Students Protests - University Fees

[EggFriedRice]

I absolutely applaud the protests by young students against the rise in university fees, why should they put up with the blatant lies by the Liberal Democrats, I voted for them, I believed what they told me during the run up to the election, now I feel betrayed, like so many other voters, how could they say one thing and then do the opposite? I witnessed today a demonstration by ordinary young people who will be affected by the increase in university fees, I witnessed the heavy police presence, the batons ready to charge, the police filming ordinary young people who have been betrayed, I witnessed the sad state of the UK,

"That's right and it wasn't a problem then. We had a larger deficit when we built the NHS."

Erm, no, not at all.

From 1948 to 1950, when the NHS was founded, we actually managed to have a budget surplus. The Government earned more than it spent.

And from then on it did start becoming a problem, but every Government left it to future Governments to deal with.

You just can't keep on living on credit cards, it will catch up with you in the end, and it has.

Blaming the bankers for living on credit cards for, as it turns out, pretty much all of the last 60 years is letting the Government off of the hook.

Just because you can have a very nice life living off of credit until things do catch up with you doesn't mean that the problem was the point in time when you can no longer escape your debt. The problem is when you were building up that debt, and for us that goes back 60 years.

The governmemt bailed out the bankers. They let the bankers off the hook. That didn't come as a surprise, it's the people who are on the hook, not bankers or politicians.

"for a while it looked like we could grow ourselves out of recession and therfore pay back debts and settle the situation as we have always done before without drastic cuts."

But that's my point, as a rule we haven't done that before. Even in the "good times" successive Governments were borrowing money to fund their spending.

The last Labour Government managed to run a surplus from 1998 to 2003, which is better than the previous Tory Government who only managed that for two years (1989 and 1990).

Other than that for every year of both previous Governments they were spending beyond their means and hitting the credit cards.

So both parties could do with something convenient to blame the financial hole upon other than their own consistent living beyond their means. And along come the bankers.

That doesn't mean that the bankers are the good guys, they monumentally blew it and mismanaged their businesses, but the real problem here is 60 odd years of living beyond our means and us not being at all used to actually only spending what we earn.

We have run a deficit practically every year. It's not a problem.. You can count the number of years that we have had a surplus on the fingers of one hand.

The deregulation of the financial markets was the mistake and had been known about for years. Everybody except Gordon Brown knew about the dangers of the derivative markets. In fact, after teh Wall Street Crash, the US brought in the Glass-Steagall Act to rein in investment banks and their margin dealing risky practices. It had been well known for years, but a blind eye was turned due to financial market lobbying.

"We have run a deficit practically every year. It's not a problem."

It is a problem. The debt will mount up and the proportion of your income you have to spend on interest to service the debt rockets. Also the more debt you have the higher the interest rates people begin to want to charge you. You'll do OK for a while, it all seems to work out, people thing that "it's not a problem". But at some point you have to do something to deal with the mountain of debt you've built up, that point has come.

Try living off of credit cards for years and see what happens...

"The deregulation of the financial markets was the mistake"

I'm not going to disagree with you there other than to say it was "a huge" mistake and not "the" mistake.

If it was such a big problem, then why over the past 30 years has it not featured in the parties' election campaigns. Why weren't they being asked on the BBC what they were going to do about it?

"If it was such a big problem, then why over the past 30 years has it not featured in the parties' election campaigns."

Partly because everyone was at it and partly because no party wanted to admit that the good times could end. Another part of it was almost certainly the hope that things would sort themselves out and that they'd be able to pay off all the debts in the future, the same sort of reasoning that many people who become hooked on credit allow themselves to fall into.

It's also partly Keynesian Economic Theory where Government spending was seen as the way to generate future economic growth. The belief appears to have been that yes the Government was getting into debt but they were setting up a future where that debt could be dealt with.

It never seemed to happen, we kept on having to borrow.

Think of it this way...

I've become used to spending £100 month, but I only earn £90. So I borrow £10.

The next month I still only earn £90, so I need to borrow another £10, but I also need to find £1 to pay the interest on the £10 I borrowed lost time around.

The month after I have my usual earning and my usual spending, so I borrow another £10, but I've now got to find £2 to pay off the £20 that I already owe. But that leaves me with only £98 to actually spend. So maybe this month I actually borrow £12 so that I can keep up the standard of living to which I've become accustomed.

And so on.

It just doesn't work.

'Partly because everyone was at it and partly because no party wanted to admit that the good times could end.'

But what about those highly paid journalists and economic experts on the BBC, who hold the politicians to account, why didn't they ask them about it?

"But what about those highly paid journalists and economic experts on the BBC, who hold the politicians to account, why didn't they ask them about it?"

A very good question....

In part it has just reached a tipping point where we're now having to borrow £1 for every £3 that we spend.

We're also seeing a future where countries won't be able to borrow money so easily and at such low interest rates. We're OK for a while, we've got a few years before our debts become due (when we'd normally just take out another loan to pay them off). But Greece has shows what happens when the only new loans you can get are at a much higher rate than the old ones.

Maybe we also saw the budget surplus of 1998 to 2003 as proof that things might be able to work out. But after 2003 we just kept on spending, and from then, to be fair, questions were being asked.

Personally I can't see how anyone ever thought it's OK to live on credit cards for so long.

I am sorry but there seems to be alot of finger pointing here. It sounds like some of you believe the government just went and overspent on purpose and the banks landed in the poo because they wanted to. Look there are some ridiculous things out there like the bonuses that get given to the top brass in the banking sector. But why does the country not have a National Credit Act the way many 3rd world countries do, its rather a simple priciple. You are not allowed to over lend. So you cant have a credit card limit that is enormous and you cant have debt that would be virtually impossible to pay back. We as citizens are also to blame. We have to learn how to be more responsible with our money too. Sorry to those who say the students understand. Would you honestly hand the country over to them now, that is like letting your 7 year old drive a car.

'But why does the country not have a National Credit Act the way many 3rd world countries do, its rather a simple priciple. You are not allowed to over lend.'

Why do you think that is? Do you think it's got something to do with the students or us, citizens?

It's all about lies is'nt it, here we have a generation of privileged MP's who did not have to pay to go to University now telling another generation sorry but you DO have to pay huge sums of money to go to University. It is also about the lack of trust in politicians who clearly cannot keep to their promises, no wonder the younger generation feel let down and want to show their anger & frustration, you can't blame them, Clegg lied end of.

I think an NCA act should be introduced by our government of course it would mean we would all be treated like children with our spending but it might prevent this happening in the future.
Did anyone here actually think the politicians wouldnt lie? I am sure the government would a prefer a world where they didnt have to do this, but they have to, and dwelling on what went wrong isnt going to help much, rather think about what we can do right for here on in.

"It sounds like some of you believe the government just went and overspent on purpose"

Well having to borrow £1 out of every £4 that you spend isn't accidental.

Having to go to the banks every year since 2003 and say "yes I know I only earned this much but I need to spend that much, lend me the difference" isn't an accident.

"Look there are some ridiculous things out there like the bonuses that get given to the top brass in the banking sector."

Bonuses don't matter one jot to the deficit. If they weren't paid to the bankers then the bonuses would sit in the banks accounts. At least if they are paid then the Government gets to claim a nice big slice in tax.

I don't object outright to the idea of some student debt (I left with 15k with a Masters and a PhD, and I have an ok-paid job, but what has changed here is the step change that seems so wrong.

People are going to be coming out with 40-50k debt if these plans go through (6-9k fees + 4k living costs loans).

Let's say someone has a £40k debt, and the interest rate is 4% (it was 4.8% a few years ago), the debt will go up £1600 a year. To pay that off, 9% of what you earn over 21k, means you need to be earning just under 39k a year to pay off the interest.

Although the payments would be relatively small, it means a life-time of debt for most students. The lawyers and the bankers may pay their debts off quickly, but for many it will be 30 years of deductions.

'Although the payments would be relatively small, it means a life-time of debt for most students.'

That's what its purpose is.

"Although the payments would be relatively small, it means a life-time of debt for most students. The lawyers and the bankers may pay their debts off quickly, but for many it will be 30 years of deductions."

I'm not saying I support these proposals but if they're to be opposed they need to be understood.

The debt will be written off after 30 years, that's not a lifetime.

As the proposals stand you cannot pay the debt off quicker, so well paid lawyers and bankers can't get them out of the way early. However this is being looked at and if extra payments are allowed there will be a levy on them.

It's also worth noting that higher earners will be charged a higher rate of interest on their debts.

However students who are well off before their course can pay their fees in advance and thus skip the entire system.

I think it's a fairly small quibble to say that you pay off your debts in your early to mid fifties isn't a life-time of debt. It's longer than most mortgage terms.

I do think that there qualitative difference between, on one hand, going to university, making a contribution, and paying off your debts 10 years after you graduate, or on the other hand paying back those debts for thirty years.

BadgersPaws, if students can pay for their fees in advance, then it's an incredibly regressive system.

I applaud the fact that they are trying to get their voice heard but I loathe the fact it's been marred by violence.

I was in russell square on thursday and there was a large group of students hanging around waiting for their mates to go to the demo - suddenly the scarves went around their faces and they were being loud and abusive to anyone in their way (including me - 'of feck off you bloody rich southerner' - said in a well to do southern accent) - they were off on their 'jolly' really.

I don't suppose for a minute that they are representative of all students but it certainly sticks in my mind.

For me the he sector needs a complete overhaul and rethink. Not just about funding but also about what it's there to achieve, how to be more inclusive.

I went to uni and I didn't pay. It was harder to get in as fewer places but there were quite a few students from poorer backgrounds. I'm grateful for my education but given the current situation I'm not sure if my ds would benefit from studying anything humanities really. And that would be a shame. In fact, I'm unsure whether he would do him any good if he were to come out with huge debts.

If you're 17 right now the situation is this - if you're not super great at passing exams (what we call academic) you might not get into university. If you do you're guaranteed to start your working life with huge debts (which might affect your ability to purchase a property - the very thing that successive governments have felt was the key to financial security) and if you don't get in there are no jobs. Not a great situation for anyone about to leave school.

Where is the debate on how to promote non 'academic' qualifications to get this country back on it's feet again with skilled workers. As usual, not much. It's the academic or bust approach that saddens me.

People need to wake up and realise that ridiculously high student tuition fees will affect them too. We need nurses, doctors, teachers etc in our society. Do people seriously think that our young people will saddle themselves with ridiculously high debt to provide a service to our society and pay huge fees to do these jobs? Wake up people, support the students, we should all be out there protesting with the students. Having insufficient nurses, teachers and GPs will bother you in years to come.

Mmmmmmm. Odd in many countries where people have to pay for their studies themselves there are doctors and nurses and engineers etc. Wanting to get an education should mean something to the student not be a means to an end. I would rather deal with a doctor that has a passion for his profession than some person that feels they are doing me a favour by allowing my tax money to educate them and that I should be ever thankful that they are staying in the country. Odd does wanting to better yourself mean nothing anymore?