Student fees

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?'

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jalima1108, I totally agree about the nursing.

Wasn't Tony Blair's finest hour, was it, NemosMum?
Sorry, I'm probably not allowed to ask you that.

I completely agree with the PM's comment that we should value vocational and technical courses more. Many youngsters who apply to Universities would be better off doing practical and (maybe) less academic subjects. It has to be said that back in the days of secondary modern education for the less academic, many, many of those I attended school with went on to great things and we able to earn a good living all their working lives. I'd also say that most of my practical friends put me to shame with their skills in certain areas.

We need to put lots of time, effort and funding into post 16 education. Going on to the sixth form has almost become a rite of passage for young people. (Schools of course encourage even the less able to waste two valuable years attending. Bums on seats equals lots of dosh. Same applies to Universities.) They will take even the weakest students via back-door entrance onto foundation courses.

We need to play fair by our teenagers and help them realise University is not for everyone and many other routes into work and further qualifications are just as valid and as prestigious.

As for fees, we were talking to friends of our children at the weekend. Many will never repay their student loans unless they go on to become very high earners. They saw having fun at University well worth the cost. Pay back of their loans so far had been a drop in the ocean, like paying a small amount of extra tax.

If the cost of University was so outrageous and a burden for life, not many would apply for places. Many University courses locally are oversubscribed every year.

Oh and a Labour government introduced tuition fees, lest we forget.

Let's not pretend Corbyn is the saviour of students. Young people might fall for his angst regarding student debt, older people (and many more younger people) see his claims to abolish tuition fees and have student loans repaid as a massive failing of a promise which won over thousands of young people.

It was (and is) a fraudulent agenda.

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.

Yes, that makes perfect sense varian and would be a solution to the problem.

Slight difference between £1000 and £9250, though.

And Gillian Shephard commissioned Ron Dearing to look into it in the first place.
As I said, not Blair's finest hour.

May's record on tuition fees.

"Firstly, she voted to triple student tuition fees as a member of the Coalition cabinet – a particularly two-faced move after voting against tuition fees proposed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s New Labour governments.

Secondly, the Tories were behind the shift away from technical qualifications – pushing tech colleges to change to universities during the early 1990s.

Mrs May is – rather desperately – trying to justify her review by saying universities are charging too much for some courses and should bring their prices down.

But didn’t her government give them carte blanche to do so? Yes, I think it did.

The aim – allegedly – was to create a “competitive market” among universities, with institutions vying to charge the least in order to attract students.

But that hasn’t happened – they all charged the maximum.

Mrs May’s idea that fees should be variable according to the quality of the course is another duffer, designed to create further division in among UK citizens; obviously, Oxbridge will charge the most, making it unreachable by people who are talented but have no money.

So a British university education will continue to be among the most expensive in the world, no matter what.

Critics in the Tory Party, like former Education Secretary Justine Greening, have said May’s plan to tinker with the system won’t do any good. She has suggested cancelling interest payments on student loans and reviving maintenance grants for poorer students.

All of the suggestions being discussed by the Tories are apparently aimed at reviving support from young people – and they’re all pointless.

Labour would end tuition fees altogether – and would also restore maintenance grants."

If you were an 18 year old, who would you vote for?

I don’t think you have understood the student loan durhamjen at all!
Talented but no money? If a student is up to Oxbridge then they can go there.Same with all universities, and an Oxbridge student is likely to go on to a very good career, and will have no problems paying back the loan.
You should go back and read all NemosMum’s posts on this.

Not enough 18 year olds did vote for Corbyn though.

Labour would end tuition fees altogether – and would also restore maintenance grants
Oh - has that now become LP policy and not just an 'ambition'?
I missed that somehow.

Although some voted twice lemongrove

Labour promised to end tuition fees for future students if they were elected at the last election. That was clear and is on record.

There was no promise about clearing existing student debt.
Even on the Today programme this morning someone (can’t remember who) got confused about this. John Humphreys actually apologised at the end of the programme for the misunderstanding.