Myth-Busting Mondays: How much debt does your average student graduate with?

Poll

How much debt does your average student graduate with?

In 2012 university tuition fees were raised to £9000; a year after a juicidal review into them failed - this is almost treble what they been from 2006, which was around £3000.

Although the salary threshold for when graduates start to pay back these tution fees was raised to £21,000 at the same time; the raise in tuition fees coupled along with many students taking out a maintenance loan to cover living costs at university means many students will end be repaying this debt into their 40s and 50s.

The question is however; how much debt does your average student graduate with?

Those in favour of raising the cost of attending university have argued that those graduates will end up paying less under the present system - whilst those in higer paid jobs will pay more; however others have pointed out the facy that many graduates will not pay their fees back in full, with the debts written off after 30 years.

Does/did the current system of fees put you off from applying to university? Do you feel as though the current system is just and encourages educational inclusion? With the government scrapping maintenance grants; what effects do you think this might have on prospective undergraduates?

The answer will be revealed tomorrow!

(edited 7 years ago)

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Reply 1

Deyesy

Bump! Forgot to change the time I made the thread :colonhash:

Reply 2

Snufkin

Universities Forum Helper

I have no idea what the average is but the poorest students on a 3 year degree studying in London will be £59,106 in debt by the time they graduate, and that figure will only rise once tuition fees start to rise with inflation. People doing longer degrees (language students, integrated master's students etc) will be nearly £80,000 in debt. it seems absurd but studying in the United States is cheaper than the UK these days.

I don't think people will be put off because realistically, what other alternative is there for 18 year olds? If it's a choice between going into debt in order to have the career you want, or not going to university at all and being stuck in some dead-end job then there's no choice at all. But the number of mature, part-time and second-degree students looking to retrain has already fallen sharply and doubtless will continue to fall as fees increase.

Reply 3

Roving Fish

Do we count on interest that's gained during studying too?

Reply 4

math42

I think I will be around £64,000 in debt. My family is poor so I am getting pretty much max maintenance loan I believe, and on a 4 year course. So I can't see how someone could have much more unless they borrowed in other ways

Reply 5

Alexion

I'll have about £51/52k from minimum maintenance on a 4-year course. Das a lot -_-

Reply 6

Inazuma

How do people get it that high? Are there so many doing 4 year + courses?

Mine's only £37.5k which is 9k PA tuition and ~3.5k Maintenance.

And no, why would the most generous possible loan put me off?
Glad they scrapped grants, shame they still haven't fixed the 'middle class' problem.
The poorest had disproportionately too much and those I knew with full grants spent it on crap.
The middle class who didn't get grants / much but had other family etc and couldn't be supported were always the ones forced to work constantly to support themselves.

Reply 7

Snufkin

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Inazuma

The poor have too much? Do me a favour... :rolleyes:

The full maintenance loan doesn't even cover accommodation and food in London!

Reply 8

Inazuma

Original post by Snufkin

The poor have too much? Do me a favour... :rolleyes:

The full maintenance loan doesn't even cover accommodation and food in London!

I wasn't talking about London since the people I knew were in Bris, as I said that's personal experience.

Under new rules, full loan is 8.2k or 10.7k. I could easily live off that in either place.
In London with careful locating that leaves about £3k PA. I lived off about that in Bristol extremely comfortably.

Reply 9

Arima

i'm not planning to study in london, but even then my debt would be £68 grand. My course is 4 years and for the first year i'm getting the full tuition and maintenance loan, i assume i can apply for the same in the subsequent years

Reply 10

Snufkin

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Inazuma

It is not reasonable to expect new students coming to live in London for the first time to live in some distant borough where their money goes a bit further. They have to pay university accommodation costs for the first year at least, and they are through the roof.

Poor people do not get more than they deserve and the middle class do not get a bad deal. End of story.

Reply 11

Inazuma

Original post by Snufkin

Haha okay, if you say so. :h:

Reply 12

hermitthefrog

I'm a Scottish student, so had my tuition fees paid for me. I'm graduating with around 12.5k debt in student loans which doesn't seem lot when you compare to English students. I'm currently waiting to hear back about a masters course, if I study it, I'll hope to get another 3k loan for my tuition fees, and the rest will be paid with a loan from parents. So "official" debt will be around 15.5k, total debt will be 21.5k.

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Reply 13

Observatory

I find these "myth busting" threads in which a poll invites us to choose between several nearly identical options slightly insulting.

If you believe that the average student leaves university with a thousand quid in debt or a million quid in debt then I think it is reasonable to say they believe in myths, not if you just can't choose between 44,000 and 47,000.

Reply 14

-spirituality-

Gonna leave with 27k debt (tuition fees, no maintenance loans)

but im also gonna leave with about 13k in grants and bursaries loool. das gud fam

Reply 15

MrsSheldonCooper

If I chose to go uni here, I would come out with well over £60,000 in debt I think.

However, if I went to uni in the Netherlands, I'd probably come out with savings and no debt. I'm obviously hoping to go the latter.

I was speaking to my German friend the other day and she didn't even believe me when I told her how expensive the fees were :redface:

Reply 16

-spirituality-

ayo, what's the answer pls

Reply 17

Aph

Are 4 year courses still limited to an absolute cost of £30k (so the last year is only £3k more) or are they now £36k.

Reply 18

Deyesy

Undergraduate :smile:

Original post by Observatory

I wanted to make it hard! :tongue:

If I did the options 'too low' - Say £30,000, people would immediately know it's not that because a 3 year undergraduate degree costs - at the very minimum, £27,000 and so would know it's not £30,000. If I do it too high, you have the reverse problem; hence the options being reasonably similar :smile:

Original post by -spirituality-

ayo, what's the answer pls

It'll be revealed tomorrow :smile:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 19

Observatory

Original post by Deyesy

I wanted to make it hard! :tongue:

If everyone knows the answer then you are not busting a myth. Calling it myth-busting when everyone actually knows the answer implies everyone is stupid.

Maybe rename the series Trivia Tuesdays?