Have you looked at the fee calculators for university fees?

[CountessDracula]

www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/student-loan-repayment-calculator

Assuming an initial debt of £40k

A low earning graduate will pay off in £22k over 30 years
A middle earning graduate will pay off £56,409 over 24.5 years
A high earning graduate will pay off £50,208 over 14 years

How can it be right that the middle earner pays more than the high earner?

This system is a load of shite

Saggars, she won't be taking the fee waiver. Her fee debt will be the same as your DC's post 2012. What she will be taking (hopefully) is a uni bursary to help her with the accommodation/cost of living. I knew someone would jump on me about my post. I think it's mean to bregrudge bright but poor kids the chance of an education.

So many parents when discussing uni say they are going to have to help with financial support for rent etc, but when your income only covers your own basic living costs, as mine does then it's impossible to help. Believe me if I had a decent income I would happily help out.

We were devasted when the rise in fees was announced but relieved to find out that uni's will be still making financial help for kids from deprived backgrounds, they already do under the current system so it's nothing new, the criteria is under 25K (some less) household income. If I earned 25K I would be able help but even working full time my salary is short of this. I am in a skilled job and not on the till at Asda btw. The area I live is a low waged/high house price area, double whammy!

There is nothing fair about this system and I feel sorry for everyone who's children want to go to uni. Even the very rich must be slightly hacked off that they will be having to fork out probably half the school fees for another 3/4 years when they thought they were finished. Doubt the children of the rich will end up paying the debt back, over 30 yrs, with interest.

Sorry Saggars, just read you post properly and can see you don't really begrudge the extra help.

Just to point out to people who are saying middle income kids will be subsidising the poorer one. The government are having to put in half 'scholarship' amount and the uni's half, this was a stipulation of them being able to charge the full 9K top up.

TBH I am about the actual amounts that will be availabe. It will on average 3K (I think) so around £60 per week.

adamschic, the reason they will be subsidising other students is because, of that 9k fee, 3k will be used to subsidise students from lower income families. So if your parental income is below a certain level, the Govt will pay 1 year, the Uni will pay another, and you only pay the 3rd.

I absolutely would support kids from lower income families having help with living costs, absolutely, no question. I totally resent the fee differential, because that was presented as 'dependent on future income' and I cannot see why a fee that is not paid upfront, but is paid back according to future salary should be different according to parental income. It's mixing up two concepts, badly.

It can be used for the fees but doesn't have to be. The amount also depends on the university, it all varies. Some of the help on offer is also only available to kids coming out of care, with nil assessable household income, coming off free school meals (unemployed parents). Non of which apply to me btw, then some help where we do meet the criteria. It's all very confusing.

I still don't know if it's 3K or 6K which according to your figures might indicate 6K. I don't think this high figure applies to many, maybe just kids without parents, which if so I don't begrudge in the least.

Glad you reread adamschic

Like Lily I absolutely do not begrudge help with living costs - it's a struggle there's no doubt. I'll have two at university this year and two next year, back down to one the year after. If I have to help them both with basic food costs.... well I have my head in the sand about it at the moment.

There really isn't any point in us all getting at each other. Which ever way you look at it the new fees mean our DC's born in late 93 onwards are going to be paying a hell of alot more than if they'd been born a few months earlier (the ones heading for uni). This applies to poor/middle and rich.

Bursaries have always been available in the system so you could say the ones paying £3k now are subsidising others currently receiving the bursaries. You could say the taxes I pay are subsidising layabouts who don't want to work (but we don't go there), it's all relevant .

Also I think when people say that unless they earn over 21K they won't pay anything back is just clutching at a comfort zone. Of course, we hope that if our DC's are spending 3/4 years studying hard then they will be rewarded with a fulfilling, well paid job and not have to struggle for money and even if they end up paying the whole lot back, they will reflect that it was worth it.

Playing with that calculator, I really wonder if they've thought this through - in almost all the scenarios I put in for a student taking the maximum loan for fees and living costs, and working in a public sector / teaching / average job there was thousands and thousands to be written off at the end of the 30 years. I wonder what proportion will EVER pay off their student loans!

Bramshott, you do wonder don't you?

The present government are still having to physically pay the money over, although I believe even at 9K per year per student it is still a cut to university funding. By the time the money trickles in they will be out of government (fingers crossed) and god knows where the country will be in 25/30 yrs time.

I wonder if it's just an accounting fiddle, shift it off the revenue expenditure to debts due, most of which will have to be written off as bad debts, I would have thought that was something to be avoided in this climate.

During the Thatcher years they sold off assets (council houses) and treated it as revenue income the books must have looked good in those years.

I wonder if like the council house sales it isn't just ideology. Maybe they hope that the 'debt' really will put off the masses and have realised they have gone too far and this is why they are helping the poorer kids.

Looking at the calculator I think they've got the potential earning figures completely wrong too. The reality is that most graduates will end up working for much less than the suggested earnings. Many of them will be unemployed for a few years and those that do find a job will be earning very little, as the typical 'graduate' type jobs are rarer than hens teeth these days.

They could have done it a lot more fairly, and a lot more successfully;

i) Have a graduate tax. Every graduate pays back, say 3% of their income above 21k for 30 years. This would mean that those who earned much higher salaries paid back more, those who earned less would pay back less, and there wouldn't be a big 'headline' debt figure. Disadvantage is that it isn't linked directly to an institution, but surely it's not rocket science to devise a funding system to accommodate this.

ii) If you do it via loans/debts, the loan must be interest free. Having it subject to an interest rate benefits the rich, as they pay it off more quickly, and therefore pay less. If it was interest free, then the rich would pay off the full amount in a shorter time, and it wouldn't matter if they paid back early, the poorer would pay it back over a longer time, and it could still be written off after 30 years.

It wasn't thought through. It was rushed through along with abolishing EMA. They only came into power last summer and this was passed 6 months later, why so quick?

Because they are arrogant and ignorant.

Look at the things they have tried to rush through;
NHS reforms
Free Schools programmes
ABolishing Building for Schools programme
Forests
Tuition fees
etc
etc

i think if the government wants to subsidise children from lower income families then it should come out of direct taxation. kids from higher income families should not be expected to stump up 3k per year - which is what will be happening where uni's charge 9k per year.

i think the whole argument of paying more for your education the more you earn is flawed anyway. you already pay more tax, plus you normally earn more for a reason - stress, inconvenience, danger, expertise, responsibility etc. if you are on a very low wage and don't need a degree why should you get it for free?

The money is coming out of general taxation. Uni's are being told to make money available via bursaries/scholarships which has always been the case. It's no different. It won't make any difference to your children if a few low income students get help, it's still 9K tuition fees.

admas - you are wrong. the uni's are only allowed to charge 9k if they give 3k of the money they gain available for students on low incomes. the money does not come from taxation - its not supplied from central government pot.

They have to have a policy in place to help poorer kids if they want to charge 9K, which nearly all of them do but it won't be 3K per student. It carn't be one middle:one poor ratio (for want of a better way of putting it) That doesn't make sense. Can you link to where it says that.

Don't know where the came from. Should have said one middle:one poor ratio.

He He it's done it again!

don't know how to link - but its on the other thread about financial information. copied this bit. also been said lots of times on TV when they were trying and failiing to justify increase - at same time they said only few unis would charge 9k.

Universities who charge over £6,000 have to use some of the excess funds over that amount to help improve access to university. The money comes from two sources, click to find out more...

The National Scholarship Programme (NSP) - lower income households

In 2012/13 the NSP, which is part of the wider access arrangements, will be roughly £100 million to give out to students with a household income under £25,000 ? half provided by universities half by the state.

Yet the name is frankly less accurate than calling a rabbit a cabbage. It is neither national (there's no uniform system and each university provides its own) nor is it about scholarships (which are based on academic merit). Rather it's about bursaries and fee waivers.

Yet the double misnomer doesn?t mean it isn?t important.

Close

The Access Programme - widening participation

Institutions that charge fees above £6,000 are also obliged to put some of the excess charge (works out at an average of around 25%) into access agreement schemes to widen participation for students from under-represented groups. In 2012 this will be around £500 million which will be spent on waivers and bursaries (including part of the NSP).

This money will be given to students from household incomes up to £42,600 who come under represented groups, eg, those most able but least likely to apply.

Yes I've read all this somewhere too, but I don't think that 3K per student will be given to other students. Just some money.

Can you fathom out from this how much is available because I carn't. Also haven't a clue who the Access programme is for. Those most able but least likely to apply .

well maybe its not all the 3k - but i still think it should come from general taxation and not my kids pockets. they will be in enough debt as it is.

This is from Sheffield University website

'Using funding from the government's National Scholarships Programme (NSP) and the University's own money, we will be offering up to 200 first year fee waivers (£9,000) to home students from low income households who live in economically deprived areas. These students won't need to take out a tuition fee loan for their first year, because the cost will be covered by the University and the NSP'

So one student will have a shed load less debt than another student but may have a greater ability to pay post-grad.

and if you are low income but live in an area which isn't economically deprived why should you be excluded? doesn't make sense.

Am all for students from low income families receiving lots of financial help for their living expenses etc but can see no reason for help for their actual tuition fees as per Sheffield. All students graduate with the same chance of a job and no one has to pay it back until they are earning over a certain rate.
It doesn't seem fair!

I wrote to my MP about this when it was first announced, and she said that 'it was our duty to encourage social mobility'.

missing the point I think.