Student fees

NO durhamjen, we were not responsible for lowered standards. Late husband retired in 2002 in dismay as the disastrous expansion began, (under the Labour Government, I believe. f.y.i. husband was a lifelong Labour supporter) and I retired in 2008 and was, in any case, employed by the NHS, so had no influence on matters material to the subject. However, we maintained our contacts with colleagues teaching at (2 Russell group universities). Our colleagues who are still teaching at said universities are valiantly trying to hold the line, but are essentially powerless to do anything about dilution of standards. They do not set admission standards or number of contact hours, or numbers of students in classes. Effectively, the only thing they can do is to resign or retire, leaving the teaching to less experienced staff on short contracts and in jeopardy if they 'rock the boat'. My nephew is a post-doc scientist at a prestigious university. He was one such, and has side-stepped to a business-role to avoid the problems outlined.

But, the bit which makes me really, really angry is the scandalous interest rate of 6.1% applied to the debt, not what we signed up for

That is shocking and if it is not what was signed up for is that illegal? Will this be another mis-selling scandal?
I did mention in an earlier post that the student loans system is chaotic, depending on when they took out the loan the terms and conditions of repayment are different.

but nurses, doctors, teachers to name just a few have no alternative route into their professions.
A good point.
That is why they should bring back a different level of qualified nurse which does not require a degree but is a proper nursing qualifications such as SEN, more advanced than a HCA qualification.
Yes, I know that some nursing does require degree-level skills, but not all.

We all need to stop talking about the tuition fees; they are what they are, unfair or not, and they are a loan which will hopefully get repaid. Reducing these fees will benefit the middle class and well off. It surely would be better, fairer, to sort out the living expenses grant/loans? The hall fees, for both of my children, were in excess of the living expenses loan and so we had to subsidise them. We were able to do so, but many cannot. But, the bit which makes me really, really angry is the scandalous interest rate of 6.1% applied to the debt, not what we signed up for. The whole system, in England certainly, is busted, and I have no faith that Tory tinkering or Corbyn fake promises will be of any use to this problem. How long will it be before the Japanese Bank who bought the debt start realising they have bought a pig in a poke? My son 's debt INCREASED by £2000 last year, interest added. Bloody ridiculous. Yes, I agree that some courses are of doubtful validity, but nurses, doctors, teachers to name just a few have no alternative route into their professions.

mostlyharmless certainly some Vice-Chancellors are doing very nicely, earning well over that in one year, so perhaps that is the job to aim for - although the Vice-Chancellor of Bath has been forced out at last.

So you and your husband were involved in reducing standards, were you, Nemosmum?
Could you not have done something about it?

Quite Varian. Education is good for society in many ways. Let the people who earn most, graduates or not, pay more in income tax.

The percentage of students who actually pay off this debt is very low - I think less than 20%. Surely it would be better to reduce the fees, and debts so that most get paid off.

I admit I was quite shocked when a student who had gone to art school in her sixties told me she would never pay any of her loan back as she wouldn't be earning.

What is very unfair now is the situation of graduates earning just above the threshold (still less than the average income) who pay of their entire debt at the cost of not being able to buy a house or fund a pension, then see others not contributing at all.

I think a much fairer and simpler system would be funding out of income tax, or increased VAT on luxury items which would only be paid by the better off.

The universities have been very greedily building empires upon inflated student numbers each bringing inflated fees. With almost 50% of students going to universities, how can those young people all get 'above average' pay when they graduate? That's a logical nonsense! Education is never wasted, but I would not call what many of the current students get an 'education'. My late husband was a university lecturer for over
30 years and I was involved in the supervision of many students on clinical practice. I have several friends who are university lecturers. They, and I, are appalled at the reduction in standards and the levels of teaching/contact time and supervision. Universities have modelled themselves on McDonalds, it seems to me. The kids and their parents have been conned! The question they should concern themselves with is not, 'how much debt will I be in?', but 'Is this course genuinely worth me putting off starting a job for 3 (or however many) years?'

Someone mentioned on here that graduates earn £400,000 more over their life time than non graduates. This was thought to be the case in the past. Then it was revised down to £200,000.
But the latest estimates are £100,000 over a lifetime.
If you go to a top university and/or are lucky enough to get a good job in the city or in medicine or law you should earn very well, but many graduates have to settle for what used to be non-graduate jobs on modest pay.
So is going to university and paying fees worthwhile financially? Many other benefits of education of course.

Regarding repayment of the 'loan': as you only pay on any income above the floor level of £21,000 (or £25,000 from later this year) and that is at 9%. That means that graduates earning the average UK wage of £27,600 will pay £594 this year (or £144 when the floor level changes). If the graduate only ever earned the average wage, they would have paid back less than £5,000 when the debt is wiped in 30 years. If the graduate earned a very healthy average of £40,000 p.a. over the next 30 years, they will pay back £1,350 per annum, which is £40,500 over the 30 years. A lot of newspapers/TV channels use the shorthand of '£50,000 student debt', which means that, even at a higher average income, they will not have paid back in full. If you're a lowly paid worker you may never pay anything; if you're a doctor, architect, lawyer, accountant etc., you will, and that's entirely as it should be. Most graduates will fall somewhere in between.

Society benefits from a well educated population. It's like the NHS and other public services, it's worth all of us investing in good quality education throughout life.

It'a ok to advice young people to do an apprenticeship rather than university. Apprenticeships are as rare as hens teeth in reality. We need to invest more in proper training/apprenticeships and to maintain education in the arts as well as sciences.

To bang on about another hobby horse. I do not understand why nurses should pay for their degree course, whilst working in the NHS and contributing their services as well as developing their skills and knowledge.

Have you noticed that she is going to take a year to discuss it all. As if they haven't been thinking about it all along.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/student-loan-interest-rates-tuition-fee-freeze-disabled-prisons-tories-cares-when-has-to-a8216541.html

Matthew Norman agrees with you, GracesGran.

It seems the Tories are finally looking at what the population wants. Well educated young people are of benefit to us all and I too think student fees were a backward step.

I do notice that the news programmes are all saying that May is going to talk about student fees but she has actually said she will talk about tertiary education in the round. I sincerely hope this is true. FE has been stripped to the bone; monies are coming in from the apprenticeship levy but the numbers of apprenticeships has halved since it was introduced. The Conservatives keep coming up with ideas that fit the far right ethos - hence our fees moving in the direction of the US - but they don't seem to do practical solutions. All our services are on the edge of breaking down and this includes all levels of education.

Thanks, varian.
My husband used to earn the same as I did when he was an architect and I was a teacher.
It didn't matter whether he worked for private companies or for councils. But he trained for longer than I did.

NemosMum .....excellent posts from you.??

It still takes seven years to become an architect, dj, usually five years at university and two years in practice. During the fourth and seventh years students have go to work fulltime, but also study. They are paid for their work but also pay fees to their university during these years.

In spite of this UK architects have to compete for work with unqualified people as anyone can design a building in this country, although it is illegal to call yourself an architect unless your name is on the architects register.

Most architects never earn anything like as much as other professionals like doctors, lawyers or chartered accountants, even though they have undergone such a long training.

But I do think it is good to come up with new ideas like varian. Also a doctor or an architect could probably afford to undertake some more education in retirement, if they chose.

It used to take seven years to become an architect. I don't know if it still does.
An architect couldn't afford to wait until old age, same as a doctor.

Perhaps in the future, we should all be entitled to, say twenty years of free education, at any appropriate level, over our hundred year's lifetime. We could have some of our entitlement as children, some during our working years and some in retirement.

"I understood that we do need more Engineering and Science graduates - plus those with non-degree qualifications."

You said revert back, Jalima.
If they didn't change their courses, they couldn't revert back to more practically based ones, could they?

I wonder, now that we are all living longer and so have longer working lives, coupled with the rise of AI and robots, it might be the best idea to keep young people in education for as long as possible.
We don't need them to leave school at 12 any more, perhaps a good idea to keep them there until 21?
Education is never wasted.

Would you go to work for 3 years, training for a job which, even though you paid your employer £15k year, they don't even offer you at the end?

Thousands do - it's called University. It's ludicrous.

Engineering degrees have always been practically based.
I didn't say they weren't.

But not all engineering requires a degree.