Reform UK claims it would renegotiate Brexit deal to stop resident foreign students accessing UK student loan system

Oreo

These loans btw do become freebies as so many are never paid back, too many students doing the kind of degrees that don’t get them anywhere in life and they end up working in a shop or doing any job that doesn’t need A levels never mind a degree.

Did you pay for your degree?

Oreo, can we quantify the number " too many students" currently " working in a shop"?
Some degrees lead directly to a career, others do not. In my family, the only ones who went directly into the career suggested by their degree are the ones in medicine and engineering.
All of the others used their qualifications to take them in a different direction.
None of them are working in a shop, although two of them too some time out after university to work abroad, all in the travel/ service industry, before returning home to establish a career.

Oreo

Sending so many students to Universities and making Polytechnics into ‘Universities’ to fit has been the worst thing for the country and for young people.It was a social experiment thought up by Blair and Brown which hasn’t done anyone any favours.
And on the government creating money, yes of course it can print any amount of it but that won’t help in the long run.

I don't understand what this has to do with foreign nationals taking up places at British universities.

Chocolatelovinggran

If you loan money, then claim it back with interest, then that is profit, not loss.
I understand that some loans are not paid back, for a variety of reasons,, but that applies to all loans, not merely student ones.

The capital might not be paid back, but interest is still collected over many years. Even if the original loan isn't paid back, inflation means it's insignificant at the end of the period. Meanwhile, the interest repaid exceeds the loan many times. The SLC still makes a profit.

Don't you have to have a minimum of 3 years of UK residence to be eligible for UK finance?

So either we are talking about children who have been educated in the UK or adults who have worked and paid taxes?

Cold

Don't you have to have a minimum of 3 years of UK residence to be eligible for UK finance?

So either we are talking about children who have been educated in the UK or adults who have worked and paid taxes?

Yes, that's correct.

Presumably that's why Kemi Badenoch, who came to the UK when she was 16, took a "gap" year after spending two years doing A levels before she went to university. She would be the biggest hypocrite ever if she were to support this idea.

Oreo

kjmpde

My understanding is that foreign students actually help fund universities and the restriction on the numbers has meant that
educational establishments are struggling

Most importantly for those who are tempted by voting for Reform - if GB is taken out of the ECHR and Reform follows through with its policy of cancelling the Equalities Act that the most vulnerable in society will suffer. You have been warned

Yes you’re correct but only foreign students from * other* countries coming to University here in the UK.

So you are objecting to students who are long term residents of the UK being eligible for student finance?

It’s all in the detail I think, if foreign nationals have come here and been granted settled status or British citizenship and worked and paid taxes for ten years I think that their children should be eligible for a student loan.Otherwise not, in my view.
We are often far too tolerant/ lax when it comes to benefits of many kinds handed out like sweets.They may be called loans but so many are never repaid.

twaddle

Oreo

Sending so many students to Universities and making Polytechnics into ‘Universities’ to fit has been the worst thing for the country and for young people.It was a social experiment thought up by Blair and Brown which hasn’t done anyone any favours.
And on the government creating money, yes of course it can print any amount of it but that won’t help in the long run.

I don't understand what this has to do with foreign nationals taking up places at British universities.

They will be part of the body of students often doing meaningless degrees at poor Universities.

This policy may or may not ever come to fruition but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea.

Oreo

It’s all in the detail I think, if foreign nationals have come here and been granted settled status or British citizenship and worked and paid taxes for ten years I think that their children should be eligible for a student loan.Otherwise not, in my view.
We are often far too tolerant/ lax when it comes to benefits of many kinds handed out like sweets.They may be called loans but so many are never repaid.

Bet Reform can only be talking about residents with 3+ years living/working in the UK - as without that you are not eligible for UK student finance today.

This is IMO a virtual signalling policy that is trying to create a "foreigner problem" that doesn't really exist by pretending that anyone can turn up in the UK and student finance.

People criticising what they describe as poor degrees - I would be interested in what their BA/BSc. Is and how it helped them in getting employment.

Should be ten years.

Whitewavemark2

People criticising what they describe as poor degrees - I would be interested in what their BA/BSc. Is and how it helped them in getting employment.

Very much doubt they paid for them, either.

If overseas students come to the UK and pay the full cost of their tuition, at the end go back to their home country, I have no issue with that at all.

It's our own youth that leave education at whatever age that are not trained for any gainful work. For do many the education system from top to bottom has failed, yet the educationalists insists there is nothing wrong with the system and more of the same is the answer.

It clearly is not.

David49, That's not the issue of this thread. Maybe start another one.

Cold

Oreo

It’s all in the detail I think, if foreign nationals have come here and been granted settled status or British citizenship and worked and paid taxes for ten years I think that their children should be eligible for a student loan.Otherwise not, in my view.
We are often far too tolerant/ lax when it comes to benefits of many kinds handed out like sweets.They may be called loans but so many are never repaid.

Bet Reform can only be talking about residents with 3+ years living/working in the UK - as without that you are not eligible for UK student finance today.

This is IMO a virtual signalling policy that is trying to create a "foreigner problem" that doesn't really exist by pretending that anyone can turn up in the UK and student finance.

Of course it is! It's a manufactured problem, which doesn't cause an issue at all, but people who don't understand the student loan system or asset management jump at it. It's all about pesky "foreigners".

Oreo

This policy may or may not ever come to fruition but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea.

It's a rubbish idea for a number of reasons!

Oreo

It’s all in the detail I think, if foreign nationals have come here and been granted settled status or British citizenship and worked and paid taxes for ten years I think that their children should be eligible for a student loan.Otherwise not, in my view.
We are often far too tolerant/ lax when it comes to benefits of many kinds handed out like sweets.They may be called loans but so many are never repaid.

That's not what's happening.

In answer to the question posed up thread, I didn't pay for mine, went straight into teaching and stayed there for nearly forty years.

Oreo

It’s all in the detail I think, if foreign nationals have come here and been granted settled status or British citizenship and worked and paid taxes for ten years I think that their children should be eligible for a student loan.Otherwise not, in my view.
We are often far too tolerant/ lax when it comes to benefits of many kinds handed out like sweets.They may be called loans but so many are never repaid.

I agree. This policy is about the children of those EU foreign Nationals who were granted settled status. They had to have been living and working in the UK for at least 5 years to get settled status in the first place and remain living and working here. Their children were granted settled status at the same time and thus currently have the legal right to access UK university courses and make a claim for a student loan to cover fess etc. This right is part of the Brexit agreement.

Similarly UK nationals who sought settled status in an EU country and remain living in an EU country have the same reciprocal rights- ie to access a university education and either claim a loan of receive free university courses if that is the situation in that EU country.

Thus as their parents have been paying UK taxes for quite some years now, they should be able to access Uni education and claim a student loan.

It would be illegal for Reform to breach the Brexit agreement. So it first would need to get the EU to its suggested change. Whether they would do that, and at what finical or diplomatic cost is anyones guess.

Just read that the EU seeks to charge the UK for the increased access to the EU single market it seeks. Thats is in the same way it charges Switzerland in the same proportionate way based on GDP.

If Reform actually did go ahead with this policy, if elected to government it would be illegally breaching the EU agreement. That begs the question how Reform seeks to get the EU on board, what might be the costs and consequences- and STILL how would it actually result in a £2 billion a year "saving".

What is the cost to the EU of British nationals who reciprocally gained EU settled status after Brexit accessing uni education. Surely the EU would expect the UK to compensate by paying those charges in return for changing the current legal Brexit agreement?

A completely reckless announcement and you have to wonder why voters might fall for it.

I have never understood the desire to keep people uneducated. Access to education changes lives, no matter who you are or where you come from. Education for educations sake is a good thing too

Oreo

twaddle

Oreo

Sending so many students to Universities and making Polytechnics into ‘Universities’ to fit has been the worst thing for the country and for young people.It was a social experiment thought up by Blair and Brown which hasn’t done anyone any favours.
And on the government creating money, yes of course it can print any amount of it but that won’t help in the long run.

I don't understand what this has to do with foreign nationals taking up places at British universities.

They will be part of the body of students often doing meaningless degrees at poor Universities.

The only one I know personally is studying chemistry at Oxford - as you claim, a meaningless degree at a poor university .

As one of the Russell Group of Universities obvs Oxford is an excellent one, and they don’t do meaningless degrees there.