The graduates who will never pay off their student loan

[Tonty]

The graduates who will never pay off a student loan

The White Paper released on 20th October introduced some major shifts.
I think the introduction of V'Levels is a positive move, offering vocational qualifications alongside A'levels giving young people a chance to diversify their skillset beyond purely academic routes.

My question, particularly to those working in higher education is this: How will universities realistically enforce clearer minimum entry standards, given that 'minimums' often flex when seats need filling?

I also disagree with the assumption that low A'level attainment inevitably leads to a lifetime of low paying jobs. Personally, I had a rough time with A'levels but eventually found my way into IB. I know others who started with poor results, went to university, and now earn very well, though not immediately after graduating. Yes, it’s anecdotal, but it’s not rare.
As for the proposed reforms targeting higher earners: Accelerated repayment, no cap on total repayment, and a shorter repayment window, I find them excessive.
They risk discouraging people from pursuing high paying careers, or even university at all. Does anyone know if these changes will be applied retrospectively?

My two DCs at uni get emails from their careers service at least weekly - part of the problem is that they so many weekly emails from so many different sources (students union, welfare hub, accommodation service, etc etc) that most of them aren't read.

It sounds that model needs a rethink then.

Does it? Because you didn't bother to engage with the careers service at your university?

In my degree we were told at the start there would be placements, then in Y2 we were told it had been dropped because the year before us didn't bother turning up! By that point we were all stuck on the course and so lost a valuable part of why we had begun it.

That's a course issue and nothing to do with the careers service, If your university guaranteed you a placement as part of your course and then changed that mid way though then they needed to get your agreement to make those changes. I suspect it was offered as an option and not guaranteed otherwise they would be in breach of CMA requirements.

I suspect my Public Health degree would be what a pp called rip-off. Maybe it was because we were meant to have placements so I didn't pay attention to it, but I don't remember ever hearing about a careers service or department (2017).

It most definitely existed but you've proved my point about student engagement.

One girl who got on well with her tutor was given a job with a company the tutor knew but that was the only help given with actual employment. I was very jealous at the time as we were both single mothers and it is hard to find part time work that fits around the school run.

That's the thing about university. The help and support is there but you have to make the effort to seek it out. Your university careers service will have most likely had a job shop with part time vacancies as well as lots of support to help you find a graduate job. It just sounds like you didn't bother to engage with that support.

If the careers service contacted all leavers regularly to showcase relevant roles the university would presumably have a better polling when it comes to whether their degrees are rip-off as the previous poster said, so it would be in their interests.

Universities do this. There are already a number of metrics to measure this it is a key strategic priority for universities. Graduate Outcome data is a key focus for every careers service in the country and they invest a huge amount of resources to support students and many offer post graduation support.
Lots of universities engage in collecting 'career readiness' data throughout a students degree so they can best target their support.
They run grad jobs fairs, employer visits, assessment centre practices etc etc
Careers consultants work with academics to embed employability in the curriculum and tailor support for subject areas.
Just because you didn't take advantage of the support that was on offer doesn't mean it didn't or doesn't exist

It's funny you should say that. As part of my PhD research I looked at how young people engage with careers support. All the people I interviewed said they wanted more information but then also complained about too many emails!!

I basically want to Uni to avoid getting a job for a bit longer, and for the student lifestyle. My degree has helped to some extent with my career, but not massively. I went to uni in the days where there were no tuition fees, and I left with to a grand total of £3k in student loans for my living costs.

These days I don’t think Uni is worth it for many people. If you have a set career route in mind such as Doctor, Teacher etc then yes you need to go to uni. If not, then it’s probably not worth yourself getting into £85k of debt.

In my day going to Uni was the done thing, and people at my school who wanted to be trades people etc were looked down on to some extent. These days I think something like a plumber is a good career choice. Much cheaper training than £85k at Uni, people
will always need plumbers and very good earning potential.

I think you missed my main point, which was if it did exist it wasn't made clear to me by my tutors or by the service itself, which is why the model isn't working - which you yourself bought up. If universities don't engage with why something isn't working and listen no wonder they keep doing the same things that don't work.

Most people were like that when I was at school. I didn't go because I decided to have a family instead and then got very low self confidence. I actually went thinking I was doing a very vocational course, but that completely changed mid way through. I often wish I had just gone when it was free, then I wouldn't feel the guilt of not earning enough to pay the loan back.

I've not missed the point. The point is that university students are adults and should be capable of seeking out the support available.

Did you need your tutors to tell you where you could buy food? Or did you look for yourself and see the big signs that indicated there was a café? Did you need walking to the library or did you manage to find that yourself?
The same applies for for the careers service.

And it isn't a case of 'if' it existed. In 2017 there was most definitely a careers service at your university.

If universities don't engage with why something isn't working and listen no wonder they keep doing the same things that don't work.

What evidence do you have that careers services don't work? You didn't bother to engage with yours so how can you possibly say they don't work?

The whole thread is about how some universities can't get their students to pay off their loans by getting a decent paying job. I am one of those, despite getting a 1st and juggling uni with being a single parent.

You can say I didn't engage but I know I did. I just don't remember ever being contacted by anyone wanting to help me with employment.

You can't put the blame solely on a university careers service though. Especially when you admit to not engaging with yours!

The purpose of the careers service is not to find you (or any student) a job. They are not a recruitment agency. They are there to support students with their employability knowledge and skills. They can't control:

• The graduate labour market
• The students engagement with the course or their degree classification
• Course content or quality of teaching
• An employers hiring decision
• A students personal circumstances

They offer their support at scale and the responsibility of asking for support lies with the student. Did you ever ask for support?

I've tried to be open in my responses and you're obviously angry with me, so I won't be engaging further as I don't really understand what you are arguing with me for, it benefits neither of us.

I'm not angry with you. Why would I be? I apologise if that is how I came across.

I'll admit to being frustrated that you are claiming they need an overhaul despite having not used the one that was available to you. Imagine someone telling you your area of expertise was completely wrong even though they obviously didn't know what you do!

Most offer careers advice for life now so if you feel you need support you can probably still access it as a graduate - you paid for it as part of your fees after all.

@somethingnewandexciting Your university handbook would have had details. Often there’s a course for preparing for work - DD1 did this. It was called the “plus” course and covered cv writing, recognition of volunteering/internships/jobs, workshops and advice. Students have to be proactive. If they are, they are more likely to get a job.

I'm one of those who will never pay off their loan. I graduated in 2010 and borrowed around £10k, that was now at £15k last time I checked.
My repayments are less than £30 a month, earning just shy of £40k (plan 4). I will never make a dent in the interest nevermind the loan before it is written off.

I'm just about to switch my pension payments to salary sacrifice so I'll be paying back even less each month, possibly it will drop me under the repayment threshold altogether.

There is absolutely no incentive for middle earners to pay back their loans.

My degree wasn't vocational but I would never have got to where I am in my career without a degree.

For me I don't think I will get past my current salary any time soon, it is more likely I will lose my job to AI. My colleagues have degrees in all sorts of things that aren't relevant to the role and none of us are paying back because we are under the cap and only just above the minimum wage. If I had known this was all there was workwise locally I wouldn't have bothered to get a degree. I had higher paying roles before I went to Uni, before I had kids and lived in a very different, more affluent, area. Those roles don't exist here.

"Those roles don't exist here"

There are many high paying jobs that can be done completely remotely, but obviously only for those with the most sought-after skills and experience.

Young people don't always realise (until it's too late) that the key to a high paying, flexible job (if that is the aim) is having skills that are in such high demand that employers are willing to pay for them without requiring you to physically be in their office.

Yes, I agree. I had far more skills when I first left uni as my knowledge was current and relevant. But there were no jobs locally and it was pre-covid so working from home was not a big thing as it is now. I know I could have done my work without a degree, but it is interesting that we do all have degrees.
A lot of my peers at uni were nurses and I suspect this is why they were allowed on the course, as they would bump the figures at the end as "in employment". We were mostly mature students, with kids, so the flexible working was important but simply not available locally. IMO the course was not clear on who it was training for what - it didn't appreciate that its' students were mostly mature, with kids and needed to work locally. We had skills that at the time meant we would have to apply for jobs over an hour away by train as there are none in the County.

IMO the course was not clear on who it was training for what - it didn't appreciate that its' students were mostly mature, with kids and needed to work locally. We had skills that at the time meant we would have to apply for jobs over an hour away by train as there are none in the County.

It was your responsibility to understand this and decide whether the course was appropriate for you and your personal circumstances.

As I explained previously we were told we would get work placements as part of the course. By the time it transpired they had cancelled that we were in Y2.

I know you want to blame me for trying to get myself into a better situation and failing, which is fine and obviously protects your job, but I am trying to point out where I feel my university went wrong as well as take accountability where I can. How do you suggest students predict when big changes like this are likely to happen on a course they have chosen?

To be fair though @somethingnewandexcitinguni was never likely to have been a good option for you at all given you wouldn’t be able to move locations if there are very few graduate jobs where you are. Or maybe you should have done a degree like nursing where jobs exist even in the most deprived areas.

That's what I meant when I said when I said the Uni wasn't catering for it's students; majority of whom were local mature students with families. The nurses already in work propped up their scores for employment I can see in hindsight, but they knew the demographic and happily continued even when the local placements stopped. Mature students, particularly those with kids, chose local universities, usually with vocational courses. If I had known there would be no placement included I would have picked a different course and I suspect the people running the course knew it.

The over-riding issue with all of these comments though is that the taxpayer is subsidising universities - through the student loans that never get repaid, running the student loan system, various govt grants, research funding, underwriting pensions of some employees at some universities. Therefore the big picture question is why and what are the aims?

The premise behind tuition fees was that graduates earn more than non graduates. On that basis the aim of the system shld be for graduates to continue (on average) to earn more than non graduates and to be able to pay back their loans. Who shld be held accountable for this aim? A lot of PPs say the universities lay on everything that is needed - a great education and lots of careers help - and students only have themselves to blame if they don’t take these up. But it isn’t only the student who suffers, it’s the taxpayer. If the resources provided aren’t being taken up and the aim isn’t being met, then it isn’t working.

It’s like saying the supermarkets are full of fresh fruit and vegetables so everyone could be healthy if they wanted to be.

Perhaps there shld be a compulsory module in every degree course to develop the skills needed to actually get a job. As the resources are apparently already there in the university careers offices (according to PPs), this shouldn’t cost anything.

As far as I can make out student loan ‘repayments’ are basically a graduate tax levied on those adults whose parents were not wealthy enough to support them through university.

My son is at a university with a high proportion of privately educated students and most of the people he has met (and to whom he is sufficiently close to discuss such matters) have not taken out student loans and do not envisage doing so throughout their degree.

The media and government should be honest about this tax- what it really is, & who pays it- rather than dressing it up as a semi-normal loan repayment.

Feel free to up your payments

As I explained previously we were told we would get work placements as part of the course. By the time it transpired they had cancelled that we were in Y2.

Did you take this up with the university at the time? Were they in breach of CMA requirements?

I know you want to blame me for trying to get myself into a better situation and failing, which is fine and obviously protects your job, but I am trying to point out where I feel my university went wrong as well as take accountability where I can.

All of your posts have been about how the university let you down, how they didn't take into account your personal circumstances when offering you a place, how the careers service didn't exist etc. It's frustrating to read because you seem to be blaming the university entirely for your current circumstances. I'm not saying your university was perfect but you can't blame them for the fact you are unable to commute an hour for work or that you were a single parent.

They offered a course and you applied for it. The university looked at whether you met the entry requirements not at your personal circumstances.

How do you suggest students predict when big changes like this are likely to happen on a course they have chosen?

If you were promised a placement and that was withdrawn from from the course without you agreeing to it then you should have put in a formal complaint. You would have probably got compensation.
Any changes to a course which impacts current students or applicants has to go through a process where stakeholders ( students/applicants/ professional bodies) are consulted and have to agree those changes. Usually a course is 'taught out' in it's current format and a new version is offered to new students instead.
If the placement was optional or there was something in the small print that said wasn't guaranteed or a specific requirement then they haven't done anything wrong.
Hard to say which it is without knowing the details.