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Random Outburst: This JOKE of a country

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GrandOldTeam

GrandOldTeam

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It has just come to my attention that student interest rates have doubled from 2.4% to 4.8%, meaning I am now getting nearly £50 a month alone added to my debt. The year I started they introduced £3000 tuition fees, moving up every year to £3,145 I think now that thats before anything else is considered...

Plaid AM Bethan Jenkins said,
"The student loan system is a complete scandal. 154,000 Welsh people have taken out these loans. If interest rates double many people will be charged £50 per month in interest alone. We can not allow this to continue.
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F**king fuming with it. Cant wait to [Poor language removed] of to Canada or America.

This country is a joke, a complete and utter shambles.

All them muppets who preach that student loans aren't an issue in Schools, well they can [Poor language removed] right off.
 
Thats what I thought. Then when I noticed the average graduate debt in each country I realised it was a myth.

Consider New Zealand as an example. Average debt of their graduates is £6,000... ours is £13,000. "Students due to start university this year expect a three year degree course to cost them £28,600, and they predict they will graduate with debts averaging £13,680. "

As for cheap credit, 4.80%?
 
Ive still got a £4000 student loan from about 5 years ago. They've never contacted me with regards to repayment. I thought it just came out of my account. Now i'm self empoyed not much money goes into my bank so Im wondering if I might never have to pay it or if theyve forgotton:unsure: or if ill have to pay it eventually. I cant remember how it works, can anyone enlighten me?
 
Just a different approach I suspect. In America for instance everyone knows college will be expensive, hence the ubiquitous 'college fund'. People save up from a young age. I doubt many here in Britain do so we have to fund uni via the loan and/or working (plus the bank of mum and dad). Considering annual costs at somewhere like Harvard exceed $40,000 it's not surprising people start saving from birth :)
 

Welton Toffee said:
I try not to think of the [Poor language removed] loads of debt I'm going to be in and just enjoy uni while it lasts (y)
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With starting this year you escaped the 4.80% interest, it's only 3.80% this year... likely to fall again the year after to something it resembled when I started (2.40%)
 

Admittedly I'm commenting from some considerable distance - both in age and geography, but it always appeared to me that the introduction of student loans and charging tuition fees was an idiotic move based on the utterly absurd premise that the 'new economic order' guaranteed full (graduate) employment.
If current predictions are to be believed we're now heading for the worst bout of unemployment since the 1980s, when despite having spent three years in HE, I was forced to abroad to find a job that paid more than 'just' enough to pay to rent a room in a shared house.
Aside from allowing Brown a bit more cash to subsidise tax cuts as far as I can see the ending of the grant system and the introduction of loans has served only to help fuel the inflationary spiral in the cost of low end housing in University towns - students suddenly had much more money available to pay for accomodation - landlords upped rents, suburban property speculators realised they could supplement their pensions with easy cash for old rooms - low end house prices started rising etc.
In 99/00 I briefly considered buying a terraced house near Maine Rd (edit - an area where a lot of students live, thinking i could rent the place out) speculating that it would increase in value when City moved to Eastlands. At that time a basic 2 up/2 down cost £20-£25k, when I looked again 6 yrs later prices in the same area had risen to £80-£120k.
They're now apparently falling again. It'll be interesting to see how low university intake levels have to drop before the penny drops that forcing students to take out loans they might never be able to repay just doesn't work.
 
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To be fair though there are a great many degrees that aren't really worth the name. I personally see little problem with paying your own way through uni, after all it's you that benefits from it so it seems unfair that anyone else should have to pay for you.

Investment in higher education is vital for the country to maintain its competitive edge internationally.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
To be fair though there are a great many degrees that aren't really worth the name. I personally see little problem with paying your own way through uni, after all it's you that benefits from it so it seems unfair that anyone else should have to pay for you.

Investment in higher education is vital for the country to maintain its competitive edge internationally.
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Bruce I suspect your opinions on the matter are out dated.

£50 a month interest, on top of the £3140 tuition fee per year.... No one pays anything other than myself for my education. In fact, the government profit in that I am paying 4.80% interest.

It was only a few years ago Labour introduced £3000+ tuition fees per year, so adding at least £9,000 to the average degree. To then double the interest on loans is ridiculous. The government are exploiting students too much.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
To be fair though there are a great many degrees that aren't really worth the name. I personally see little problem with paying your own way through uni, after all it's you that benefits from it so it seems unfair that anyone else should have to pay for you.

Investment in higher education is vital for the country to maintain its competitive edge internationally.
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Those two statements are contradictory - which do you agree with?

The problem with 'degrees which are/aren't worth their name' is that it's difficult to predict which is which. I spent three years studying engineering - which is about as vocational and work focused a degree as it's possible to get. Result? The only job I could find was in a factory owned by a lunatic who should never have been left to run a bath unattended, earning less money than I'd have got on the dole. After the lunatic (who made most of his money getting us to do off-books back door jobs for cash) was forced to downsize by his accountants I spent three of the next five years on the dole and in [Poor language removed] short term jobs unrelated to anything I'd studied before giving up and trying my luck abroad.
 

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