To think that if you are university educated then give up your career...

[KingRolo]

...you should have to pay back the university fees?

I know several SAHMs who have degrees and professional qualifications but have no intention of returning to their old jobs. Some of them only worked for a couple of years before giving it all up.

I know two men who trained to become doctors and then soon after qualifying left to backpack round Australia.

That's fine, it's a free world, but the tax payer paid for these people to spend years in full time education. And for what?

So is it fair that 18 year olds (or their parents) have to pay huge tutition fees when people who were lucky enough to benefit from free education then decide not to use it?

Maybe I'm being U but it does annoy me a bit!

"It just feels like this generation of young adults
are being shafted in every way at the moment." No. It's more a case that the previous generation were fortunate enough to have a state-paid university system.

they were fortunate. Now things have changed. Now the state cannot afford to support every eighteen year old that wants to go to university (and the number of eighteen year olds going to university has vastly increased over the past 30 years).

The argument that "well it used to be free" is simply not valid. Things change, and there is not a bottomless pot of money to pay for everything.

Just because people have to pay now does not mean that the people who never had to pay should be made to pay back.

YABVU

never mind education for education's sake

of course it's nice to have a plan, have a career, find a course that will get you a good job etc

but my DP read History and got so fed up with people saying 'so what are you going to do with that?' - he loved the subject and wanted to study more indepth and enjoy three years immersed in something he found fascinating

of course it's a bit different with vocational degrees, but I think the idea of learning about something because you love it rather than because it will help you get a well-paid job at the end has been lost with the very high tuition fees (of course students can get loans but they are put off because they know they will have to pay them back and so look for a degree that will be 'worth it')

Milly- they can get loans yes that cover cost and some living costs.

Bsed on where I live (cheaper Uni, low housing) that loan almost exactly matches the cost of accomodation.

So there's a deficit.

if you can get a job, great- increasingly that's hard, and some courses don't make that easy- Social Work was the notorious one for hours from my acquaintances.

There are also kids whose aprents are assessed to help and refuse. Quite common, in fact.

Several students a year are dropping out atm according to afriendly prof I know becuase theya re losiing their PT jobs and can't eat; this place is very badly affected by the recession.

If you are older and have kids, the finance provision is good- I was quite happy with what I ahd by way of grants etc, and there are some bursaries about, but for 18 year olds finances can be tough. I do think children saying they can't afford it now* should be reminded that they can always attend later in life, I found it combined well with having young babies.

• There is also a cultural thing- where I grew up, big estate, you left school at 16, worked in a factory and paid heft amounts to your apents until you married and moved away; I had to fight just to be allowed to go to college at all (Mum was all for it, dad against) and a lot of peopleI grew u p with wouldn't have had a chance of beating those barriers.

The proposition as in the OP is clearly nonsensical and impossible to implement: can you seriously imagine the paperwork involved with tracing people who were students prior to 1998 and then determining whether or not they'd contributed enough to merit 'free' education? Not to mention the unfairness of essentially backdating the fees 10+ years.

In these days of fee-paying students I do think however there is a case for something similar however. IIRC it is currently the situation that medical students get the last two years of their course funded by the NHS and nurses, midwives etc get the whole course paid for. I think it would be totally fair enough to require them to work for the NHS for say 2 years upon graduation and if not then the fees would need to be repaid to the NHS. In fact I think this idea is currently under consultation for nurses.

Of course education is an end in itself and I believe tuition fees should be scrapped completely. But until they are (if ever) it is just not fair that today's kids are paying a fortune while others - and I'm thinking mainly of people with professional qualifications - aren't using them and are never going to. I'm not talking about SAHMs / SAHDs or anyone who is going to return to work, even if it's one day a week part time or in an unrealted job.

I wonder if people will have different opinions on this when their DCs are applying for uni?

'The argument that "well it used to be free" is simply not valid

True, but nevertheless those people shouold realise the value of what they did have and at least realise they seem to be taking the proverbial when they expect everyone else to pay it back. Yes an increasing number of grads means we can't fund them all absolutely, but there is a certain amount of humility required in being able to say 'I know I got it for free but you will ahve a £20k debt'and not look like a twat; IMO the humility is lacking.

There is big value in studying for the sake of study- I studied religion for 3 years (world rather than Theology), and it hs now bought me access to a vocationally focussed MA. Fab, well used.

YABU - Some people work very hard to get good degrees and live on very little during those years and are unable to get a well paid graduate job at the end of it all due to there not being enough "graduate jobs".

I doubt there are many doctors who go through all those years of training and do not use their degree in some way. They may take a few years out and return to some kind of medical work.

Another degree educated SAHM here.

I got my degree in the days before tuition fees and have paid back about 3/4's of my student loan and a whole load of tax on top of that.

I made the totally wrong degree choice where nay decent kind of job is very scarce and round ehre non existent, I have 3DCs and am pregnant with no4, childcare costs means I have no chance right now of going back to work even if I wanted to which I don't.

I will retrain at some point though.

oh fuck off with yer shite

I hate thread like this

Also- why should they use the degrees, surely all anyone has a right to be intrested in as a taxpayer etc is whether they are paying back the loans?

Doesn't matter to the student loans system if someone is working as a shop assistant or medic, as long as they earn £15k PA and pay the loan back.

I graduated from University in 1996. I got no money from my parents, no grant, and my student loan was £800. My accommodation costs for the year were about £2000 (£40 per week). So if students are now getting loans big enough to cover their accommodation costs they are a lot better off than I was.

True Milly, but presumably you worked?there just aren't enough jobs here at the moment- Dh is selfemployedso he'sOK< but in a city with severalalrge towns surrounding the jobs page this week was about 5cm long, and students jobs aren't free'dup becuase the people who graduated over the last few years still haven't left them as they ahven't found another post,and other places are taking on people they'd never have dreamed recruiting before in preference as 8any* job is a bonus atm

DoNotPressTheRedButton - yes, exactly. That's what it's like for the kids I teach. The take up at the last Aim Higher event was appalling, students predicted As and Bs at A level who have already decided uni is not for them. It wasn't like that when I was at school. The grants weren't great then but with a loan and a pt job it was managable. There aren't even many pt jobs now.

KR do you ahve a mentorscheme running with a uni? I used to mentor students (mine were in the d-c range though) and it's so helpful to be able to pass on that advice, esp.when parents haven't studied.

I do think more should be amde of the fact that 18 isn;t the only age to study- for amny later is by far better, for all sorts of reasons.

Sorry about typing btw, have toddler in my arms and that makes it hard LOL

We have lots of different schemes running with the local unis and have mentoring for all post-16 students to guide them but it's hard work to get them to see uni as something for them when it's not part of their culture. And it is the fees that are the big issue - they don't want to saddle themselves with a vast debt they are unlikely to be able to pay off until they are in their 30s.

So it irks me to see folk - like my mates in Oz - swanning around not using what they've got and not realising how bloody lucky they are.

so where do we draw the line?

What about people who live all their lives on benefits (people who choose not to get a job rather than those who have no choice because of disability/having to care for a family member), if they never get a job should they be made to pay back the benefits they have been given? Or perhaps they should not be entitled to nhs treatment as they haven't paid for it?

Or could you go the other way and say that people who pay for private education/healthcare should get tax relief?

Ultimately it will always work out that some get more out of the system than others. But that's just life.

In that case it's not really those lucky folk that got their fees paid when that was the system you should be narked at - you should aim your anger at the government whose policy it has been to gradually erode funding for universities and expected the students to make up the difference.

And I hate to say it but university funding is likely to be squeezed even more over the next few years, and the cap on top-up fees is also likely to be removed within two years so the costs will be even higher.

On a more hopeful note for your students KR, a lot of universities now have very generous bursary schemes for students from poorer backgroounds. And several countries offer tuition-free degrees taught in English if you want to think slightly outside the box.

Agree Wannabe, also peopleshould remember that the amount they have had to claim at ) may well bear no resemblance to life as a whole, given that you would have to be very risch to afford disability carefor life or the like without help,and that can happen to anyone at any stage, and becomes really quite likely as we age.

Be grateful for what we have today, and assume not it will be the same tomorrow.

But one of the highest indicators of a child's eventual success is the mother's education level. So even if a SAHM is not working outside the home she is still using her education.

Also, she may be reading in class, cooking in class, organising PTA events which enhance all the children's schooling, etc.

She may also go back to work later.

YABVU. The tax payer did not pay for these people to go to university, well they might have paid some but not all. They would have paid some fes themselvs or taken out a Student Loan.
DD2 is currently at university and has a laon but we are paying a lot of money for her accomadation. Most students who go to uni at 16/19 hace parents who support them in some way and those parents have paid tax.

YABVU. The tax payer did not pay for these people to go to university, well they might have paid some but not all. They would have paid some fes themselvs or taken out a Student Loan.
DD2 is currently at university and has a laon but we are paying a lot of money for her accomadation. Most students who go to uni at 16/19 hace parents who support them in some way and those parents have paid tax.

Most peoples lives are quite complex - just because you have a few years at home with your children doesnt necessarily mean you have given up on the whole job thing entirely or have wasted your education. Say you are a SAHP between the ages of 30-35 you still have 30 odd years of work ahead of you. Also controversially if you are degree educated/professional aren't you likely to be improved generally as a person/citizen/parent and therefore contributing positively to society even if you are not earning money with the particular skills you have throughout your whole life?

The OP sounds like my ex boyfriend who used to complain that women shouldnt take up the few traineeships on offer to become lawyers because they would just leave and have children

Dont feel guilty myself as worked so hard during my 20s you could have built a few hospitals with the taxes I must have paid. Do regret that abit I must say!

"So it irks me to see folk - like my mates in Oz - swanning around not using what they've got and not realising how bloody lucky they are." I think that applies to all of us tbh.

I grew up in a country with no benefits system, no nhs, if you needed hospital treatment you had medical insurance, and it would be up to the medical insurance company to decide whether you could have the treatment - or not.

These are things we all take for granted - we all have a lot more to be grateful for than the fact that someone before us might have received a free university education!