Would you avoid a government loan for university costs?

[thirdhill]

With the proposed funding changes, where repayment appears to be effectively a licence to deduct future earnings, rather than to recover what was borrowed, what would you do?

E.g. commercial loan, mortgage extension, student holiday work, working and saving before course starts, are some alternatives. Or even, as has been experienced in many less developed countries, where future stars live and work elsewhere and avoid repayment.

This is assuming that most people do not plan a future that fails to earn enough of a living to trigger the tax.

Or would you see signing up to having future livelihood taxed as your best option? I'm curious as to how many people will actually find a way of resisting the offer of signing up to extra taxes for their working lives.

When the millionaire cabinet members pay back the cost of their free educatin, I'll worry about the poor needing to pay theirs back.

If most of Europe - and other parts of the UK - can fund the education of their students either entirely or mostly, then I don't see why English youth should view themselves as 'screwing the taxpayer' if they fail to pay back 9K a year plus lots of interest.

Maybe we need to address issues of poor wages in the UK - why many graduate level jobs pay barely more than the minimum 21k level and why a nurse or a teacher is regarded as worth only a tenth of a banker, say.

I would also query why the tuition costs are so high and also equal regardless of the subject...back in the day when the Local Authority paid for mine and you had to queue up with your little bit of funding confirmation paper, my English degree tuition was worth circa £1.5K to the Uni, whereas my friend's social science tuition was £1K more and full science degrees much more again.

Probably controversially I think most arts degrees could be awarded in two years (I have a first and could easily have fitted all the work and study in in two years) which would make a substantial saving to individuals and the government.

breadandbutterfly - I take your points, but if we're splitting hairs, you could argue that the truly 'poor' (socially deprived and already let down by the care/education system) are screwed the most; those with no aspiration/academic aptitude/SEN/chaotic homelives/in care/no knowledge of the existence of higher education (and I mean ever, not just those theoretically put off by the changes): why should the aspiring working/middle classes/everyone else get three further years of free education enabling them to earn more money? No necessarily my opinion, but its one argument.

Because I believe we should be encouraging social mobility not restricting it. It seems illogical to ask why the poor should fund other people's higher education - firstly, if they're that poor, they will be net recipients nt givers in the tax system, so they won't be paying for themselves let alone someone else's degree.

But i hate this whole 'why should the postman pay for the doctor to go to university' stance as it presupposes that the postman will never wish to better themselves and become a doctor - or an artist or a physicist or an economist etc etc. People are not inevitably 'stuck' in their social rankings - I teach plenty of kids like the ones you describe and some of them amaze me with the huge determination they have to achieve their goals despite facing massive disadvantages initially.

but do you honestly think that NL would be any different. didn't they encourage everyone to go to university and introduce tuition fees.

I do understand the interest rate is not 9% but i think it should be minimal.

I wanted our 3 older children to graduate debt free and their university costs were about the same as their day school annual costs so that was okay to fund and all 3 have graduated debt free (as I made wise career choices to ensure I could pay things like that for my children).

I would hope to do the same for the younger two even though I accept that if they never earn over £20k they never have to pay a penny back (I am assuming they are likely to earn £100k a year + for a lot of their lives although I may be wrong).

Also some of the older chidlren's friends who have rich parents who funded them took the loan an dp ut it in an ISA. However the admin of the loan and the fact you then have that debt and that interest on savings is so very very low I would not have been happy with their doing that.