Student Loans for all first graduates

[Rosiecidar]

A friend of mine who is 51, mentioned that she is going to university to study English as she loves reading. She said she has been able to get a student loan she hasn’t done a degree and as long as she is below 60 she’s fine. She has a very comfortable life, has worked a little here more so she has something to do. She mentioned not being bothered about the debt as she wasn’t going to work afterwards and it was an interesting thing to do. I found this quite annoying when young people are trying to begin their lives and are straddled with debt which they are trying to pay.

I can see how it feels unfair that someone could go to uni for free while others are saddled with 10s of thousands of debt.

If she’s not currently working she presumably has a spouse or partner supporting her? She’ll get a maintenance loan too so she’ll be getting paid to do a degree others are struggling to afford and will continue to pay over and above what they borrowed for decades after they graduated.

But then equally there will be younger students who go on to be stay at home parents etc who won’t pay anything back either so it’s pretty much impossible to police.

Not if someone will employ me when I finish, ideally in teaching/16+. But that’s down to local school/college policy and hoping they get over the ageism that this thread is riddled with, doesn’t it? No one would employ me after a 12-15year employment break looking after SEN kids, 5 years ago, so I went back to uni to refresh my qualifications and get some teaching experience. Will hardly be my fault if no-one will give me a job, will it?

DH has paid 6 figure amounts in taxes for decades, so technically, I’m just getting a bit of a rebate.

You can look at it another way I suppose and say if a 60 year old had gone to uni when they were young it would have been completely free.

They are not. They giving it to the institution. Not to the individual.
Good for the institution.
The maintenance part is subject to household income

Good for your friend. She is not doing anything wrong.

I was going to say this. She's one of the lucky ones - as was I - who were deemed worthy of free university tuition because we'd made the amazing achievement of happening to be born before a certain year.

Not that it helps the younger folk, whom I believe to have been betrayed by the government in this, but she's only getting what she would have been entitled to - albeit three decades later.

At any rate, she may be thinking right now of just doing it for fun; but she might well change her mind in a couple of years, when she sees the new options available to her, and decide to put it to good use career-wise.

The reality if she is not going to work to pay it back, that the cost will need to be covered by tax payers or via the excessive interest paid by others on their student loans. I do think that tax payers money should be spent more wisely when so many working people are struggling financially and the tax burden keeps going up. The whole system needs reform.

There a lot of things I don’t think should be funded by the taxpayer but hey ho you just have to suck it up.

To take another point of view OP, if you saw the shit some universities spunk this money on you would be beside yourself.

@OnlyMabelInTheBuilding What has paying tax got to do with it? She’s not built up a fund she can raid for university costs. She will presumably get a loan for tuition fees (@Rosiecidar not £27,000 a year) but maintenance is means tested.

However, the unpaid student loans in this country are heading towards £250 billion. So we all have a stake in that debt. The universities have been given that money and spent it. I’d be inclined to say, if you don’t have 40 years to pay off the loan, or have no intention of paying anything because you don’t work, the sum borrowed should be capped. This would stop uk plc having more debt.

The reason university had free tuition 35 years ago, is that far fewer dc and people went. It’s gone mad now and we have the debt to prove it. Plus many parents did pay towards maintenance - grants were means tested.

What about those of us who got completely free tuition courtesy of the taxpayer before the fees were brought in (and went to uni at the 'normal' age)? Should they pursue all of us on behalf of the current taxpayers for all that we had and shamelessly didn't pay a penny for?

There’s lots of things I don’t think my tax should go towards, this is the least of it

So what do you suggest? A tick box on the application form: ‘Do you ever intend to get a job to make loan repayments? Y/N’? Reduce the age at which you can get a loan to 30? Make sure women and disabled people don’t get loans as they’re less likely to earn enough to pay it back?

@AntiqueBabyLoanSmurf Obviously not. But you would not have been in the 37% who now go to uni. Taxpayers have already paid your fees, as they do now! The difference is that with undergrads doubling in number, the free tuition had to stop. Should we go back to, say, 20% going and close lots of unis? Would you think that would work?

Again what does it have to to do with young people getting their degrees?

And hasn't she paid taxes all her working life and paid her dues???

@Ilovelifeverymuch Yes, but she’s not paid for a degree. Others will be paying for that. That’s the point. Dc need degrees in many cases and pay extra tax for up to 40 years. This degree is not necessary and she’s not likely to pay off the loan. It’s a fun project but uk plc is paying. Not her previous tax bill.

Totally agree!

where does your figure of £27000 per year come from ?

Exactly!
my Dd is in her second year at university and has never been a tax payer. She has a chronic health condition and may never be able to work full time so highly unlikely to repay the loan. @Rosiecidar should she therefore be denied a place at university?

I would go even further and say that there should be no student loans at all and first uni at least for 4 years ( so allowing year of or fail) should be funded as just education. Like in many other developed countries.

27k a year? Is this to get us up in arms about older people when the actual figure is 9k? You mean 27k for the whole 3 years I think.
Taxpayers money is spent on a variety of things that some people think is ‘not fair’. What about 30 hours childcare a week for parents who don’t need it?

@columnatedruinsdomino Not sure the highest rate taxpayers get that do they?

@Notthepope We simply cannot afford that because we have too big a university sector. Neither are you looking at standards or size of teaching groups. We are cheaper than USA and many other countries have some very elite private universities. We expanded degree education and those who earn more from their degrees pay for it. We cannot afford another system and nor should we.