nurses play a vital role in our society and by doing nursing people are being specifically trained to do a poorly paid job that is essential for our health as a nation. It's not in the least similar to someone deciding to invest in a degree in tourism or similar who may well be doing so to improve their long term earning potential.

And yet wss,nt it a Labour that brought in tuition fees in the first place Scott?

It is a standard amount of debt for a graduate, but the vast majority of courses don't do unpaid placements. Especially as we have a shortage, the fact that fees are still being charged is quite astounding, they should be free, even if it came with a return of service and if you left before x many years you could then get the loan to pay it off. There are so many people who would probably make fantastic nurses (and midwives etc) who have years and years of experience in caring professions, good qualifications, but they cannot afford to train, which is sad.

Yes same sort of debt level a cabinet maker or furniture designer takes on too and they are lucky if they earn £30-35k a year

Someone one £30k pa, so a nurse with a few years experience, pays back less than £40 pm - they shouldn't pay back anything.

I'm on a "parents of students" facebook page and there are people there explaining their sons and daughters are now dealing with COVID patients, being used on what was meant to be their final year placement and receiving no pay. They've been exposed so they can't leave but they are still having to pay for their accommodation and they can't work to earn money to support themselves.

The real issue is that nursing is so poorly paid. These people are trained professionals doing a vital job.

I don't know the details I admit x2boys. The real problem isn't the fees though, its the government's willingness to lend money to students to cover those fees. Or to guarantee private loans, which has a similar effect. You can look at America to see the end result of this rotten practice.

A band 5 nurse in England starts on £24907 and it rises yearly with experience to £30615. Band 6 starts at £31365 and rises with experience to £37890. A band 7 starts on £38890 and rises with experience to £44503. I could go on. The average U.K. wage was £30353. Yes nursing is hard, but it in no way badly paid. There are people working just as hard for just as many hours for a lot less.

Yes but what are the average U.K. graduate salaries after the number of years it takes to get to each of these nursing levels? Comparing the salary to a national average is not a useful comparison as most people earning at the lower end have not incurred student debt.
To compare, we pay our trainee solicitors straight out of university £45k.

In Scotland nursing students still get a bursary and fees paid in full. The bursary has actually been increased.

the reality is that very very few of them in lower paid grades like nursing actually pay back more than a fraction of the frightening headline £48k debts.

@BarbaraofSeville I think that is a very good point, but why therefore is there such a lack of understanding that the exposure to these debts is not really all that financially onerous? You’d think a responsible newspaper like the Guardian would not just bandy about huge figures and quote people saying that they are afraid of taking on so much debt, if there is little chance of them ever having to repay it. Sounds like most of the students don’t understand this?

@ArgumentativeAardvaark - not all trainee solicitors get that tho. Many get much much less and most LLB graduates won’t be able to get a training contract at all.

I know CayrolBaaaskin, my intention was not to open up a satellite debate about solicitor pay.

The point I was making was that the absolute top of earnings for an experienced nurse after who knows how many years of experience is the entry level salary for a graduate who has done what I would argue is an easier degree. Just to put in context those saying that nurses are not badly paid.

You’d think a responsible newspaper like the Guardian would not just bandy about huge figures and quote people saying that they are afraid of taking on so much debt, if there is little chance of them ever having to repay it

Well for the Guardian, it doesn't suit their political ideologies to include the facts about how much debt most people will actually repay. 'nurses graduating with £48k debt' suits them much better than 'nurses with £10 pm student loan repayments' or 'almost all the money borrowed by nurses for training written off'. Although they could make a point out of 'nursing salaries so low they don't even have to pay back their student loans'.

But it's something that many people don't realise, which is quite baffling because the information is clearly available and not that complicated. And yet you get people on here saying how they've paid their student offspring fees 'so they aren't in debt' and unless they go into a well paid job and stay in it for decades, they've literally thrown the money away and would have been much better giving it to them for a house deposit.

Wherebon earth did you get newly qualified solicitors earn 45k? Absolutely not the case.

It's the same for teachers, who have to work a lot of time in schools for free (as well as late nights, parents evenings, planning over the weekend etc) before being qualified. The cost of uni is extortionate nowadays, yet there seem many people who do not value education. Graduate salaries aren't particularly high in most places, that's not to say they shouldn't be.

A lot of solicitors start on 25k. Outside of London wages are really low in all sorts of industries and professions.

Wages are lower for the most part than the late 90s and early naughties in lots of places.

In 2002 office junior were being advertised for around 16 - 18k per year. Now I see that job advertised regularly for £14.400- 17k

Theres no political will to change these wage levels and none to help nurses as the government laughter should tell us all.

But op nurses bursaries and fee being paid were done away with a few years ago now so not sure why you are so shocked about debt levels.

Also whilst labour may have introduced tuition fees at a very fair level and in a considered way. £9k per year under the coalition and then the tory government is neither fair or considered.

@Raver84

Wherebon earth did you get newly qualified solicitors earn 45k? Absolutely not the case.

No our trainees are on 45k. The newly qualified ones (after 2 years of training) earn more than that. London commercial law firm.

I only recruit them though, so you’re right, possibly you do know more than me..

Nurses don’t have to take on any more debt than anyone else studying for a degree in any other subject. Nursing is not badly paid, far from it. Experienced nurses earn significantly more than the median, and quite right, too.

Nurses do very important work, but they are in no way a special case and shouldn’t be treated as such.

I think your perception of nurses pay has a lot to do with where you are in the country.

In central London, where trainee solicitors start on £45k and many people earn a lot more than that, £30k (incl high cost area premium) sounds like peanuts.

In the rest of the country, nurses wages are above average, especially given that many people are on NMW or not much more and, for a full time hospital nurse, £25k will be the absolute least they will earn, and it goes up with experience and they get shift allowances on top.