UKC

Crikey.

These days:
Apply for 6th form (with some pressure to have an idea of what you want to do later). Get the GCSEs right or you get kicked out. Then AS levels. Oh, and build a CV for your personal statement. Spend endless hours digesting the internet. Then visit a bunch of universities and understand criteria and strengths of each. Then write a personal statement and try to reconcile school advice, peer advice, online advice, parental advice and your own ideas. Then additional tests for some universities/courses. Then interviews, then offers, then A2s. Apply for loan.

The old days (my experience):
Do O-levels; turn up next term and go to sleep for a year. Send form in to get a small pile of prospecti. Tick some UCCA boxes and lick a stamp. No visits, no interviews, 5 offers. Do A-levels. Swan in on grant after gap year.

Pretty tough being a teenager these days.

In reply to JJL:

I started university in 2000 and the applications involved all of the things you listed above. The few differences were that I wasn't paying £9k a year and I had to pay my £1k up front along with my rent Also, I wasn't expected to be doing more than 3 A-levels to get into a good university; 3 As in proper subjects and a good interview would get you into Oxford to study medicine whereas these days you seem to need 5 As to get on a media studies course at some ex polytechnic. It simply wouldn't have been possible to study for 5 A-levels where I did mine, there wasn't enough time in the week, 4 was pushing it.

In reply to JJL:

I'm 16 and just left school and yes, its hard

In reply to coreybennett:
No it's not. My grandad was in the pit aged 14 with a world war looming! Just get on with it.

In reply to Skol:

Nice to know.

In reply to coreybennett:
Not really. I bet he shat hiself at his prospects, but got on with it and did ok?

In reply to Skol:

My Granda was a miner as well (Hylton Colliery), probably from mid teens. Probably spent best part of those years underground choking on shit for a pittance.

Strapping lad by all accounts! 6 foot four, built like brick shithouse. Keen boxer.

Hit by a coal truck underground and ended up losing a leg in his late teens, before health and safety had 'gorn mad' and human casualties were an acceptable / inevitable consequence of everyday industrial life.

I always keep his experience in mind whenever I think my life is hard, or my cushy 9-5 office job is getting me down.

In reply to gethin_allen:

Nobody pays £9k/year now. I honestly can't be bothered saying much more, again. A lot of people under the current system are never going to pay a single penny.


Balderdash and piffle. Back in 1996 3 predicted As wouldn't guarantee an Oxbridge interview in the sciences and it was recommended to undertak additional Further Maths or S-/Step- level papers as well. Fast forwards to 2014 and your sure as hell don't need 5 A-level As for a good degree. I picked a random example, medicine at Newcastle.

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/degrees/a100/entryrequirements/



The most I've seen is AAA* with a further maths As or whateveritscallednow helping to mitigate a less than relevant A level.

In reply to wintertree:

>I honestly can't be bothered saying much more, again.

You will though.

In reply to ThunderCat:
Exactly.
We don't know we are born nowadays! My grandad used to say, ' work hard at school lad, and ne'rr go down't pit''! I didn't listen, went down the pit for a week, then went back to college pretty quick!

In reply to aln:



No, I'm hoping for a moment of revelation where people actually take 5 minutes to read about and understand the current fee system and the nature of the loans. It's not like there isn't an aver growing series of news stories about the ever shrinking projections of how much will eventually be repaid....

In reply to JJL:


I overlapped with the tail end of people who'd had free degrees and decent grants. A different world that was great for those people (1), but under that system they were a much smaller fraction of the teenagers. I'm not sure some of the others would agree that it was much better then than now.

(1) well they had a great time at the time. Not sure that all of them were exactly motivated on the accademic front....

In reply to wintertree:

Nobody pays £9k/year now. I honestly can't be bothered saying much more, again.
Don't then.
A lot of people under the current system are never going to pay a single penny.

I know the fees system, I work in a university. I very much doubt that "a lot of people" as a percentage will avoid paying anything, I agree that a lot of the debt will be written off due to time restraints but do you really think the job prospects of a new graduate as that poor that they'll never earn above the threshold?
Also, if you read my comments above I clearly state that one of the difference between my experiences and the current system as that I paid my fees UP FRONT, acknowledging that in the current system fees are not paid up front.

Regarding Oxbridge access, I can only comment about the experiences of my peers at that time; I went to Sheffield university as I didn't fancy the oxbridge life and wouldn't have got in on my grades anyhow.

In reply to Skol:

I was working in an iron foundry at 15. Places like this;

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Ebbw_Vale_Steel_Works_i...

In reply to gethin_allen:


Then I struggle to see how you can say that people are paying £9k a year. The fantasty of paying 9k a year is almost exactly not like the reality of paying a small fraction of the component of your wage above some high threshold post graduation.


The threshold is set above the average wage. We're not far off half our young people being graduates. You can do the maths here, I'll give you a hint - plenty of people without degrees earn over the average wage. Not everyone is above average. Current estimates are 60% will have some or all written of. That fraction keeps rising.


Yes I figured as much but it doesn't excuse going on to say people are paying 9k a year when they aren't. It's basically a graduate tax. It's only not called a graduate tax to defer a massive budgetary black hole into a future governments books.

This gets my goat because every time the "paying 9k a year" line is trotted out it fuels those with a political axe to grid and convinced more young people that they can't afford to go to university when that simply is not the case.

In reply to stroppygob:

While the 4 Yorkshire men style stories on here are indeed hard, I don't think the pressure on young people to decide on their future while still in their teens should go unacknowledged.

In reply to Skol:

I've been down a lot of old lead mines where the miners worked in tiny half flooded collapsing passages and had to buy their own candles. It's a joy to walk into the office on Monday morning. But beyond all the four yorkshiremen type stuff it can be harder for yound people now than the previous generation where a degree guarenteed a good steady job. I think if you know what you want from about the age of 18 to 21 and try hard to get it then you'll do well (it helps if what you want is in demand).

In reply to Red Rover:
My mum never even thought about wondering if she'd find a job, when she was looking around for her first teaching job. A friend told her she 'could have her other job'...the one she wasn't going for, and my mum got her first job just like that.

In reply to Timmd:

My Grandad said 'you don't know you're born, I left school at 16 and was working 3 days later and I never left' but now if you leave at 16 you're stuffed. But his working conditions would have been a lot worse and leasuire time non existant so it's swings and roundabouts.

In reply to Timmd:


I don't think anyone is not acknowledging it, just trying to offer a sense of perspective.


When someone says;


It's as well to recognise what "being a teenager" was like for others. When I (eventually) went to Uni, (aged 22) it was something that was hard fought for, only something like 6% of people managed it.

In reply to Skol:

I'll bet he didn't have any shoes either?

It didn't take long for the road-lickers to turn up!

I was just comparing the experience then (with a high degree of personal bias - that was *my* experience), with what I see now. I particularly feel that the 12 months from sitting ASs, through application to sitting A2s is a nightmare now. These kids (sorry) are just 17 and it's hitting them from all angles and all the time.

I particularly feel that the 12 months from sitting ASs, through application to sitting A2s is a nightmare now. These kids (sorry) are just 17 and it's hitting them from all angles and all the time.

well this will all change for the worse now as they are going to do away with modular A levels making the final exam even more daunting.

Also, not all teenagers are working hard for their exams, my neighbour's son just sits in the garden smoking weed all day. 😃

In reply to wintertree:


Of my staff, 100% of those who have taken out a student loan are in the process of repayment or have successfully repaid the entire sum during their employment with my company. And if they had not achieved a degree they would not have been invited to interview in the first place. Their above average earnings and ability to pay down the debt (which they say they barely notice) seems a pretty good example of the system working as intended.

I'm not suggesting the system is perfect, nor even defending it. I think the fees are a disgrace. But your blanket insistence that not a single student will be repaying their fees is, in the light of my experience, quite blinkered.

In reply to stroppygob:


A point missed by several posters who went to uni on the "good old days" and seen to think that GCSE>A-level>Uni is the goal. Then there's the other 55 to 60% of teenagers who won't go to uni to consider...!

I feel in some ways there's never been a better time; the world is more connected than ever before, incredible knowledge and learning are available instantly from a slab of metal and plastic the size of your hand, not burried away in institutions or at the end of an inter-library loan. There are so many opportunities, but the societal and technological changes that have enabled this have furthered a culture of acquisition and status. The modern world can enslave or empower individuals. It could be the first great leveller across the social strata, but that needs a fundamental shift in the attitudes towards schooling, status and consumption.

In reply to BnB:

Selection effect. You work somewhere that pays over a threshold. Therefore the people you pay will be repaying their fees. Whilst I'm not going to disagree with much of what you say, this obviously doesn't speak for the large number of graduates on lower wages.


Absolutely. I totally agree. I'm glad they say they barely notice the repayments. Hardly a crippling expense that puts the degree out of reach. A system that is working well, despite various objections to the principles behind it.


Blanket insistence? Where the hell have a said that? I noted that the most recent projections are for 60% having some or all of their loan written of. How you got from my two posts to your statement above, I have no idea.

My problem is with people saying someone pays £9k making degrees ofputting, intimidating or unaffordable. It's balderdash and piffle. As your example shows, those who pay barely notice the expense. Others who don't end up paying will have spent £0.00/year on fees.

As your example shows, everyone on your staff was able to afford their degree due to the workings of the loan system. If you paid under the threshold the loan would never start accumulating interest, would not be collected and would eventually be written of.

So everyone can afford a degree, nobody pays 9k a year. That's my main point. Your post nicely illustrates why I get so peeved when someone pops up I say a degree is unaffordable or intimidaring able due to having to pay ~£9k/year.

A totally different discussion could be had around the proections for eventual repayment of the loans that facilitate these eminently affordable degrees. As I said the projections for eventual repayment keep dropping. This is not a surprise to most people as it was recognised at the time that calling these "loans" and not a "graduate tax" allowed the use of over optimistic numbers on repayment to plug a hole in the current book and reality is catching up and it's not going to be pretty.

In reply to JJL:

They've got it easy, when I were a lad I lived in a hole in the ground.

In reply to gethin_allen:


In a modular system the complaint is that the kids are continually doing exams and are continually stressed out. But we're also told that a final-exam system is worse. What system would you prefer? All kids being awarded As automatically without any need to take exams, thus removing all the stress?

In reply to wintertree:


What a big attitude. It's not just the £9k fees though is it....there is the living expense also making most students come out with £35-40k debt. Seems clear that you think you can comment on everyone elses thoughts but you can't. I know a number of young people who have just done A levels and are ot going to university because they are anxious about having a debt like that (which rises with interest)....you dont seem to acknowledge that the up front costs are unaffordable for lots of families....as is visitinh universities for open days/ interbiews etc.
Basically yoj are in no position to pass your crass judgements...

In reply to wintertree:

I think I understand what you are saying, but I don't make the same distinction as you between the cost of the fees and the drip drip repayment process. Your point seems to be that only the student loans company pays £9k per student per year and that the eventual graduates fall into two camps, those who never pay and those who slowly pay back rather more (accounting for interest) than the £27k most will originally have borrowed.

But it is a fallacy to assert, as you do, that no student is paying the £9k pa. The system records their payment via the student loans company, who then affords them the convenience of a flexible and lengthy cash repayment schedule.

And when the debt is finally repaid, it is £9k x number of years study (+ interest) that will have been paid off.

In reply to stroppygob:




That's fair enough.

In reply to abr1966:


It's a big problem. You are about to illustrate why.


Yes, but it's not "normal" debt. No repayments are made until a certain, high, earning threshold. Then repayments are charged only as a fraction of income above that threshold. If your income drops, payments are suspended, nosher and nasher don't turn up to take your TV away or smash your kneecaps. It doesn't go down as a black mark on a credit score.


No, I am just commenting on the reality of the loan system against the fear, uncertainty and doubt that is projected by some in person, on line and in the media of unaffordable 9k/year fees etc.


And why are they anxious? Perhaps because they don't have a good understanding of the nature of the debt? Why is that? Because people are all to ready to tell them about how bad that debt is. I think it is an absolute disgrace that people are being put of because of concerns over the debt, given the terms is operates under. If a system with almost exactly the same eventual repayments had instead been branded a "graduate tax", would these young people you know still be to anxious to go to university? If not then they are being badly failed. So yes, I have a big attitude about that.


Where have we been talking about up front costs, open days or interviews? Should I also acknowledge that they have to buy a ruler and pencil case? Or that the sky is blue? More seriously, yes it's a problem - one with no relation to this discussion as it's been a problem for a long time - a lot of universities are working increasingly hard to help those for whom it is a problem. Along with the new fees regime there has been more efforts in things like bursaries and hardship funds.

In reply to wintertree:



Are you talking about the 9k not being 'normal' debt or the 30k to 40k?

In reply to BnB:

Indeed. There is a whole spectrum of people from those who pay £0.00 over their lifetime to those who will repay several times the amount that was borrowed. There may even be a few somewhere in the middle who more or less repay exactly their £9k x number of years of study.


They are accepting a liability against their name, and it's one with a flexibly and lengthy cash repayment schedule that is eventually written off with no consequences. That last part is a major differentiator and that is why I find the term "paying" semantically inappropriate when used in combination with £9k/year. It's entirely possible that they will pay back £0.00 over their lifetime. I know a few people who are currently heading down that road - quite happily I add. It's all financial semantics, but the label spills over into the real world and influences peoples decisions. For that reasons I feel that it should have been called what it basically is - a "graduate tax".

Martin Lewis said all this a lot better than me last year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10245550/Martin-Lewis-Ti...


Only for 55% of the graduates.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-finance/10...

I wasn't really intending to get sidetracked into this debate. My main concern is the perception that the debt is somehow crippling or unaffordable to the individual when that is far from the case.

In reply to Timmd:

I'm assuming that the 30k-40k is the sum over 3-4 years of £9k fees and a maintenance loan, all borrowed through the student loan system. This is far from being a "normal" debt.

In reply to Trangia:
Can't answer that one. I'll get the ouija board out later

In reply to wintertree:



You might consider that living costs are proving prohibitive to some?

In reply to gethin_allen:

Not many interview do they? I started 98 and had offers from most I applied for..

In reply to JJL:







I'm not sure when you enjoyed your nice easy ride through to university but your version of today's application and admission process is little different from my own experience in the mid-80s....

apart from the fact that my progress came to an abrupt halt with a crappy set of A level results

In reply to timjones:

1982.

Hadn't ever seen a university until I turned up for the first term.

In reply to JJL:



Strange. Just a few years later I'd say that your experience was far from the experience that myself and my schoolfriend's had.

Did you go to one of them there posh schools

In reply to Timmd:

That does not however have any connection to my rant against the false cries that fees are making university unaffordable.

Cost of living always has been prohibitive to some at university and so this has little relevance to the OP. You will note I have given it consideration in this thread, e.g. " and a maintenance loan" and " ... like bursaries and hardship funds.". I am well aware that some people undergo extreme financial hardship during their degrees for a whole spectrum of reasons. There reasons however are in no way related to the fees or the student loan company debt, and people were suffering the exact same financial hardships for the exact same reasons 15-20 years ago, that is before the advent of fees. The big difference I have seen is how much more institutions try and help people through these difficulties these days

This site is probably the best actual, factual and sensible description of the whole situation.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-change...

In reply to wintertree:

Martin produces some good stuff but in this case its a bit 'smoke and mirrors' at times especially as it sort of assumes the fee change was necessary. The current calculations show the massive change to the new fee regime is probably going to be pretty much cost neutral to the government and the increased potential debt to students who do get good jobs is undeniable. In my day I got a full grant and no fee and once in a job the pensions were way better than they are now and getting on the housing ladder wasn't so hard. It seems seriously scary to me as an academic that a huge swathes of my students who go on to become middle income graduates (as nearly all do in STEM) are facing ( for the same level of salary) much lower lifetime wealth than my peers, for no obvious good reason, and with worrying consequences to the economy (no country sustains growth for long by making the middle classes that much poorer). The fact that large numbers of students with sub threshold income get much less overall debt doesn't console me much... hardly a good incentive for graduates to strive and further the success of our nation is it?

In reply to Offwidth:

Indeed. All this effort, all the bad press, all the people wrongly put off from going to higher education and the net result is bugger all. Incredibly frustrating.


A much lower fraction of the population went to university when either of us were undergraduates, so statistically it is not so surprising that the students of today, as a cohort, are on average going to have less lifetime wealth. Having said that, I agree entirely with you about the situation with pensions and house prices - I do not feel that things are going in a very pleasant direction.


I agree entirely. There is very little that I like about the current system, and it is effectively a regressive tax that is going to hit middle earners worse over their life-times than lower and higher earners.

However much I dislike the system however, my dislike pales compared to my views on the crap that comes out about unaffordable fees and crippling student loans. This really gets my goat because it puts people off going to university for all the wrong reasons, and I suspect it particularly discourages people from the "non traditional" backgrounds. Given that the new fees and loan regime arose partly from the effects of widening participation it shows what a clusterf--k the whole thing is becoming, even before considering the ever decreasing projections for eventual loan repayment.

In reply to JJL:

Whats this 9K a year stuff everyone is on about? I'm from Wales.

In reply to wintertree:


That's true.

In reply to origamib:

Ooooh ooh you....*head explodes with pent up rage* : )

In reply to JJL:

you had it hard , but i agree the 70's were the best years, blag your way in , get a grant, work in the uni canteen on a sunday and get sunday double pay, claim the tax back, then sign on the dole in holidays and the piss off to the alps for 9 weeks whilst getting your dole money paid cause you lived more than 7 miles from the dole office.

As for today , thats what happen's when all the Southereners vote f**king Tory so they get what they deserve.

my apologies to any labour voters in the south

In reply to JJL:

My daughter started Uni this year, her and her peers accept the fees and repayments as "normal". Interestingly those complaining and assaying that "kids today have it hard", seem to be those who went under the old system. (As did I.)

Would I have gone if the system in those days was as it is today? Probably. I did have seven years of working behind me before I went, so had plenty of time to save for it.

Though both my degrees I worked too, everything from back in my trade (fitter /machinist in heavy industry,) to running an off-license.

Kids today have it no harder, I think a case can be made for it being a LOT easier.

In reply to stroppygob:


I'd disagree with the lot easier bit. I was one of the other 90% in the 1980s that didn't go to university. Although jobs certainly weren't much easier to come by then compared to today, half a dozen good O levels would land you an entry level post in most companies. Similar jobs today will probably be marketed at Graduates.

This hasn't done anybody any favours, perhaps apart from employers who no longer have to bother funding the ONC/HNC route as part of training. Many 'degrees' seem little more than rebranded NVQs, but done full time over three years with the associated costs.

Degrees seem to be a new right of passage, making it difficult to get even the most basic, entry level job without one. I think that's an appalling situation, forcing people who don't have an academic mindset into effectively five more tedious years 'at school', just to get an interview for a simple job. It doesn't do the academic ones any favours either, as every man and his dog now seems to be a graduate, so MSC, PhD, (whatever the correct case is), is now the new differentiator.

I'm not so sure on the 'lifetime wealth' angle. Certainly the working to 68+ and expensive pensions is worse than before. However, I work with a lot of late 20s/early 30s types who seem to be hitting the nice semi and new car lifestyle long before I ever did. (Not that I've ever bought a new car!).

Still disagree with you. There are good reasons for not going to Uni when alternative routes exist like getting a job and working through linked qualifications or even just waiting a few years for the dust to settle whilst getting paid. I'd agree if you can't get a job it's a not such a bad choice. By far the key issue to me is that we are storing terrible trouble with such a regressive system, alongside the other structural issues I raised. For all your concerns about some of the dishonest press, record numbers are queuing up to go to Uni and the hard working middle are the (only) ones presently set to pay more than their fair share.

In reply to JJL:

I've just graduated, and think that no generation has ever had it easier or harder than another. There are always going to be challenges facing those entering university and then the work place. But with each challenge, each generation learns how to deal with it in the best way, and thus progress further.

Some aspects of my process were harder, some a damn sight easier, but altogether it's the same set of life events that everyone goes through. It's the attitude that's important - what you take from it and how you plan to get through it. With the right intention anything is made easier.

In reply to Offwidth:

Yes. I explicitly said I did not like people being out off for the "wrong reasons". I'm not sure the new world order of a degree being perceived as "the" thing to do is a good state of affairs.


I totally agree that that is wrong. I actually have a bone to pick with the analyses of this I have seen as they talk about total money repaid, ignorant of the fact the middle pay more back many years after graduation that the top. They are paying more back out of a salary that has partly grown to match inflation, so in terms of normalised purchasing power or inflation adjusted currency, they are overpaying by significantly less than you might think. The big problem being with my thoughts here is that the link between inflation and pay is currently broken, even as other financial metrics recover... Ultimately it's almost impossible to calculate fair costs of a debt that is amortised over a variable length of time. But fundamentally I do think it stinks - it offers no incentive to succeed at the time of study and it is not fair afterwards.

Any tax system with regressive or singular regions strikes me as inelegant and likely to penalise some people unfairly, stamp duty being another example.

This is still no excuse for anyone saying that £9k/year or £60k of student debt is unaffordable. That was all I had intended to rant about.

In reply to Ridge:
The 80s was when governments started to dismantle state support for work based qualifications, so it's certainly not all the fault of companies that funded places declined. My experience of teaching our mid 80s engineering HNDs was the output skills and intellect were easily comparable with current graduates. C&G holders from the previous generation were pretty impressive as well.

The UK population at times seems oblivious to the fact that nations we need to compete with in the future already have much higher HE graduate rates as a percentage of the population... and the few that don't (notably the US) are much more happy than us to import the graduates they need. The last thing we need as a nation is a reduction in HE training (in its widest sense, not just at University).

Almost certainly one of the key reasons your young friends seem to be doing so well is (in my view an unwise) generational increase in (naive) comfort with debt. Chatting to students before they graduate I'm amazed how optimistic they are on average...they nearly all think things will be OK and yet a few years on increasing numbers are not, as the realities of the world of work and personal finance bite; or for the luckier ones if the nice job they have disappears, financial trouble can arrive pretty fast.

In reply to wintertree:

I think you mean 'one' might think (I'm certainly aware) ; my concern with that specific is the more you succeed (better salary) the more you pay (unless you are rich and can pay off fast before the RPI-plus interest compounds), which is a plain daft disincentive to the 'middle'. I fully agree the debt is affordable, I'd simply ask prospective students to think more first if it is desirable.

In reply to Offwidth:


Isn't this a fairly normal feature of tax schemes, indeed of any ways in which the state raises money to fund things?

In reply to Offwidth:


Fair do's.


This is the nub of it. The amount of financial modelling combined with guesswork/futurology (RPI, average wage inflation, your career trajectory) over 30 years that is needed to make an informed decision (from the view of lifetime wealth) makes it all but impossible for an individual to stand a chance. But then that is the nature of many decisions one has to make in life, and at least this one can't clobber you financially.

I know enough examples of people who regret their degree from the 3k fees reigeme and view it as an additional cost that delayed the start of their eventual career. They'll never know for sure if that was the case, but of you sent them back in time they would consider options other than a degree. In these cases the non financial aspects of choosing to do a degree (or choosing the wrong degree/institution) were far more clobbering than the financial impact.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
Sure but if you set the wrong tax rates and overly squeeze the middle it doesn't bode well. It's also a double whammy for the middle as on average the parents now have to carry proportionally bigger increases in costs to support their kids through Uni.

In reply to wintertree:

Something else you can do, if in doubt, is go study in Europe in English. Even the French offer courses now! I'm amazed the level of HE migration from the UK isn't bigger than it is.

In reply to gethin_allen:


I don't know about all courses, but I can say that no more than 3 A levels are required for reasonably competitive courses like medicine or veterinary medicine, even at Oxbridge. This year's Oxbridge offers were around the A*AA mark, plus a decent BMAT score, assuming a competent interview.

Actually, I think physics at Manchester seemed to giving this year's toughest offers - must be the Brian Cox effect.

In reply to tiffanykate12:

A very sensible comment Kate.

It is foolish, and frequently based on historical snobbery, to compare one era with another and to suppose that one generation was particularly favoured. Even worse is to attribute moral strengths or weaknesses to people born at a particular time, as if they were all the same or had identical circumstances or opinions.

Normally those doing this comparison tend to select (or invent), those aspects of life in a previous (or current) time, to "prove" the point they are making. Obviously you can say that the current generation are not conscripted to serve in the armed forces for months and years, having to run up Normandy beaches under machine-gun fire, or chip ice off ships while attacked by U boats in arctic waters.

Notwithstanding, it seems pretty clear that the vast increase in the proportion of each age cohort going to university was a vast and almost irreversible mistake, based on faulty logic and wishful thinking. The (naively simple), logical fallacy seems to have been "graduates are more prosperous than others, so if we increase the proportion of graduates, everyone will be more prosperous". Clearly the originators of this ludicrous idea had never heard of the confusion between correlation and cause.

There were never going to be that many "graduate jobs", nor was it clear that increasing the proportion of university students above a certain level was beneficial for either the individual or society. Certainly it was unaffordable, hence the fees fiasco. Essentially the value of a degree to the individual was dramatically reduced by simple law of supply and demand, while the cost rose dramatically at the same time.

In reply to JJL:





And then the degree is worth next to SFA.

In reply to Simon4:


While there is a lot of truth in what you say, the rationale was more along the lines that we're increasingly moving to a "knowledge economy" and that an increasingly large fraction of the jobs will be graduate-level ones, and thus that we need a more educated workforce. This goes along with the (politically correct but somewhat dubious) stance that everyone (or at least many more people) can be educated to the level required for graduate-level roles.

I think that there is some truth in these ideas, but in reality no-one really knows what is the optimum fraction of young people going to university. The fraction gets determined by politics and ideology rather than by evidence of what is best for the economy.

I do think that anyone of broad "middling ability" should think very carefully about going to university, since in many careers they will progress as fast or faster by starting earlier and accumulating experience on the job (and avoid the graduate tax).

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I can understand such rot from Simon4 but I'd expect better than support from you. At the most in such complex long term planning over decades you might say opportunity was gradually opened up (via the '44 act, Robbins, Crossland, the '88 and '92 acts and Dearing) to the full populace that only previously existed for the males of the upper and upper middle classes for the benefit of both the individuals and the wider economy. The real requirements for graduates has increased massively even if many so called graduate jobs don't really need to be and too many graduates don't do graduate jobs: in some subjects we have shortages of graduates and post grads requiring significant immigration to fill the gaps.

In reply to Offwidth:

So what is the optimum fraction of young people going to university, and what is the evidence supporting the figure?


Is it really a shortage of "graduates", or is it a shortage of good-enough people? In other words, if you increased the number of graduates, and did so by going further down the ability range for entrance to university, would it solve the problem?

In reply to JJL:

Unfortunately, we now suffer from the severe problem that dummies with degrees are as much use as dummies without degrees.

At the same time, there is little respect for, and limited interest in, high quality technician training. Once market forces influence technician pay in a period of shortage we'll end up with not enough people doing degrees.

It wasn't broken and they shouldn't have tried to fix it.

In reply to Offwidth:


You sound like a bigoted Guardian-reading moron - can't present a reasoned argument, so resort to abuse.

In reply to Coel Hellier:



My experience as an employer of (mostly) arts graduates over the last 20 years would suggest "probably not". The actual content of any degree is of relatively little relevance to most graduate jobs, excepting those on the scientific side where the degree is a natural staging post to qualification as an engineer or doctor, for example. Good qualities, and that includes inate intelligence, are essential in many disciplines.

In reply to aln:

Please pass go and collect your £200.

In reply to JJL:



Hmmm, when I was applying in 1972/3 it was normal to go for interviews. I was asked to 5 (ie all my application choices). Some of them were quite challenging, involving discussions with panels of 2-3 lecturers and even some blackboard work. These were all red brick unis, not Oxbridge.

In reply to Removed User:

If you're practicing for a career in comedy - give up now.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
Its very real in my area. For 30 years I've taught on various formats of engineering, technology and computing courses and those who were no good failed and pretty much everyone who graduated and wanted a relevant job in the area got one as did a good number of our european exchange students and the best overseas students. Most worked for a few years for their CV and went elsewhere, some settled. The boom time was around 15 years ago when engineering courses were closing in about half of the post '92s (these graduates had been 'bread and butter' for UK industry as pre 92 engineers were sometimes less practically flexible and converted more to research, lucrative finance jobs etc) our last batch of accredited EEE and ME Uk graduates around that time were looking at a wide choice of excellent offers and large number of our overseas students filled the gaps. One of the main motivations of overseas students on the current MScs we run is getting work experience in the UK as a sandwich or after graduation.

My view is a bit more support to encourage UK students in shortage areas like engineering and disincentives for Unis closing such departments would have been wise but the government always seemed happy to let the external market fill the gap (unless affecting their own areas of responsibility like health, education and defense).

I can assure you all that you DO notice paying off student loans. A few years ago it was money I never thought about but now after 5+years of wage stagnation, a new house and a new family I could desperately do with that money in my take home column. I can manage, yes, but it's a significant fraction of my disposable income and genuinely limits my financial decisions.

But it's not just that. I can accept that it's a loan, I got the money, I pay it back. Fortunately I nearly have. But the new loans, who is to say the terms and conditions won't change in the future? It's been talked about already because the system is such a mess. By setting the threshold for replayment so high and adding commercial rates of interest the have ensured that graduates will spend their whole lives with £40k of debt + to their name. Is that really a sound financial footing? No.

If it's a tax, call it a tax and make it retrospective.

In reply to JJL:

I don't think it's tough to expect a teenager to prepare personal documents such as a CV nor to research organisations that will shape their future. This is what you do before you take a job. It's simply getting them used to the real world early.

In reply to JJL:

Ignoring the £9k argument - which wasn't what the OP was about - I agree that I feel sorry for some young people compared to my experience. I think the stressfulness is higher.

My 17 year old has 11 A* GCSE's and has just got 5 A grade AS levels from the local comprehensive. He's been swotting all through the summer hols (he's doing some physics at the mo) and works cleaning cars and whatever to get some dosh and to help fund his future at Uni.

He's not sure he'll get an offer from Cambridge because of the stiff competition, and perhaps one of the main differences with "my day" is that he's competing globally. God knows what else he's supposed to be doing.

As you suggest, he's also befuddled with the advice on offer from every direction and the pressure to trundle around the country (at great expense) visiting all these open days. We haven't got to the offers and interview stage yet......

I don't think I ever worked that hard at 17.

In reply to Babika:

Good luck with the whole process.


Pre-application open days seem to be quite a new phenomenon, and if someone has predicted grades that exceed the application criteria at all of their choices - that is they are likely to be able to visit and decide after the offers are made - then it is not clear to me that they do anything for the student. They do however give institutions another opportunity to sell themselves to the student - touting for business. Others may disagree.

In reply to Babika:


If he's predicted to get those kinds of grades at A2, I don't see why not, if he interviews well and is passionate about his subject. Being at a comp is a distinct advantage, assuming the staff know the ropes and he goes to the relevant open days (and makes a good impression).

In reply to Dave Garnett:
Why at a comp?

My experience is the opposite... I think those who pay are schooled better.. Everyone is more driven..

I remember walking in to the Oxbridge meeting with the bird I was with.. She was Oxbridge through and through.. The teacher just said 'iain why are you here?'

Had I gone to a private school I'd have not been written off.. I ended up with AAB (the same as my missus at the time who was so welcome), first class degree, PHD, then post-doc awards.. But I was written off in the state system... I think public schools would have pushed me earlier...

In reply to JJL:

It probably more difficult to d othe admin now and once you have finished you will have a lifetime of debt to deal with but the actual A levels and GCSEs are far easier then they were 20 years ago.

We are producing a generation of people who are good at filling in forms but lack any real knowledge

In reply to Red Rover:

My Grandad was a conscript in the Spanish army during the outbreak of the Spanish civil war. Once the war was over he went in to excile in France but returned to Spain (was chased out by the Nazis) He then spent 7 years in a prison camp. I asked him what he did during the civil war he said mainly peeling spuds. Wrong place at the wrong time. My father and myself and no doubt my kids have it much easier!

In reply to Dave Garnett:
I get the impression that although being at a comp is a distinct advantage, it makes no difference if the school is not driven to steer gifted pupils in that direction. At our local comp when they took the students who could apply to Cambridge, the teachers did not have a clue how to support them in the process. it was both sad and appalling.

In reply to IainRUK:
I agree; for all the worthy statements about supporting wider participation from Oxbridge the lack of discrimination at the top in A levels allows them to unfairly reject comp candidates who should be given the chance as they have better marks in their A stars and be naturally brighter than kids more inetensively and carefully tutored. The percentage of kids from comps at Oxbridge and too many other top universities is still way too low. There was a scandal a few years back that only a single british black caribbean made it into Oxford (they countered that they had lots of african ethnicity...often public school educated from rich families of course).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13041885

I know someone well who was offered a place for maths but he had to take STEPs exams as well, which given his school lacked any experience he had to do on his own (a severe disadvantage compared to being helped by tutors who know the style and trends in these exams). The Sutton trust has looked at this in detail.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14069516

And there is more here:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/aug/14/oxford-university-private-...

In my day (1980) the ratios were pretty much 1/3 each for state (comps etc), grant maintained (old style grammars...which were far more common then) and indepenants (fee paying). Now its still roughly 1/3 independant.

In reply to neilh, Offwidth and IainRUK:

I did say 'assuming the staff know the ropes'. My impression is that universities (including Oxbridge) are making a big effort to reach out beyong their 'traditional' constituency with introductory open days, mentoring programmes and reduced offers for disadvantaged students.

However, it does need the staff at the schools to at least be receptive to these approaches. Schools are invited to put students forward for these programmes and, sadly, often they just don't respond. It's about poverty of expectation amongst teachers as much as students.

I've also just seen vastly different behaviour on A level results day. Some schools were open at 7 am with the kids told in no uncertain terms to be there to get their results as early as possible. Teachers were already targeting students who had missed their grades (the schools know the day before, of course), phoning universities, getting kids logged on to clearing, really pushing to maximise opportunities. Others not so much.

In reply to Dave Garnett:
I can assure you the whole system could do a lot more. We are very comfy as a sector with our middle class 'diet'... trying hard is usually much more about very visibly meeting the access requirements to charge 9k fees than doing as well as we could. Some unis are doing well but the best of these are well down the league tables. Putting say a 15% quota on independant school entrants (providing the percentage chosen would be fair such that no excellent students would fail to get a place somewhere) and forced automatic acceptance for any student from a below average ranked school meeting entry requirements (or similar for anyone from any under represented group) would help. Its scandalous that Oxbridge entry stats show preferential rejection of triple A* candidates from the schools where its much harder for kids to make the grade in favour of yet more public school kids who are way below the best from that sector. If you want the best and brightest blaming lower quality schools is unhelpful: you help them, you preferentially take their students all other results being equal.

In reply to Dave Garnett:
100% agree.

In reply to Offwidth:
More of a general question to the tread for those like me who graduated 20 something years ago but presumably of interest to a teacher. If you'd had to take out student loans under the post 2012 system and graduated with £40k loans attracting interest at RPI+3% would you fully repay the loans before the 30 year term with the salary you've been paid?

To be more accurate you'd need to discount the £40k loan to its value 20 or more years ago and also discount the £21k threshold above which you have to repay the loan.

It came as a surprise to me, I'd be close to repaying but I wouldn't fully repay the loan.

In reply to MD:

I would, in this time machine, but I'm in a very good job in a northern city; would those like me in the time machine also be able to afford a nice house, a decent pension and help kids through Uni when its their turn... thats very questionable (like it already is for some peers in London)?

In reply to JJL:
I graduated 11 years ago with about £15k of Student Loan.

I'm still paying it off at just short of £250 a month - aged 33 with a young family.

I can assure you, I notice the repayments and can't wait until I'm 35 when I will have finally finished paying it off.

Once over the £21k threshhold your shafted.....

Basic Rate Tax Payer 20% tax, 12% NIC, 9% student loan = total 41%
Higher rate tax payer 40% tax, 2% NIC, 9% student loan = total 51%

So we have people earning in the £20k's paying a top marginal rate of a 40% tax payer (who doesnt have a loan.

I feel sorry for the ones coming out today with 3 times my debt. It's criminal that they are being signed up to a lifetimes worth of debt repayments.

In reply to JJL:

first couple of years earning below the threshhold you don't pay anything - sounds good eh?

but the interest is still accumulating and the balance increasing.

then a few years earning just above the threshhold - ok, sounds good, at least its getting paid down now!?

no, becuase you pay so little, you don't even meet the interest charge, and so your loan balance carries on increasing!!

People saying it is not a real loan are talking rubbish. It's a loan with special T&C's

In reply to steveej:

Does it go on your credit score? No.

If you don't make repayments due to earning less that £21k per year, do you get a visit from the bailiffs or declared bankrupt if you are unable to pay it? No.

Can you show me another loan that is written off after 30 years, regardless of how much you have or have not repaid? No.

Is repayment administered out of your pay check via the same systems as PAYE, only on a percent of income above some threshold, just like PAYE? Yes.

Those are some pretty special T&Cs that are unlike any other loan anywhere on the market. If you want to claim otherwise please find a comparable loan and post about it here.


If that's the case you're going to pay very little and then its going to be written off after 30 years. Lucky you - you come out an awful lot better than people who earn a bit more and pay a lot more. Show me a single other loan that is going to allow me to make payments of less than the interest for 30 years and then be written off, magically disappearing without any penalty. We're waiting.

To say that it is very different from other loans is not "talking rubbish". It functions more like a regressive and badly designed "graduate tax" than a loan.

In reply to wintertree:

You are completely missing the point in that it needs to be paid back and has a substantial negative impact on a graduates net pay for decades after they leave University.

Whether it is through a payroll (as for SL) or via a direct debit (normal loan) is neither here nor there, the net affect is the same - a debt that needs to be repaid. The impact is on disposable income which for the vast majority of people is considerable and lasts a very long time.

In reply to steveej:


No it does not need to be paid back. I've explained this. I've linked to pages that explain this. I've linked to pages showing that a lot of it will never be paid back. Repayments have to be made on a fraction of income above a threshold. If the loan needed to be paid back, there would not be mechanisms in place to a) not collect from lower earners and b) write off unpaid debt after 30 years.


Different people have a different interpretation of substantial. For anyone earning under £21,000 a year it's £0.00. Earn £36,000 a year and it's 3.75%. Is 1/25th of a salary substantial?


Did you conveniently ignore all the other reasons that I listed as to why it is different to any other loan? All these reasons, taken together, are what make it much more like a tax than a loan. Come on, find a counter example and prove me wrong.

I believe you are almost totally missing my point. It's somewhere between a loan and a tax. I realise that some people will have to make repayments, and that for some - the unlucky middle earners - it will take more money away from them in the future than from others. I understand that if someone's balls-to-the-wall on money it's ~3-4% they would really rather not be loosing. I don't argue any of these points.

I simply say that - for all the reasons I have previously cited - it is not comparable to any other loan, and that comments such as "I can't afford the £60k of debt from going to university" are therefore totally baseless spreading of crap that could put people off gong to university for all the wrong reasons. I further think it should be re-jigged slightly and just called what it basically is - a "graduate tax". The repercussions would be the same, but it would be more honest, and would make it much simpler for many young people to accurately consider the financial consequences of going to university.

Ultimately it is going to cost most people a maximum of 4% of their salary per year after graduation. So the pertinent question is not "can I afford 60k of debt after my degree", but "will going to university lead to my career averaged salary being 4% higher than not going to university, meaning that overall I am financially better off"? That is the question that matters.

As it happens, I don't like the fact that this is the question, because there are other reasons to go to university than ones future personal finances, and I think that punishing people whose reasons are other than financial could turn out to be a bad mistake for the country.

In reply to wintertree:

I do think loan repayments should be treated like tax, in that you can recover money paid if you overpay due to changing salary, job loss etc, so that you only pay 9% of your earnings over the threshold in one year.

In reply to wintertree:

I can see both points here.

Personally I think that Steevej gets off quite lightly paying back £15k over 13 years from info given in his posts (ok so possibly more like £19k inc. interest) but even then it only averages out to be approximately £1461 per year, which is very manageable. The system is designed this way, you must be earning a good wage to be able to pay that back a year.

I have a loan and the way that I see it is that I spent the money so I should repay what I owe, so I'm not complaining when it comes out of my wage slip for the next 30 years. I got myself into this "situation" and I have to say, I have no regrets. I am grateful that it doesn't work like a "normal" loan or else I'd be in the deep poo financially, given I graduated in 2008 and all.

In reply to Kirsticles:

I completely agree with you.

But aged 17/18 on the conveyor belt of gsces, Alevel's, University, I'm not sure the kids really understand what they are letting themselves in for and truly understand the impact.

And therefore unable to make genuine comparisons with the alternatives i.e. getting a trade.

It's a bit like misselling PP1 claims. But its been done to kids.

In reply to steveej:

I think you should have to pass a test on compound interest before you're allowed a loan

In reply to steveej:






Shonky maths.
The 9% is only above the £21k threshold. So £21k = £nil; £22k = £90; £31k = £900

Your NICs is wrong too - it's banded and the higher rat eperson woill have paid all the NICs the lower rate one does plus their new tranche.

In reply to steveej:





I agree...

At 18 I wasn't thinking about how hard it would be raising a family financially with the additional burden of running cars and paying a mortgage.

I was more interested in having a good time and it would be easy paying off the loan after university because it was money that I never had so would never miss.

If I had started university at 25 my whole outlook with regard to spending would have been completely different.

Having said that, I don't feel the state should have been paying for my nights out and weekend climbing trips.

In reply to JJL:

My wife, bless her, when our daughter was born, took out a scholastic fund, and paid into it monthly. All our daughter's Uni fees are all in the bank now. Nothing to sweat over.

http://www.asg.com.au/

In reply to stroppygob:


We did the same with the child benefit money and have almost exactly the required amount put aside for tuition fees. But then we decided our youngsters (who both enjoyed five years of private secondary education) had been privileged enough already and should experience life as lived by (most of) their peers.

So they can jolly well deal with the debt themselves.

It might be counter-intuitive, even perverse, but we're not sure it's a bad thing for them the emerge from university focused on getting highly paid employment to pay down their debt. Their cousins, who were more cosseted, took some time to develop any motivation.

Now, what to do with that money....?

In reply to BnB:

Interesting that most of the discussionis about the money.

I was empathising with the increased (I think) hurdles and pressures.

In reply to JJL:

The maths seems pretty spot on to me. My loan comes out at a much lower threshold (15k I think). My effective tax rate is 40%, calculated by dividing net/gross, so pretty accurate.

The point is not that the loan repayments are 3-4% of gross income. It's that they are about 10% of net income and as they come out after tax/ni that's quite relevant.

It's not even that it's not affordable to go to university. It's that to make it worthwhile, you need to earn SIGNIFICANTLY more than your peers who didn't to be on an even financial footing. It's bad enough now when you tend to pay them off by about 35 as when you really need the money for maximum pension benefit/house buying/family you don't have it. Then when the pension returns are less, you already have a house with equity and your children don't need childcare anymore, suddenly you do have the money. That's bad enough, but you can just deal with that. Now, it will be for a whole lifetime. It's just doesn't make financial sense to go to university.

I've got a good degree (physics) from one of the world's top universities, I have 10 years of successful work behind me and I have a respectable job that means I can sign passports and that (ie I'm a professional. I'm chartered. I have a career). Yet, under the new rules my loan would still be GROWING. I would forever take home less than someone who went straight to work from a-levels.

Coming from someone with ACTUAL experience of paying off a loan. I wouldn't go to university today.

In reply to BnB:

I'd love to put my child benefit to one side and invest it for my kids. Sadly, I need it to put food on the table. Isn't this intergenerational divide brilliant?

In reply to XXXX:




I graduated in 2004 with £24K debt, paid off in 2013.

I think I would still go to university, and hope my son will one day too (if that is what he wants to do).

In reply to XXXX:



I don't know your personal income or circumstances of course, but I know plenty of people in our generation who are far from high earners who manage to put their child benefit aside for their kids.

In reply to XXXX:

I don't think this necessarily has anything to do with an intergenerational divide. Different career choices pay differently and geographical factors relating to the cost of living make an enormous difference. Could it not simply be that you are in the south-east and we're in Yorkshire?

I spent most of my youth and early adulthood cursing my older relatives who seemed to have everything so easy. Now the younger generation do the same to me. Twas ever thus!

In reply to JJL:

You were. And I agree. But that seems to be the way the world is moving and if we in the UK don't move with it, we'll pay, economically at least, though that shouldn't be the dominant measure of course.

In reply to Thickhead:

You graduated the same year as me, how on Earth did you have 24k of debt? I had 14.5k. Anyway, you've paid off twice as much, in half the time. Have a biscuit. You are the exception rather than the rule.

In reply to BnB:

I could earn more as a solicitor, or an accountant, or as a morally bankrupt City worker. But do we really want a world where everyone is a solicitor?

There really, really is an intergenerational divide and it's all about the cost of housing. Certainly that's true in the SE where house prices and rents are frankly ludicrous.

In reply to XXXX:

But life success isn't measured in take home pay. You are enjoying a career which would be denied to you without those qualifications. I suspect that your job is extremely interesting and full of intellectual challenge, the more so if it is not remarkably well paid. Alternatively your exceptional qualifcation opens doors to roles in the City, for example, which could reward you financially beyond the wildest dreams of most A-level school leavers, had you chosen to go down that route (and I applaud you for not doing so). Either way you win, but only by attending university.

In reply to XXXX:


Then you need to check your maths - in relation to the new world order of 9% over £21k.

Let's take a salary of £36,000 and a pension contribution of 4.5%. I calculate a net yearly wage of £26,000, and a yearly loan repayment of £1350 or 5.2% of net income. (3.8% of gross).

For reference I've done some more calculations - assuming the same pension contribution rate. Repayment for someone on £26,000 per year is 2.3% of net income. On £46,000 per yet it's 6.9% of net income. You have to get to £80,000 per year before you see 10% of net income going to repayments. No offence, but if someone is on £80k per year and can't afford that, they need to ask themselves some serious questions.

Now, the old loan system could be seen as punishingly unfair because of the below average-wage point used as the repayment threshold. However the bad maths referred to several posts back in this chain, and the discussion, are about the new world order.

I don't like the current system, but not liking it is no excuse for not understanding it.

In reply to XXXX:



They do look very high from up north I agree, and I am gobsmacked by graduate starting salaries down south as well. But it doesn't look any different to you as it did to me starting out in London in 1985 during a housing boom and wondering how my parents afforded a house.

In reply to XXXX:


If if you hadn't gone to university, you wouldn't be doing the job you are doing now (probably). I don't really know why the government have called the current fee set up a loan. Had they just called it a tax, it might make more sense and be more readily accepted.

In reply to BnB:

I know all of that, otherwise I'd be selling my soul to Citibank. I actually went for a long walk in Snowdonia to have a good think about retraining as an accountant and realised I'd rather die.

But when you're competing for the same goods/services/houses as people who automatically take home 10% more than you do for the same gross wage, it makes it very hard to compete for those things. It doesn't make financial sense to choose to saddle yourself with what will easily be a 6 figure (£100'000+, worth repeating ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS) debt after interest for a few years. You also have to bear in mind that the terms of your loan are negotiable and can easily be changed by the government of the day. I couldn't live like that.

You can say they won't change all you like, but the first loans almost got sold to a private company just this year. The government have changed a lot of rules and public sector T+Cs in the last few years. Like I say, you can't guarantee that they won't turn around and say you have to pay every month. Or your contributions are going up.

In fact, so few of the loans are being paid that give it a few years and someone will realise that these are toxic debt. They will move from the plus side of the government's bank balance to the negative side and we are probably all f*cked again. The first thing they'll do is sell off the debt to some blood sucking private company who knows the chancellor and then the threshold will drop and the percentage repaid will increase. I can hear them now "These graduates have benefited from a university education and they are simply not repaying them. It's only fair that they make more of an effort to pay back this loan which they benefited from. That is why I announce that from today, the repayment rate will go up to 15% this year, 20% the year after and 25% the year after that. At the same time, to reflect falling wages, the threshold will be reduced to £10k, the same as the income tax threshold."

The sooner they get rid the better.

In reply to XXXX:

Also it's not just an issue between those that do and dont atend university The big divide wil be between those who go to university but do not need to get a loan because their parents will fund them and those who will allways earn less in similar jobs.

In reply to XXXX:

I'm not remotely in favour of personally funded tertiary education. I think it should be as universal as the health system, but that seems to be the future. Still a terrible piece of legislation with no winners that I can see. So we can agree on that if nothing else.

In reply to XXXX:

Alas, you can't judge a policy based purely on your own circumstances. Statistically, if you go to uni you will earn more than if you don't. And this is what the calculations are based on. But as we all know, some who don't go to uni will earn more than their uni counterparts. Such is life.

Life is full of things like this. Inheritance, social connections and knowing the right people are all factors that help some folks get an easy leg up whilst others spend their whole time getting no where. The trick, in my opinion is knowing when to give up and try something else.

In reply to BnB:

Well I'll take that away with me and go and enjoy the sun then!

To set the record straight, if we have to pay for higher education at all, it should be done with a graduate tax and it should be retrospective. Anyone who's graduated with a degree, add 1% onto your tax.

But ideally, I'd reduce the number of university places so we can make it free, up the number of apprenticeships in return and I don't know, actually invest in the younger generations for a change.

In reply to ByEek:

The wage difference is no longer true, graduate jobs pay like stink.

In reply to doz generale:


The point I made earlier in relation to my own children was that I believe the less cosseted graduate might emerge with more ambition and fighting spirit to go with their debt and therefore NOT end up in the same job on 10% lower take home pay, but rather in a more successful career.

In reply to XXXX:

I think you need to look at the bigger picture.

See page 15

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337841.pdf

You are also more likely to be employed and in a higher skilled job as a graduate compared to your non-uni peers.... on average.

In reply to XXXX:

You say this:


Then you go on to say this:


You can't live with the threat of having less money due to a change in T&Cs on a loan, but you can live with the threat of - and advocate for - retrospective taxation of people who have already paid in other ways?

Given the rising number of graduates, both total and with new-style loans, any retrospective change is going to be a major problem with the voters. Not changing something is also going to be a major problem. It's a total mess.


I wouldn't expect a scientist to be scared by big numbers. As the size of your repayments is determined by your income, please set that figure in the context. I've done it for you. The maximum to be repaid under current conditions is for a salary of £40k PA. They would repay £98,000; close to your shouted number. But in context that is out of a lifetime net wage of ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS.

In reply to JJL:



Anecdotally, a friend whose Mum is a therapist is of the opinion that there's more pressure on young people than in the past, she's one of a few therapist I've heard saying the same.

In reply to wintertree:

You agree its a disincentive and you argue with Irk for pointing out in his opinion he wouldnt go now. Thats what disincentives do. The affordability issue you make is true but its neither here nor there. Irk is also right the biggest hit on take home pay is when you least need it. Ask people who study STEM subjects and they are the ones on average most annoyed..... they know they will be paying back and they are the arguably the general sort of hard working disciplined and highly skilled graduates the country needs most.

In reply to Timmd:


That is because there is. Gone are the days when you could walk out of school and into a job and then to compound matters further, there are significantly more grads chasing about the same or less graduate jobs.

In reply to ByEek:

Perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether or not the country really needs so many graduates ? Thirty odd years ago, a good friend, who obtained one shitty A level became an articled-clerk in a small accountancy firm. obtained his ACA and has risen to being a partner in a large practice. Is he less competent because he didn't spend 3 years of his life at university ? I'd argue the oppsite and say what he obtained was in reality far more difficult, as he held-down a full time job whilst at the same time studying.

More graduates is just going to mean more and more deception for the young people who cannot find jobs that they think they deserve. Jobs that today require a degree were available with a few O levels a generation ago. Was that generation less intelligent ?

In reply to Offwidth:

No. I agree that it is a potential additional cost. The gamble is that it generates additional wages. It's quite a safe gamble because if someone don't meet average pay, there is no cost to them. So it is a potential disincentive. If someone studies at university and then goes on to a career where they don't earn 3-4% more than if they had not gone to university, then it is a financial disincentive. There is more to life.

I accept that it is basically impossible for someone aged 18 to make an informed decision on this, but at least the system is rigged so that if they don't make average salary they are not penalised at all. Indeed, it is not possible with absolute certainty for anyone, ever, to know if they won or lost by the time they die. What did my parallel universe twin, Summertree, who did not go to university achieve? Perhaps they are a millionaire landlord, perhaps they're poor and living on a beach in Baja California surfing every morning before fishing for lunch. Nobody will ever know. The same is true of many other decisions we make in life.


No. I am not arguing with Irk's opinion. I am stating that his numbers are just plain wrong, as were the numbers posted by someone previously that Irk agreed with. I came back with several sets of example numbers I worked out. I showed that for people in the ~30k pay range, the repayments are less than half of the numbers being bandied about.


Indeed. Penalising science graduates is a pretty dumb move. I find it insane that all "degrees" are now treated equally in the loan/repayment system. It's dumb system that ignores the fact some degrees are of far wider financial benefit to the nation, and that where they are of direct financial benefit to an individual their increased tax payments will already more than cover the cost of the degree, ignoring the indirect results. It penalises people who wish to learn for the sake of learning alone, which is perhaps the best - if erratic and unpredictable - way of generating the key breakthroughs that change the world.

I just have a tendency to rant at inaccurate portrayals of the complex implications of the current loan system, not least as such wildly inaccurate portrayals appear to form a larger disincentive to people from some of the "non traditional" background for university.

In reply to ByEek:

Utter nonsense there are more grads and more grad jobs ; some areas of work have shortages others have gluts. I cant think of any capable student I taught who struggled to find relevant work.

In reply to Offwidth:

Agreed. But there are also a tonne of mediocre grads who have high expectations. And the noise they generate puts pressure on everyone.

In reply to wintertree:
The rant about science graduates is off target. The latest stats on employment are that there are about 125,000 who acquire technical quals a year ( degrees etc and there are currently 250,000 jobs waiting for them. For example of you get a degree in material sciences ( 200 a year ), then you are virtually guaranteed a job of your choice and a salary to suit.

It is far more likely with a science degree that you will get a good salary with good carrier prospects than in most other professions.

The dumb part of it is that students/the career education system/ newspapers/parents etc have not woken upto this.

In reply to neilh:

Off target with regard to the financial realities? Maybe, but that's not what bothers me, it's what people perceive and how it influences their decisions. I also consider it thoroughly on target with regards to learning for the sake of learning, something that I consider is rapidly being squeezed out of HE culture.


Exactly. The mis-conceptions are causing a lot of problems. If the system had not been put in place, the mis-concenptions would not be there. Given the rampant spread of mis-conceptions, not least those actively spread by malicious parties with a politician axe to grind, the whole system was a massive own-goal.

In reply to wintertree:

You seem to think that earning less and therefore paying less off the student loan is a solution to the problem.

I suggest you look into how Loan Ammortisation actually works in practise.

You are correct in that someone earning £26k will be paying peanuts in Student Loan repayments. Problem is they won't even be covering the interest and the loan will be growing!

The point about the figures is that someone earning £26k is paying 20%+12%+9% = 41% for every additional pound of pay rise they earn. Only 1% less than a high rate payer (without SLoan) of 40%+2% = 42%.

Once you hit the higher rate (with SLoan), your paying 40%+2%+9%=51% which is a very high effective tax rate for each additional £1 earned.

SLoan takes 8% out of my net pay which is a substantial cost but at least it is getting paid down.

In reply to wintertree:
If you dont think its a disincentive frankly you do not understand the word or the level of impact of the new fees. Sure some people are spouting shite about them being unaffordable but they are significant extra cost to those say on STEM courses who are pretty much set for a proffesional career in the area. I can assure you nearly all my students regard it as such and know pals who got a job instead of joining them on a STEM course.

As for the 'massive own goal' what else could a rise in fees from 3k to 9k with quite likely no savings, and large unintended consequencies, be called?

In reply to steveej:


I know how it works.


It's not a problem because in that case the loan eventually gets written off, amortisation and interest be damned. In the mean time that virtual growing figure on paper has no other side effects of any other loan. So yes they pay a fractio of their income for 30 years. A small fraction given their pay level you stipulate in the example. Not great, let's do it by tax instead. Oh...


Yes, so the total tax burden is high. The SL repayment is still only 3% of their net income. Dress that up how you like, 3% is not a major fraction.


Cry me a river. High rate taxpayers will pay it down faster, incur less interest and come out better of than middle paid people. They're also earning a lot, no doubt in part thanks to their degree.

In reply to Offwidth:

We'll have to disagree. I consider the increased career prospects of a STEM degree outweigh the disincentive of 3% of net pay if I succeed and 0% if I don't.


A ticking time bomb?

In reply to steveej:


You are pointing to the 9% and saying how high it is and what a disincentive it is. One could also point to the 40% and say the same thing about that.

But, governments need to fund expenditure some how. I'm not convinced that the personalised graduate tax that we have now is a bad way of doing it.

In reply to wintertree:

The reality, is that someone will now come out with 40 to 50k of debt when they graduate.

The most of their twenties will be spent paying off interest, with the balance of the loan increasing.

By the time they have 10 years experience of work, the chances are their pay will have gone up and not be at the same £26k salary they were at age 25.

Chances are they will have a substantial negative impact on net pay (way more than 3%) that goes on to affect them into their 30's, 40's and 50's.

To simply say it's only 3% of net pay and you dont need to pay it off is incorrect.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I completely agree that it needs to paid for.

My issue is that youngsters aged 17/18 are signing upto something they don't really understand and don't really appreciate the future impact it it will have on them - in fact, I'm not sure most of the parents do either.

In reply to steveej:


Yes. But not like any other debt on this planet.


Yes.


Yes.


I even worked an example on this. I commented that the worst case model for repayments has someone repaying £98,000 over a lifetime. I also noted that in order to trigger that worst case, they would earn £1,250,000 net over their lifetime, seeing 7.8% of their lifetime net pay going to the degree. It does take a very specific and unlikely set of circumstances to get to the 7.8%; generally it's lower than 5% but who can really forecast 30 years ahead? Frankly though at that point someone is earning vastly more money than most people and can suck it up. Most people will pay significantly less. The sucker punch is that "most people" includes people who go on to earn even more money than that.


I never said it was just 3%. I simply disagreed with other peoples number in the context that they gave them. I worked out and posted some examples. To repeat myself - more concisely



Quite. Which is why people mis-representing the costs of repayment, or presenting the costs without considering the benefit, or yammering away about unaffordable debt without understanding the special conditions of student debt, really get my goat.


I've never said it's "only 3%" - I've given worked examples to the contrary. The government themselves say 55% of people won't need to pay it off. Would you like to write and tell them they're incorrect, it might fix a growing budgetary concern of theirs...

In reply to wintertree:

You really are stubborn... its nothing to do with you its to do with the individuals now considering HE and you must at least logically admit the extra fees they will have to pay back now if they meet the threshold are a financial disinsentive to them as is (unfairly) some of the mis-information on affordabilty if this has confused them (even though some will have seen through this). The fact that the enhanced carreer prospects still make it worth going to Uni in most cases really is a seperate issue.

In reply to Offwidth:


Indeed.


Indeed. Not half as serious a disincentive as many people (this thread, and elsewhere) try and push however.


This is, and has always been, my big problem. Every time I try and address it more wrong numbers come out from somewhere.

I generally agreed with you until you said this...


They are not separable are they? I have clearly said that it's a crap decision to ask young people to make, but life is full of making decisions without knowing, or ever being able to know, if you make the right one. I do not like that the current system has added another decision like this, but it is much less bad that the one it replaced (smaller fees but n inappropriately low repayment threshold)

There are two choices [Go to uni / don't go to uni] and the two outcomes [Earn above average / don't earn above average]. The only one of the 4 permutations that exist within that matrix that forms a financial disincentive is if you end up with "Go to uni" and "Earn above average", and that is only a disincentive compared to "Don't go to uni" and "Earn above average". You'll notice that earning above average is the case in both of these, so as disincentives go, well, it's one I personally would happily suck up. Other people may disagree but I am indeed stubborn on the point that they should do so from an accurately informed position.

In reply to steveej:

This is true, but what is the alternative? I don't really fancy the prospects of life without a degree right now - in the professional world that is.

In reply to wintertree:

I thought it had been established that the link between a higher salary and a degree was more correlation than causation. It's the quality/intelligence/work ethic of the person not the posession of a degree that commands the higher salary. Thus someone capable of a degree could earn a higher than average salary without the costs of the degree.

In reply to ebygomm:

True, but when you are reviewing a tonne of CVs it is easy to make two piles - one with and one without degrees. If you are after clever people, naturally you will put the non-degree pile in the bin.

Sad but true.

In reply to wintertree:

Only choices? There is also go to Uni outside the UK much more cheaply (more wont come back) go later (hence in the case of STEM much less productive over a lifetime).

In reply to Offwidth:


Belief coercion has a poor track record in persuasion

In reply to Offwidth:


Indeed. Then there are 101 other options of ever decreasing popularity. I was discussing the fee implication of going or not going to university in the UK however, and that remains a matrix of two decisions and two outcomes for most people.


So a STEM degree does make one much more productive over their lifetime? Assuming productivity translates translates to a direct financial benefit then that does indeed outweigh the disincentive you are so concerned about. Make your mind up, is that STEM degree important to a persons productivity and pay or not? You can't argue both ways... Because it only has to make one a little more productive to produce a benefit that directly and conclusively outweighs the disincentive of the cost of repayments.

In reply to wintertree:

Yes I can as any disinsentive only really applies to its influence on the decision the individual makes at the time they consider going.

In reply to Offwidth:


Well then they need to be better informed when making that decision, which is what I've been saying all along... At the moment there is to much deliberate and accidental misinformation.

In reply to XXXX:


5years student loan approx. £19000 plus £2000 interest as that was relatively high at the time... then £2000 interest free bank overdraft and a £1000 interest free loan from my parents. With the student loan the first year of earning you didn't pay anything for 10months but interest kept accumulating at about £40per month added to the loan. That's another £400.

Then when money did finally start coming from my wage it was about £100 per month so only paying off £60 really.

I paid the parents loan and bank overdraft as quickly as possible within a few months.

I probably had a very good time at university, particularly in my final year which involved a couple of months placement in Canada so that significantly increased my debt (certainly the debt in addition to my student loan anyway).

I wouldn't expect the state to fund my two month placement (aka long ski trip).



Anyway, you've paid off twice as much, in half the time. Have a biscuit. You are the exception rather than the rule.


I don't seem to be from my generation, I seemed to be paying off longer than most of my mates (who went to university for >4years).

I think there is more of a geographical than generational divide going on here.

In reply to steveej:

Not true. My daughter will not. See above.

In reply to JJL:

Isn't this all an argument for young people not going straight from A levels into degrees, but working first to build up some savings before going to college, to keep the costs / expenses down?

In reply to stroppygob:

I'd keep quiet if I were you.
Any politicians reading this will realise that they were right to take away child benefit from higher earners and will start moving it down even further if people keep crowing about putting away savings for their kids.

As a matter of interest my 16 and 17 year olds will each pay £425 a year for the bus to the local comp now as the council have removed free buses.

Stop being so smug that its possible to save and bring up kids! Its bloody impossible with no wage rise myself for over 4 years!

In reply to Babika:


Well they were! Who is least deserving of public subsidy: higher earners, medium earners, or low-earners and un-waged?


"Even" further? I would think that the next step would be a restriction to two children, and say half rate for the third (applied to everyone by the way).

In reply to Coel Hellier:

the whole point is that the benefit is for the kids as they cost more whether you're the Duke of Westminster or unwaged!

If people start saying that they can afford to save the child benefit for 18 years then it rather negates the point of it in the first place.

personally I've needed to spend every penny every month!!!

In reply to Babika:


From first principles, why should the state pay for people to have children? It doesn't pay for them to drive cars or to go on holiday, which are also expensive.

The obvious answer to that is that a decent state does not want children in poverty, so gives child benefit to prevent that. But, if there is a higher-rate taxpayer in the household then the kids won't be in poverty. State subsidies should generally be for the low-waged and un-waged.

One can then say that giving child-benefit to the low-waged for, say, two children, is fair enough, but that people shouldn't have more children if they can't afford them, and thus one could not give additional child benefit after the second (or perhaps third) child.

In reply to Babika:


Nothing "smug" about it, it's a good plan that may save your kids a mint in future.

Though, obviously, if you cannot do it then no one else should bother trying..

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Actually the state subsidises children because it recognises that it is a good thing per se, they contribute to the future (pay your and my pensions) and if we want to grow and develop we need them.

Its a bit different from your holiday or car which doesn't actually contribute to society generally

The higher earner argument falls down because child benefit should be seen as a universal benefit. If not, the obvious corollary of your argument is that higher rate tax payers should pay to turn up to the GP or if they are unfortunate enough to need to call out the Fire brigade, use the library, drive on the roads etc etc.

Higher rate tax is exactly that - a demand that the "most wealthy" contribute a higher % to the good of society. Higher rate tax payers are already paying more for all children and all services. That's how it works. There is no reason to penalise their kids other than "we can" and the hit is on women and kids which, as most politicians know, don't have very loud or influential voices

In reply to Babika:



Sooner or later people are going to have ot grasp that we can't continue to grow. We already have an unsustainable number of people.

We need to find a way out of the rock-and-hard place conflict between needing young to support old, yet needing to (ultimately) contract total population. This is hard because a) nobody has a strategy to achieve it without collapsing the economic structure on the way (having a destitute generation of old people; although we may get that anyway) and b) it's fighting some fairly fundamental instincts.

In reply to Babika:


Just because something is good for society does not mean it should be subsidised by the state. One needs a better argument than that, in terms of state funding being a better model than people funding themselves. Holidays are a good thing for society, but that doesn't mean we need a government agency subsidising them. Food is even more basic, but for most people the government does not subsidise us to eat.


Why the "should"? Let's take housing, which is also very much a good thing for society. The government subsidises housing for some lower-income people in need, but not for most people and not for the well-off.


Nope, that is not an "obvious corollary". It is not the case that either everything should be subsidised/funded by the state or nothing should be. As I said, we consider the relative merits of state funding versus private funding for different things.


I don't accept that not subsidising something amounts to "penalising" it. Does the government "penalise" holiday makers by not subsidising them? Does it "penalise" those paying to watch Premiership football by not subsidising them?

In reply to Coel Hellier:
The government does subsidise food by not applyng VAT and that is a Universal benefit and only one of many in the UK. Universal benefits can be very useful as they always reach the intended (its not accepting charity) and the unintended are not alwys such a cost issue due to the savings in beaurocracy and policing. Unfashionable as it may seem I still favour them in many cases, including free HE (I'd prefer constraints on which students can study what for free though).