please help me understand - student protests

[MrsSOAK]

I fully admit to not really knowing much (anything) about politics.
I am very confused about the student protests. I understand that there were election promises about not increasing the tution fees. However not 1 individual party was elected so therefore there have been some compromises on many things and I assume that the pre-election promises have been broken (fairly standard practise for politically parties I always thought)
Do the students expect the fees to stay at the same level? regardless of inflation and other factors that increase the cost of everything? I am not really sure what I am asking except for some lovely mn'er to take pity on me and explain the whole thing

I am confused myself.

But basically I'd say they are objecting to a rise (of between £3k and £6kpa) in Tuition fees.

The NUS has proposed an alternative funding model here

Interested to see what others think the students are protesting about.

they object to students in england being charged up to 9k per year tuition fees - ie a rise of 18k for tuitio fees a 3 year course. this will mean that a degree will cost approx 100k (tuition fees, living costs, lost wages).

Lib Dems campaigned to say they would abolish tuition fees.

its not the fact that they have gone up, but the fact they have increased so much. To put this into perspective, how would you feel if the gov said oh dear we are in financial mess we are tripling your income tax?

this is my interpretation - i'm not a student, though have several children who were planning to go to uni - though they are now unsure if they want to be saddled with this amount of debt.

The key word is up to; people look at the headlines, not the reality. Some unis will charge £9k, others will settle at £6k. Ideally, the fees would not go up, but we are where we are financially, and it was inevitable that they would rise, although I was expecting that they would do it more gradually than they have.

A degree needn't cost what dreaming is suggesting; there are ways to mitigate this - living at home, studying abroad.

A degree needn't cost what dreaming is suggesting. However, for students at Russell Group unis and most of the "old" unis it will.

Students are objecting because the interest rate on their loans will increase and the time before the loan is written off will increase from 25 years to 30 years, in addition to the almost tripling of the fees themselves. Most students will need to take out a loan of over £40k and will need to earn about £43k just to cover the interest, which will begin to accrue from the moment it is taken out. Even accounting for wage inflation, many students will never repay the loan, so will have a debt around their necks for 30 years.

They are also protesting because the guaranteed bursaries to students from families earning less than £25k are being abolished.

The mega-rich will be able to pay the fees upfront, so avoiding years of debt.

The government's agenda seems to produce a system not unlike in America, where the Ivy League unis can only be afforded by the stinking rich, while lesser mortals go to the much cheaper and less prestigious state unis. You only have to look at government (and opposition) front benches to realise that attending a prestigious uni is the key to power.

This all needs to be put in the context of rising unemployment, cuts in public services, the abolition of EMA and very little chance of affording a mortgage. Many of the young people I know have a bleak outlook on the future.

assuming 3 year course: tuition fees 27k + living costs 21k + 45k could have been earning =92k and that doesn't take into any tax on interest payments

sory typo - should be tax or interest payments

Scary Teacher, I suspect we will end up with a two or three tier system with:

Cheap universities for the poor (used to be called Technical colleges)

A middle tier for most of the others.

And a top tier (Russell Group) for the well off and well connected so the sons & daughters of the "superior classes" dont have to mix with their supposed social inferiors.

As David Lammy MP (Labour) has shown today Oxford had fifteen "road shows" at Eton and Marlborough and none at all in Tottenham.

Brasenose college (Oxford)"call me Daves" university has not had a black pupil for five years and all the Oxford Uni's did not take one black student this year.

at the moment fees are around £3.300 per year but they will be going up to £9.000 per year so its a dramatic rise. my daughters b/f for example is expecting to stay on at uni for 7/8 years or even more so you can imagine what hes going to end up owing.

but whats going to happhen is these fees is going to put off the future generation from wanting to go to uni, also they are stoping the EMA of £3O per week which poorer pupils get when they stay on at school to do A levels(which are needed to get into uni)or go to collage.whats going to happen is now its going to be hard for alot of families to finance them to carry on studying.

students do feel betrayed because a high majority voted libdem and hes gone back on his word of which he signed a pledge to get their votes.

they say you dont have to start paying back to you earn £21.000 but in truth theres going to end up being a shortage of doctors nurses etc.

then theres the issue of scotland and wales getting it free whilst the english that have to pay.

if less students go to uni they wont have funds to keep universities open and so you will see closures.they are now saying they will help poorer students if there families claim free school meals as a sweetner(that will only be non working families or those on benefits (those who get working tax credit will still have to pay full fees).yet in the same breath they are saying if you dont take a job you will lose benefits so more and more people will be forced into low waged jobs.they are also saying the universities will have to help subsicide poorer students thats going to give them less funds so of course they are going to prefer to take on the richer students who can pay full fees up front.

nick clegg has told the libdems to vote for the increase or resign no wonder students are peeved.

nick clegg has told the libdems to vote for the increase or resign no wonder students are peeved.

Not quite correct, only Fib Dem ministers not MP's otherwise spot on :)

lol ok just managed to catch a bit of the news

Journo?

If no, apologies.

The 2 biggest things they are protesting about:

1. potential 3 fold increase in fees
2. the fact that it's due to come in NEXT YEAR.

Just for arguments sake: There are hundreds of thousands of A level students, who are/were University headed. There are hundreds of thousands of FE/A'level students who have NO idea if they will be able to go to University or not.

And to the nay sayers; it is not payable up front, no. But 9% on any salary over £21k (which, FFS, is the fucking minimum a graduate should expect in 3 years time) is a LOT of money.
I couldn't afford to contribute to my pension initially due to student loans. They're paid off now (I'm 32) so I can afford the 10% salary input into my pension.

What does make me laugh is that people want a clause on rich people = if you can afford all the fees in one go, then you shouldn't have the right to pay it off in one go. You should have to pay the interest like everybody else.

Backwards - IMO. People who CAN'T afford to pay it back shouldn't have penalties (rather than people with money having access to the bloody funding in teh first place)

ok, i understand a little better now thanks.
Things are very different now to when I went to university. Whilst I studied fullt time I worked 4 part time jobs to afford to living expenses, got the minimum student loans I could to cover the rest and started paying it off as soon as I started earning by working two jobs. (which was less than 21K - in those days the level was 15k before paying it back and I earned less than that)