Theresa May Mark 2

Hope Theresa May does everything that Oxfam want her to.

act.oxfam.org/great-britain/cameron-inequality-petition-even-it-up

This is what Martin Lewis has to say about repaying 2012+ loans:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-repay#tabThree

Just checked and you're right. The rules were changed as a result of the outcry. However, anybody with a 2012+ loan would be bonkers to try and pay it off early. The money could be used better by investing in property, which has a higher capital return than interest paid on the loan. Approximately 75% of the money loaned to students will be written off anyway, so it's crazy to try and pay any of it off early. The voluntary repaymenht option is used mainly by the self-employed and those living overseas.

@Ana

That must be new, because it certainly wasn't the case when the £9000 grants were introduced. Martin Lewis, amongst others, protested, so maybe he's won.

@roses

If your children are now in their mid 30s and went to university when they were 18, it's unlikely they paid more than £1,000 a year.

Tuition fees were first introduced in 1999. The fees at the time were about £1,000 (variable). Fees of £3,000 a year were introduced in 2006 and raised to £9,000 in 2012. In just 13 years they were increased by a multiple of 9, which is way above inflation.

Student loans are the biggest con trick perpetrated on the public. They will probably cost the government more eventually than the grants system ever did. Partly because of the percentage that will never be paid off and partly because of the costs incurred in collecting the repayments. Even the Institute for Fiscal studies warned in 2012 that there were too many variables to accurately predict the real cost of loans, but that most indications were it would not be much cheaper than a grants system.

According to The Money Advice Service

You have the right to pay off your student loan more quickly by making at any time single payments of £5 or more directly to the Student Loans Company.

You can do this even if your salary does not yet reach the starting level for repayments. You also have the right to pay off your outstanding student loan in full at any time.

Yes dd I think the amount then was £3,000 a year.That sounds about right.

Comprehensives are able to teach children who are going to be academics and those who are going to be plumbers.

It was a great deal less in the past than it is today!

The fees would have been only a thousand or so a year and they would have been eligible for non-repayable bursaries. Not only that, but it was possible to pay them off early, so even a relatively small windfall or savings could have been used.

My daughter is 23 and started university, when the fees were £3,000 (just before they went up to £9,000). She did a four year course and her total debt is now around £27,000. She is not allowed to pay off more than a certain amount a year. The interest is currently more than than she is allowed to pay off. She has resigned herself to paying a 'graduate tax' for 25 years. She still thinks it's worth it. New entrants have to wait 30 years, before the debt is written off.

The unfairness about the current system is that wealthy parents can pay the fees upfront. Many of them are already paying £20 - 30+k a year for school fees, so university is just a continuation of that. Not only that, but people with wealth can arrange their financial matters, so that it appears that they have a low income and can escape paying the loans back.

The total amount of the debt is largely irrelevant - it's the amount which has to be repaid every year, which it's more like a tax (which some can escape).

Re: The new regulations on the army. Will they be letting those soldiers who went to jail out now? I bet they put their ticket in straight away, I know I would. You do your job and in terrible circumstances with inferior equipment provided by this government.....and you end up in prison? That is not right imo. They need to tackle the bullying that goes on in the Army too from the top down. I know from first hand how the Army treats the young recruits and it is not nice, in fact it is humiliating for them. The NCOs took a delight in shouting at them in front of civilians.

I think Mrs May will do her very best to be a good PM. I could not stand Cameron or Osborne because they were so much for the upper classes and didn't care about anyone else. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and so be it was their idea of a society that works for all. I think so far Mrs May is trying to do what the country is calling for. I hope she succeeds. I am not happy about the way she tried to humiliate Mr Corbyn though, she is better than that surely?

If Mr Corbyn would just drop his stance on trident and the submarines I think he would gain a few votes. I think he is a decent man, but some of his policies are extreme.

I think there is nothing wrong with Grammar Schools, in fact I support them. I do however feel that everyone should have the choice of where and what kind of school they want for their children. Most schools in UK are good as is the teaching, what we need is a variety of schools that meet the needs of the children going to them. There is room in UK for every child and I do not just mean academics I mean those children who are more suited to hands-on work such as plumbers, builders, car maintenance technicians, shop workers etc etc. We have a wide skill set in this country and we need them all.

Regarding the change in the laws about soldiers/ lawsuits I listened to what was said on the Daily Politics Show, and it seemed sensible stuff.The Geneva Convention rules still apply, as does all criminal law which can be applied to the Army just as much as civilians.Serious cases of wrong doing will be investigated.What won't be considered are charges against the army for holding a person in custody and interrogation ( which has to be done.)

DS has now paid off his student loan and he is married with children and aged 35.Similarly, nephew aged 36 also married with children has paid off the loan.True, it may not have been quite as much as a loan taken out by an 18 year old today,but it was still a very substantial amount, and they had no monetary help from us.So am not sure if in real terms it was any less than is the case today.

We have also been told that our soldiers will no longer be subject to the ECHR rules. Why?? What is this government trying to hide? Difficult in future if we site one of the reasons for going to war as human rights.
The MOD is claiming that most claims are spurious. Difficult argument to defend when we know that the MOD has paid something like £20million for cases of abuse.

A former Lieutenant Colonel said that the MOD willl only pay up if the case is indefensible or it has something to hide. So £20m would seem to be the tip of a very unhappy iceberg.

At long last Leadsom appeared, although she had little to say. Given her brief is environment, food and rural affairs, you would have been sensible to assume that she would have given farmers some reassurance over subsidys etc. But no, her interests only lay in the badger cull and selling tourists British air at £80 per go. We must only be grateful that she never made it to PM and the small grip she appears to have on reality.

May is going to have her work cut out re-introducing grammars. Ruth Davidson has said that it isn't part of the Scottish manifesto ( it isn't part of the English either, but why let such a small detail bother this government), and it will never be part of the Scottish Tory educational plans.
The government is also showing anxiety over Morgans threatened rebellion let alone Gove. Even Rudd has been careful in her wording about the proposals.

Backbencher's are dead against it. Mays tiny majority seems suddenly to have disappeared over this one. It will be interesting to see how she deals with it.

Interesting story:

www.theguardian.com/education/2011/apr/25/prisoners-law-degrees

Even if a graduate is earning £30,000 a year (which is the average), he/she will still be paying less than £1,000 a year in repayments. He/she has to balance that against the amount which could have been earned without the degree.

The problems facing young people financially are more to do with high house prices, high cost of NI and pension contributions and childcare.

I don't think student fees are fair either, but they're being made a scapegoat here. It shouldn't be forgotten that it used to be a very small percentage of people who received fully funded higher education, subsidised by those who didn't receive it.

Yes, they will be paying it off until they reach retirement - and still owe most of it! You'd be surprised how many graduate jobs pay less than £21,000 and don't forget that many graduates don't do graduate jobs. Females are likely to pay back less, because they still tend to take career breaks or work part-time after having children. It's a graduate tax rather than loan repayments.

The whole system is riddled with loopholes. For example, graduates who inherit money can escape the repayments. However, the fees should never be a barrier for poorer students. As I mentioned, some universities still give non-repayable bursaries. My son is getting £2,500 a year from his university, which he won't have to repay.

Don't blame it on the Scots, criminals and foreigners!

I stand corrected. 3 terms per year at £9 thousand per term equates to £27 thousand plus the maintenance loan of £8thousand. £51 thousand to £68 thousand is a heck of a lot of money. How many graduate jobs pay less than £21 thousand? Therefore the student probably will start paying back the money as soon as he/she starts work. They will be paying it off until they are near to retirement. They will have to decide whether they can afford to get married, have children, buy their own home, or not go to university at all. I feel very angry about this and my children are all grown up with their own families.....it is my grandchildren who will be denied the right to reach their full potential.

Which £81,000? Tuition fees cost £9,000 a year.

My son has just started at university. Maybe I should have told him to mug an old lady before he went!

The Scottish university situation is nothing to do with the Barnett Formula. Education was delegated to the Scottish Parliament and it's up to the Scots how they use the money. It's much harder for Scots to get into Scottish universities, because Scotland only has a limited number of funded places. Scotland has decided to use its money to fund a smaller number of students, but more generously. Your DD would have paid exactly the same amount to go to Edinburgh as she would have done to go to an English or Welsh university.

In addition to the above post I would like to add that if you commit a crime and go to prison for it, you can spend your term in prison studying for a degree. I have no objection to criminals being educated, but why can they get their education free while ENGLISH students have to pay their full tuition fees themselves? That amount of £81 thousand does not include accommodation costs or living costs. Would any of you want to have that sort of debt on your shoulders? I know I would not. These children are our country's future, the country will benefit from their efforts. This Government needs to invest in our best brains because if they do not English students will go abroad and another country will benefit not this country. Doesn't anyone agree?

@Yorkshiregel

I'm not actually defending student fees, but I think there needs to be some clarity here.

Students don't have to pay £9000 a year. They borrow £9000 a year plus another £8000 or so for maintenance. Part of this used to be in the form of a non-repayable grant, but now has to be borrowed in the form of a repayable loan. Therefore, most students borrow £17,000 a year (unless parents can afford to pay upfront).

At the end of the course they will have a debt of over £51,000 or £68,000 for a four-year course. Interest accrues from the date the loan is taken out, so it will already be above the amount borrowed. Most graduates will never earn enough to keep up with the interest payments, because they cannot repay early.

That sounds like a fortune. HOWEVER, it shouldn't put off poor students, because they are unlikely ever to pay off the full amount. The repayments are more like a graduate tax. Many universities also still give non-repayable bursaries. Oxford and Cambridge are the most generous.

PS. EU students can study for free, but NOT all foreign students, who pay MUCH MORE than English students. Universities are worried about losing their foreign students, because the effectively subsidise English students. They are worried but countries such as China are investing heavily in their own universities, so Chines students are tending to stay in their own country, and the UK is increasingly being seen as unwelcoming.

Scottish students can study for free at Scottish universities, but there are strict limits on the number who can study in Scotland, which is why Scottish universities have lower standards for English students. Many Scots study in England and pay fees, because they can't get places in their own universities.