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

Most experts don't seem to think it will get very far vickibee. The Scottish government choose to subsidise their residents and that's apparently OK by the UK rules - they are using money given to them by UK for use in Scotland after all and if the English choose not to subsidise their residents that's down to them really. The EU bit comes in from a bit of EU legislation that means people from other countries in the EU (so not other UK citizens) have to pay the same as the locals (ie nothing). We all have the same reciprocal rights to all their universities (virtually all of which are a better deal than the English ones), so we can't really complain at that either.

We could all move to Scotland for the last 3 years of our dcs schooling if we really wanted to.

I do get what you're saying. I don't think the system is right though!

They should either have made it a graduate tax (ie all graduates pay, for a fixed time), or an interest free loan. Either would be a fairer way of working it, rather than this way, which basically clobbers kids whose parents are middle income, and who will end up middle income. And the issue of subsidising others, and the unfairness, comes from the trying to cobble together a 'future income' based system with a 'means tested' system.

lily - or it should come out of general taxation. agree shouldn't be from kids of middle income parents. As a minimum we should have a choice - when they first announced this on TV the politicians were saying it would just be the very top unis that would chareg 9k. the poor and very rich could have gone to these and middle class children to the rest.

yy to coming out of general taxation.

Not sure I agree with the idea that middle income children should be precluded from the top unis on the basis of cost though!!!

mine won't go to oxford or cambridge anyway.

i'm not sure i entirely agree with all this social mobility lark either. take my brother. because his wife is bone idle and can't be bothered to get a job their kids would qualify for the extra money. Mine on the other hand would be saddled with extra debt because my husband and i have worked hard at school and work. what does that teach kids about life and how is that fair?

The benefits/work thing is a joke though. I have members of my family who have made a lifestyle choice to live on benefits, and have a far higher standard of living than we do. I know this is OFTEN not the case, I'm absolutely not making light of how hard it is for low income families, but it is galling when you see members of your family having 2 expensive holidays to exotic locations (Marrakesh, Morocco, Turkey) every year, whilst living on 100% benefits.

The benefits cap (which is another issue) is to be set at 26k, but probably exclusive of child benefit. This is the maximum the Government think any family should receive. Presumably the Government do not consider this to be 'wealthy'. However, it is the equivalent to a salary of 40k. Add child benefit on top, and you can easily be into the 42/43k amounts which equate to HRT. Similar to us. And yet, we are deemed 'too wealthy' to receive child benefit. So we have 10% of our income cut, despite working really really hard, when others who are receiving the same money as us retain it (and still others on DOUBLE our income also keep it).

THEN add in the sting that we (or rather our children) will have to subsidise the university education of them, leaving my children 50k in debt, and you can see why it is so wrong.

Believe me, I'm absolutely not against a welfare system - but there needs to be joined up thinking. You can't have such a two-tier system, where one group receives everything, subsidised entirely by another group, who then end up much MUCH worse off.

Exactly, LilyBolero - but the powers that be don't seem to be listening. Increasing numbers of people will come to realise that it makes no economic sense to go to work.

Yes - this is where I've been going wrong. I've increased my hours at work to help cover the cost of ds going to university. Lucky I can do that. What I should really do is pack it in altogether so we're under the threshold for fee remission. [lightbulbmoment]

I don't think this bad new system will last. Too many people are really, really unhappy about it - worried that good potential students are being put off applying to university for fear of debt, and that it's opening the 'us' and 'them' gap ever more painfully wider. A student who will leave university with a £27,000 tuition debt has compound interest added to it throughout the period the debt remains uncleared. Nice.
No, there's too much bad feeling about all this, there's something rotten to the core. The Scots are helping their children, so are the Welsh. Our aristo English government just doesn't get that it is out of touch with the way people feel. They won't get voted back in.

Does anyone think tuition fees will decrease from 2013, if - and assuming - fewer people apply?

I fear that students applying in the next couple of years are likely to be left with the highest fees / debt, when applications drop and universities realise that they can't all charge what was supposed to be the top fee for the most exceptional cases.

I've been looking at the MoneySavingExpert calculator as well. Looks like repayment may not be as harsh as expected in practice but still we're told to pay off debt one day and told to encourage our kids to take it on, the next!

The whole thing is crapola. What is the best way to stick it to the man - given that we are all the man paying for these fees directly or indirectly?