Government stuffing young people again, student loans

[Binjob118]

Great day to bury the news that from next year student loans will be repayed over 40 years instead of 30. This makes a massive difference. Hate this government and Tony bloody Blair for stopping free tuition. Of course, won't affect all the rich kids who never take out the loan. This on top of impossibility of young people ever being able to buy a home makes me want to scream. Totally screwed. Certainly don't think IABU!!

@mjf981

The young in the England are being shafted at every turn. Crap wages and impossible and rising costs for everything. They need to get out and protest. Vote out the Tories. Or emigrate. The apathy of most is concerning.

This is absolutely how I feel. No political party is challenging the punishment of the young. I only see it ending with an uprising of some sort. The left in the US are calling for a general strike, they also have no faith in either party.

Why should today’s young have to pay back a loan of £45k plus interest when previous generations didn’t?

Because ten times more of them go to university. We could afford to fund a relatively small number of people through higher education. We can’t afford 50%.

@Blossomtoes

Why should today’s young have to pay back a loan of £45k plus interest when previous generations didn’t?

Because ten times more of them go to university. We could afford to fund a relatively small number of people through higher education. We can’t afford 50%.

Short sighted, we need far more skilled workers and many occupations are degree level now, not least in health.

We have a falling birthrate, the numbers going into Uni will fall naturally.

But of course we also need to encourage more into technical non degree training but many also require student loans.

"Many occupations are degree level" because so many people have degrees. There no reason at all for most jobs to require degrees, you could start the job at 18 and learn on the job and be far more adept in 3 years than someone starting the job at 21 after earning the degree. Plus the person starting work at 18 is earning for those 3 years while the degree-getter is building up debt.

Barristers need a degree to do their job. Baristas do not. Nor do most other jobs.

My view is that many ‘non-vocational’ degrees end up being incredibly important career wise. Sometimes through graduates becoming more and more specialised, e.g. geographers moving into environmental roles, psychology graduates into clinical practice. But, for me, I got academically challenged at university in a way that I never was at school, and it was the making of me. It’s worth remembering as well that the ‘vocational’ subjects tend to be the subjects that are most expensive to teach. They normally rely on other parts of the university to keep financially afloat (hence chemistry departments going rapidly out of favour).

@Blossomtoes

Why should today’s young have to pay back a loan of £45k plus interest when previous generations didn’t?

Because ten times more of them go to university. We could afford to fund a relatively small number of people through higher education. We can’t afford 50%.

It wasn't their decision that Blair decided 50% should go to Uni, thus making a huge number of unnecessary jobs/occupations into "graduate only". Today's youngsters have to go to Uni to get a degree for virtually any decent job, including call centres etc.

Many occupations are degree level" because so many people have degrees. There no reason at all for most jobs to require degrees, you could start the job at 18 and learn on the job and be far more adept in 3 years than someone starting the job at 21 after earning the degree. Plus the person starting work at 18 is earning for those 3 years while the degree-getter is building up debt.

Exactly, employers have "decided" to lazily make a degree as a minimum requirement to make their recruitment process easier, i.e. weed out everyone without degrees. Most jobs don't require a degree as most degrees are irrelevant to the job that the graduate gets. I.e. when I worked in accountancy practices, I can only remember one "trainee accountant" graduate with an accountancy degree - all the others had a variety of completely unrelated degrees, the ones I remember being traffic planning, geography ,and environmental science. I also have to say the accountancy degree graduate was no better than the others as much of what was required of being an accountant wasn't actually taught as part of the accountancy degree, so all graduates went through the identical training/qualifications route, regardless of degree, alongside those school-leavers who were accepted onto the trainee accountancy course with A levels coming straight from sixth form.

Sorry but university is not what it used to be, too many go now and I don't think it makes a difference. May as well get an apprenticeship or just work your way up.

@velvet24

Sorry but university is not what it used to be, too many go now and I don't think it makes a difference. May as well get an apprenticeship or just work your way up.

"Work your way up" is no longer possible in many jobs/occupations as many employers have a degree as a minimum entry requirement, so you can't get a foot in the door to "work your way up".

Lots of apprenticeships are pretty poor. The good ones (British Aerospace, BNFL, KPMG, PWC, etc) are highly oversubscribed and have similar entry requirements to university, so are not accessible to those weaker students with lower grades at GCSE or A level. College based apprenticeships for trades are pretty poor and aren't valued by students nor employers, with employers having to provide the "hands on training" whilst the apprentices learn superficially in classrooms.

I disagree, not that many jobs are degree only and my kids are on fantastic apprenticeships. Uni is waste a of time now with all the debt et c

""Work your way up" is no longer possible in many jobs/occupations as many employers have a degree as a minimum entry requirement, so you can't get a foot in the door to "work your way up"."

So if we reduce the numbers of people going to University, employers will have to change. Better for everyone.

To all those saying that "it is a loan, you should pay it back" - how would you feel about scrapping all the loans and instead implementing a graduate tax? Would that be acceptable to you?

So you get given grants, not loans, to go to uni, but when you are working you pay an extra tax for the rest of your working life.
In effect, it would be the same as it is now for the vast majority of graduates - just with different terminology.

The big difference would be for extremely wealthy families - whereas now they pay upfront with cash for their children, and don't take out any loans, under a graduate tax system their children would have to pay the tax for life regardless of how wealthy their parents were.

This is of course why we have a loan system - wealthy tory (or as-was 'new labour') voters don't want a graduate tax as their families would be worse off.

Or we could go back to having 5% of people go to uni instead of 50%.
There was a large element of "cargo-cult" thinking by the politicians when they set the 50% target - "educate them and the jobs will come". But giving 50% of people degrees doesn't make millions of more true 'graduate' job appear - it just de-values degrees in the market.

Surely the system was better when the fees were £12k for three years - and a rule that everyone should pay it back. Now the fees are vast so very few (or rather as pp said the middle schmucks) will be paying. I know the universities needed more income, but the present system means that the burden is kicked into the future with billions of pounds of written-off loans.

It doesn't really make a difference whether the fees are £12 k for three years or what they are now. Either the former students are paying back £12k and the taxpayer is paying for the rest of the cost, or the former students are paying back whatever they pay now, and the taxpayer is paying for the rest of the cost after the majority of the loan is written off after 30 years. It's a ridiculous situation when the vast majority of graduates are not going into occupations that actually require a degree.

It's a ridiculous situation when the vast majority of graduates are not going into occupations that actually require a degree

Have you got any figures to back this up? or is it an opinion.

I've always argued that it should be a graduate tax for EVERYONE who has been to uni. So all of us who got free education in the nineties and even got given a grant, can contribute alongside our young people who it appears are supposed to pay for all. If higher education can't be free for all, then all should pay.

Or is it actually to do with voting patterns.... Surely not.

@Florenz of course it makes a difference if someone has a £10000 loan or £50000 loan , which one do you think will be paid back quicker and would very unlikely not need to be written off
Also many do degrees because its needed to do the job they would like

@EATmum well that would be good but I bet some who are saying tough now wouldn't like this as it would affect them

We have to let go of this ‘graduate job’ business. If a graduate is doing the job then it’s a graduate job. People should be educated, your degree enhances your individual skills . I’m an accountant, you can be an accountant without a degree but I think my degree enhances my skills and makes me more successful in my role and certainly as a person but arguably it’s not a ‘graduate job’ .

Other societies for example in the Scandinavian countries value for its own sake and as a societal good

@velvet24 in your opinion guess your kids don't want to be teachers or nurses which must have a degree , guess will be ok as when no one does these jobs we can at least say well at least we won't be writing of loans
What are their appeenticeships in

@velvet24 not all apprenticeships are great either , what are your childrens in ?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_States

Look at this page. We still have it a much better! In the US defaulting on a government student loan permanently damages your credit score. There's no threshold of income before repayment starts. 6 months after graduation... you have to start paying back what you owe.

[quote worriedatthemoment]@velvet24 in your opinion guess your kids don't want to be teachers or nurses which must have a degree , guess will be ok as when no one does these jobs we can at least say well at least we won't be writing of loans
What are their appeenticeships in[/quote]
The point is that those professions previously weren't degree only. Are we saying that younger teachers/nurses are inherently better than the older ones, due to them now being degree professions??

@Beancounter1

To all those saying that "it is a loan, you should pay it back" - how would you feel about scrapping all the loans and instead implementing a graduate tax? Would that be acceptable to you?

So you get given grants, not loans, to go to uni, but when you are working you pay an extra tax for the rest of your working life.
In effect, it would be the same as it is now for the vast majority of graduates - just with different terminology.

The big difference would be for extremely wealthy families - whereas now they pay upfront with cash for their children, and don't take out any loans, under a graduate tax system their children would have to pay the tax for life regardless of how wealthy their parents were.

This is of course why we have a loan system - wealthy tory (or as-was 'new labour') voters don't want a graduate tax as their families would be worse off.

Or we could go back to having 5% of people go to uni instead of 50%.
There was a large element of "cargo-cult" thinking by the politicians when they set the 50% target - "educate them and the jobs will come". But giving 50% of people degrees doesn't make millions of more true 'graduate' job appear - it just de-values degrees in the market.

I agree, people don't really understand how this loan is different. Also there's the distinction between:

1. Going to university
2. Getting a degree
3. Getting higher qualifications (many of which like the accounting qualifications are degree level at the end, NVQ level 6).

'50% of the population educated to degree level' doesn't mean all of them doing 1). 2) and 3) are viable options.
Event management, hospitality... a waste of 3 years pure academia. Do it like accountancy.

@EATmum

I've always argued that it should be a graduate tax for EVERYONE who has been to uni. So all of us who got free education in the nineties and even got given a grant, can contribute alongside our young people who it appears are supposed to pay for all. If higher education can't be free for all, then all should pay.

Or is it actually to do with voting patterns.... Surely not.

So that universities, uni housing LL's and all related parties can continue to milk students for their money?# What about people who did online degrees? Foreign students? Degree apprentices? What sense does it make to punish people?

Not everybody should be going to a traditional 3 year uni,
Solve the issue of alternative paths, and the issue of degree devaluation will solve itself