student loans

[Moominmammacat]

Does anyone think student loans aren't the marvellous thing the Government would have us believe? By its own calculator, if my DSs borrow £56,000 for a four year course(£9,000 tuition and £5,000 maintenance per year) they'll pay back £154,030 over 30 years, paying 6.6% interest from day one. Wouldn't we be better off taking out a second mortgage at 1.99% than doing this? Or am I missing something vital?

The student Maintenance Grant has been frozen for 2015/16 in the latest spending review. Very well hidden and barely reported.

My sister, whose daughter took on a loan under the old terms (around £3k a year) along with a loan for living costs, tells me the dd (now working) is currently paying back £30 - £40 a month in INTEREST ALONE. And that's under the old system, where the amount the govt asked the student to repay, was only a third of what is demanded now by Nick Clegg and the Tories.
I see something very bad building up in the future. I am desperately sorry for new students - and also for those would-be students who DON'T go in for higher education, who would have done, when HE was free, as it still is in Scotland and, I think, in Wales. The Scots have always had a lot of respect for education. The English Toffs just pretend they do.
This is a bad, bad new system. People who defend it, put forward the argument: 'Hey, it doesn't matter if can't face up to your debt; if your earnings stay low, you'll never have to.'

What a bloody irresponsible mindset to inculcate in our kids.
The whole thing stinks. Thank God my dd has escaped the worst of this fucking awful new system.

Why are people not outraged about this? My DS has applied for a loan for tuition fees as well as maintenance. The loan conditions are far from clear: what sensible person ever took out a loan on these terms? I am seriously concerned that this whole generation is going to be saddled with massive debt. Who gets the money (way above base rate)- the Student Loan Company or the government?

The threshold was lowered to 16k in April but the amount due at that level is £1 a month. I spoke to a friend about this and she seemed to think it is £1 atm but the threshold was lowered so that the admin was in place for when they re band this at a later date. It is a disgrace

The Govt (Vince Cable, who's in charge of HE) have denied
that they are going to increase interest rates for pre-2012 borrowers

Don't forget that students and their parents are voters, so the Govt can't go too far, whatever the T&Cs say.

I certainly wouldn't be taking out a mortgage for my DCs' fees. They can take out loans. If they earn loads of money, they can pay the loan back early without penalty. If the yearn v little, they need never repay it. Far better than a mortgage.

If I had money, I'd give it to them for a deposit, rather than pay their fees for them.

So are the interest rates applicable immediately or when they graduate?
For loans taken out in 2013 and beyond, the interest rates seem very high.

They've changed the terms before so they'll change them again.

I started uni as part of he first cohort to pay tuition fees (1998). Initially my loan was paid off at 9% of salary over £15k. That altered to be £21k a few years ago. They also did something with the interest rate when RPI (or whatever it used to be based on) actually dropped below 0%. I had a few months of paying no interest when actually it should have been them paying me!

greyvix the interest clock is ticking from the time a student gets his or her loan; that's my understanding, anyway. Which must mean a graduate whose income doesn't hit the repayment threshold for, say, ten years, will have a huge amount of rolled-up interest to start paying off, ten years down the line.
When Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Norman Lamb and the other turncoat LibDems, along with the Conservatives (with a few honourable exceptions, like David Davies) gave the green light to astronomical student fees, I'd have hoped they'd have made a gesture of decency by guaranteeing those enormous debts with which they were saddling our children, would at least be interest free. But no.

My dd2 goes to university in October and we have really agonised over the loan. We could pay for her as we had a bit of money left to us, but have decided that it might be best to give her some money as a deposit on a house later on. It is so hard and so unfair that it only applies to students from England. I am quite worried about it and wonder if we are doing the right thing. If they borrow the maximum of £13000 a year with compound interest of around 6.6% it is a huge debt. It's going to be at least £42,000 after 3 years. If they change the rules after she has taken it out to the students' detriment, I am going to start a one woman demonstration and chain myself to the railings at Downing Street!!

Also, she may well marry someone with a similar debt, so that will mean starting life with a £90,000 debt. All going up at approx 6.6% every year unless inflation goes up in which case it could be astronomical.

Well, I think it's all horrifying, as I said at the beginning of this thread in January. But will anyone be dim enough to take on such a shambles of a loans company ... ie, will the Govt be able to sell it on? And surely students will just default on their debts if payments increase? I'm still crossing fingers it will all be written off because it is costing more to run than the lovely old system.

Well, I think it's all horrifying, as I said at the beginning of this thread in January. But will anyone be dim enough to take on such a shambles of a loans company ... ie, will the Govt be able to sell it on? And surely students will just default on their debts if payments increase? I'm still crossing fingers it will all be written off because it is costing more to run than the lovely old system.

A friend suggested students go bankrupt but the government are one step ahead and student loans remain and can't be written off.

I am also horrified about it all- ridiculous fees, ridiculous loans. I cannot understand how it has come to this.

the clock starts ticking when they take out the loan and the interest rates are very high when they are at university, I think they change later. So they graduate (if they graduate) with a big debt. If they earn enough they can pay back without penalty and when they are able to get a bigger mortgage than they need it may be sensible for them to take one out and pay off this debt. That depends on other loan rates at the time.

If your child is likely to earn significant sums of money (Oxbridge graduate, maths graduate from leading university, doctor) and you have savings it may be sensible to use savings to avoid the debt, especially as current interest rates are so low. That does mean you may be less able to fund a house deposit when they need it but if they are earning a lot they can save their own deposit.

Governments often consider options only to rule them out as too difficult. I wouldn't expect the conditions of existing loans to change, however much the Treasury might like to do so. It's not impossible but it it unlikely.

I would put nothing past them, as they prepare to sell of the student loan book for a short term gain. One of the best commentators on all this is Andrew McGettigan. He saw a poorly redacted government report on the pre-2012 £3000 loans and how Rothchilds Investment Banks recommends retrospective raising of interest cap. It is reported on here www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jun/13/raise-interest-rate-student-loans-secret-report