Student Tuition Fees Increase for 18/19 to £9585/year

[bromleygirl]

If we didn't think it was bad enough the cap being lifted from £9k/year for 17/18, I have found out that for the 18/19 year, fees are set to rise for Gold and Silver uni's under the new TEF to £9585/year and then 3% each year after - subject to parliamentary approval of course. I know the uni's try to spin it by saying think of it as a graduate tax but the 30 year debt will still go against our children as they start to apply for mortgages. It makes me really upset English kids stuck paying outrageous amounts of tuition to fund the greedy uni VC's when Wales and NI are paying £3k/year and Scotland are paying nothing at all.

Oh I swore - 20.55, second para, third line

Oh she definitely fucked boys

I went back and checked

Though kudos to titchy for giving us the paragraph and line

You're quite right you did. Sorry I missed it. Given the context I rather admire your restraint.

slightly out of left field but is there scope for increased commercial sponsorship by these brands that are worried about swearing on MN.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mumsnet-swearing-profanity-offensive-foul-language-confusedcom-national-trust-bulgari-brands-a7901861.html

I've already shown how Bath could possibly knock £20 off tuition fees, and may be we could push on towards £25 with a bit of sponsor money being redirected.

Thank you boys for being arsed to find the actual figures for me

Thing is, I think Xenia Lucy forgets that the VAST MAJORITY of students don't go straight into higher rate of tax jobs. Indeed, the vast majority of people don't ever pay higher rate of tax. We get used to the people around us, and I think some people forget that they are in rather unusual circumstances, compared with the overwhelming majority of the population.

University VCs would get double or triple their salaries as CEOs in industry or business. They aren't actually overpaid when you take into account that they are CEOs of organisations with thousands of employees.
I think this argument is overused. It is more about a choice of job than earning potential. A prime-minister earns less during their period of office so running a country does not require competing with very high private sector salaries. What a VC earns before or after that position is up to their skillset and career path.
VCs are also not running companies that make a profit, certainly not sufficient to reduce fees anyway. They are in office to best spend public institution income and facilitate / hopefully improve a research and teaching environment

AldiAisleofCrap it may well affect mortgages if graduates move overseas. I have a UK student loan and so does my husband. It is counted as overseas debt and we cannot get a mortgage until we have paid them off.

Repayments are also paid direct to the SLC not taken out of pay before tax. Our repayments are huge because we live in a country where both salaries and cost of living is high. So the SLC reckon we ar huge earners but in fact we are fairly average. The repayments are a huge outgoing for us.

Back my postman son has started at Ocado (delivery person) this week. I know about wages people earn. You just do the sums relating to your own children and decide for the very few of us women who earn enough to fund the fees.

You could argue why go to a low grade university from which you won't get much of a job like an ex poly and that to take on £50k of debt for that is just a con. and therefore if you go instead to a good one you are likely to get a high law type salary ergo if the mother can afford to fund it then fund it. On the other hand you might think let our adult children take their own decisions and if they want to take basket weaving and have a big debt they will never have to pay off good for them or they decide to do law because they want to earn £1m a year as an equity partner in due course and the debt is worth it and easily paid off or whatever.

You could argue why go to a low grade university from which you won't get much of a job like an ex poly and that to take on £50k of debt for that is just a con

is this not part of the bigger issue, That £50k debt is to all intents and purpose meaningless for that individual. if on a low, or relatively low salary there repayments will be minimal, and after 30 years wiped off anyway. There is little if any disincentive not to do it, which is perhaps a more fundamental challenge. On the other hand there will be many socially useful roles that require a degree, but are not going to be particularly highly remunerated either. Whetherall of those roles really require a degree could be another topic for lively debate.

The increasing cost of uni tuition fees is definitely a factor in the drop in applications this year.

Can you just look up the actual data, rather than extrapolating from your own experiences? The drop in UK applicants is explained from the demographics.

The people who are going to be thumped by the ever increasing loans are middle income couples.

Those earning high salaries will either be loan free as they're far more likely to come from higher income parents, or will pay off quickly.

Those earning low salaries will either never pay, or pay at low amounts until the 30 years is up.

Middke earners will end up paying for the whole thirty years as there won't be quite enough to pay off early. A couple of middke earners will feel this. It will have a huge impact on their housing opportunities, family plans, pension provision.

BTW of course those who work in universities are also parents. Of course we don't like our own children having to take out loans.

But we do actually want to be paid and not have our salaries reduced year on year while our workload is increased year on year. As well as increased teaching, thus reduced research time when there is more and more pressure to produce top research, many universities have made savings by making academics take on more and more administration.

Freezing fees forever is just not an option - particularly at a time when UK universities are being hit by the early effects of Brexit (decreasing EU student numbers, loss of contacts from EU companies etc), staff are leaving for the EU/US etc etc.

Freezing fees at 9k actually meant that students were paying less and less per year, in real terms.

user - has your university not implemented the annual pay increases?

User, also the large UK uni my DH works at has not seen any drop off in EU applications this year and they have also increased applications from outside the EU. The academics there have not had any of their research time reduced either.

My annual pay increase this year is 1.5% - against a backdrop of 3% inflation. And that was more than last years!

I hate fees. I hate the way they've changed the university planning processes and I hate the impact they have on student's experience and perception of money and debt ('in for a penny, in for a pound' etc)

What I object to is blaming universities for the situation. The problem is not that universities, having finally been allowed to increase fees to deal with inflationary costs, have chosen to add a few hundred pounds onto fees every year. The problem is that the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government withdrew most funding from universities (and replace that funding with fees, putting students into massive debt); and that the previous Labour governments paved the way for that by introducing the principle of fees and student debt. That's where the fault lies. And members and former members of those governments, and newspapers that support them, seem to be doing a very good job of deflecting responsibility onto universities so that they can avoid (a) taking the blame; and (b) actually having to rethink university funding, which is a time consuming and costly process that probably has no right answer unless we cut the number of university places (which, as well as depriving young people of the opportunity to go to university, will cause massive job losses - most university fees go towards staff salaries).

So I suppose I am a treble payer - got minimum grant originally £50 a year not £900!!!!!! (people think it was all free in my day too); then paid for the children (you might say more fool me of course); and then pay for through very high taxes for the 30 - 50% of students who will never pay it all back - even the sell off of the loan book to companies like Erudio involve the state (me) taking a hit/loss on the loans.

I agree with the point above that for many who will never earn much or will give up work shortly to make babies and stay home for 20 years, there is very little repayment so university education remains virtually free. Even those due to inherit a £100m family business can just ensure they are paid £14k a year salary only so they never repay it.

User, sorry about multiple posts - just interested as you are painting a very pessimistic picture and that isn't the case at my DH's uni at all. There has been no loss of EU research contracts or staff leaving to work in the EU/US due to Brexit . Obviously, academics do move around and work in other countries for research etc.

I'm sure there will be a knock-on effect with Brexit but DH's uni are looking at other markets to minimise the effects as I think most Universities are.

I can only speak from my experience, but I honestly wouldn't worry about students with debt not getting a mortgage.

I'm a graduate from the first year of increased fees, as is my partner. We have been looking to buy a house together for a while, and have about £110k worth of student debt between us - we did four year courses and I did a PGCE afterwards. I started to do some ringing round to find out what/if we can get a mortgage, and the only issue I came up against is the fact that as a Newly Qualified Teacher I don't start my job until September, so don't have three months of pay slips. Our student debt was pretty much brushed off when speaking about potential mortgages - if you have a deposit sorted and a job, and don't rack up a load of other debt then you will not be penalised for having a student loan.

We haven't been for the formal mortgage meeting yet but in principle they are happy to give us what we need, because the loan repayments will come to about £120 a month between us, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that much, we used to pay £87 between us for phone bills before we came to our senses!

Yes it's shitty and yes it's (more often than not) a bunch of 18 year olds signing up for debt they don't particularly understand, I know I didn't. However, I wouldn't be in this position where I'm about to start in the profession I've wanted to be in since I was 11 without that debt, and that is far more important to me than having a graduate tax for the next 30 years

This can't - has your DH's university been awarded any long term EU research grants since Brexit though? The existing ones they have of course will remain until they're run out.

Is his institution what some would regard as an elite?

titchy - I'm not sure about EU research grants since Brexit but I will ask DH when he gets in tonight and report back.

I did have a quick word with him last night on the pay increases and he said it isn't that straightforward as simply saying student fees pay for salaries - obviously they go towards them but there are other factors like the rate of public sector pay awards. It was only a quick conversation so I will try and get more detail later on.

He doesn't work at a Russell Group Uni but it is an "old" university and ranks highly on RAE.

I'm not sure on your point about public sector salaries or fees paying salaries only being part of the picture Fees are our main source of income and salaries our main expenditure - of COURSE fees are the main part of the picture....

Public sector pay has nothing to do with university pay, because we are not paid out of the public purse - as titchy says we are paid from fees. I've heard some people suggest that we should not be given inflationary pay rises because of the public sector pay cap - but that's about solidarity with public sector workers, and the public sector pay cap doesn't apply to us (if it did, VCs wouldn't be getting massive pay rises...).

I'm at a big RG and our international/EU recruitment picture is a bit mixed - we reckon that the currently favourable exchange rate is helping compensate for any loss of interest in the UK. But when it will really hit is when we've actually left - at the moment, I think some EU students are choosing to take a calculated risk either that Brexit will be delayed until they graduate, or that the terms of any transition agreement will maintain lower fees for them.

titchy - I agree with what you are saying. I was asking him if the amount tuition fees are set at directly affected the annual pay increase of university staff. I was interested as user implied that salaries in universities had fallen back in real terms because of tuition fees being frozen at £9,000. DH said it wasn't as straight forward as that, they had to be linked into public sector pay awards (so fees being frozen at £9,000 isn't the only reason University staff have had below inflation pay rises). I won't claim to know all the ins and outs and I definitely don't have all the answers. I'm just interested in other peoples perspectives on the subject.

I'm interested in tuition fees as DS2 will be making decisions shortly and as a mum I am concerned about tuition fees continually rising and the debt. However, I also know the benefit of a University education and I feel quite torn on the subject.

I also wonder where this will all end up. Fees keep rising, students have more debt. More money is, therefore, owed back and if a large percentage of students only end up paying a proportion of their debt back or maybe none of it where is the money to keep funding new students going to come from. At the moment EU students also get the tuition fee loan from the UK government but the last statistics I saw EU students alone owe in excess of £4 billion on student loans.

DH is Director of Finance at the Uni so I will try and get more detail when he gets home.

Garnet - I thought VC's salaries and their package was decided internally at universities as they are not on any kind of salary grading structure. Whereas other pay awards for academic, academic related and admin staff who are on set pay grades are settled nationally. I agree that uni staff are not paid out of the public purse but DH said there is a public sector link. I will ask him to explain more and maybe I have misunderstood what he said.