[robin22391]

(Original post by Jamanfi2304)
I'm having a debate with my friend about why children who's parents earn less receive more money from the government when they go onto higher-education. His argument is that everyone should get the exact same amount. I argue that would leave the government giving wealthy students money that they don't need and less to students that may actually need the money.

I agree that its not a totally fair system but I have tried to reiterate how a system cannot suit every single possible situation and there will be some inefficiencies.

Anyone care to enlighten me and perhaps help to strengthen my argument?

capitalism causes a large gap between rich and poor...so the government...and generally the left wing of politics try to fix this up by attempting to rebalance the system by giving help to those who are in lower economic groups and who are socially excluded.

giving everyone the same amount is a very liberal position, but wouldnt make much sense if the rest of the system stayed the way it is and didnt progress.

[Kenocide]

(Original post by Dan1909)
Regardless of what you claim as unlikely, I've seen it happen. A mix of full maintenance loan and bursary, as well as qualifying for income support from the university as well meant that two of my housemates last year were sitting on very large piles of cash (one of them has over £10k in the bank, solely from university!) accumulated through two years of university. Even they admit it's more than is ever required to get somebody through university.

Especially as it's often the case that performance obtained scholarships are doubled for people from "low income backgrounds", which is a whole separate issue in itself!

But you're missing the point.

As I've already said, the maximum student loan + grant = around £6.5k. Minus, let's say, £4k for accommodation and that leaves £2.5k to live on for the year, which most students who are at the bottom of the income ladder would surely spend.

Therefore your friends who are 'sitting on £10k' must fit into one of the following scenarios: they were given too much by way of bursaries by their university, in which case your problem is with the individual university rather than the amounts of money loaned by the government; they and/or their parents lied to student finance when they were being assessed, in which case your problem is clearly with the deceitful students/parents; or they worked all year and during summer and spent virtually nil, in which case meh, fair play to them; or they robbed a small bank.

The bottom line is, multiply the £6.5k max student finance by the two years you're talking about and you only have £13k before you've spent a penny. So wherever your friends are getting their excessive funds from, it isn't their student loan and maintenance grant. If you have a problem with university bursaries then go and start a thread about that.

[Dan1909]

(Original post by Kenocide)
But you're missing the point.

As I've already said, the maximum student loan + grant = around £6.5k. Minus, let's say, £4k for accommodation and that leaves £2.5k to live on for the year, which most students who are at the bottom of the income ladder would surely spend.

Therefore your friends who are 'sitting on £10k' must fit into one of the following scenarios: they were given too much by way of bursaries by their university, in which case your problem is with the individual university rather than the amounts of money loaned by the government; they and/or their parents lied to student finance when they were being assessed, in which case your problem is clearly with the deceitful students/parents; or they worked all year and during summer and spent virtually nil, in which case meh, fair play to them; or they robbed a small bank.

The bottom line is, multiply the £6.5k max student finance by the two years you're talking about and you only have £13k before you've spent a penny. So wherever your friends are getting their excessive funds from, it isn't their student loan and maintenance grant. If you have a problem with university bursaries then go and start a thread about that.

I'm not missing the point, at all. Find me the part where I said the money was purely from student loans (here's a hint, I didn't). I already know the money is from loan + non-repayable bursary + "performance" scholarship which is doubled for low income family students.

The point I was making is that it does happen that people get far more money than can ever be justified to get a student through university.

[Joe911]

(Original post by iSMark)
There is a difference between middle class and middle income.

I know that. I'd said that because it seemed like the person that I was replying to had mistaken the two in their example.

[Kenocide]

(Original post by Dan1909)
I'm not missing the point, at all. Find me the part where I said the money was purely from student loans (here's a hint, I didn't). I already know the money is from loan + non-repayable bursary + "performance" scholarship which is doubled for low income family students.

The point I was making is that it does happen that people get far more money than can ever be justified to get a student through university.

This thread is about the money provided by student finance - that's the only finance students get that remains constant regardless of which university you go to. As I said, if you have a problem with the bursaries and scholarships provided by particular universities then make a separate thread about it because it's misleading to post in this thread about how you know low-income students with £10k stashed away because it implies that they get ludicrous amounts of student finance when in fact they don't; they get more money than they need from other sources.

[blueflower114]

(Original post by Jamanfi2304)
I'm having a debate with my friend about why children who's parents earn less receive more money from the government when they go onto higher-education. His argument is that everyone should get the exact same amount. I argue that would leave the government giving wealthy students money that they don't need and less to students that may actually need the money.

I agree that its not a totally fair system but I have tried to reiterate how a system cannot suit every single possible situation and there will be some inefficiencies.

Anyone care to enlighten me and perhaps help to strengthen my argument?

Although I see you're point, but there are groups of individuals who need more help than others so it's only fair they should get more funding in a way.

[Existentialistic]

(Original post by roh)
Not necessarily, after 25 years, I think, the debt gets wiped out and the grants never get paid back no matter what.

If you're willing to take it under commercial conditions with much higher interest; repayments that don't fluctuate depending on your salary, and stop altogether under 15/21k (depending on your year), and the understanding that if you fall behind the bailiffs will come and repossess anything they feel like to pay off the debt then I'm sure the g'ment will happily do that.

Yeah...No.

I'm not getting a grant and I'm only being lent enough money to pay for my accommodation. And guess what? I'm 22, I live on my own and my household income is less than £5000 pa.

Seems like a pretty fundamental flaw in the current system, does it not? Not that I'm *that* bothered, it just means I will have to work 48 hours a week over the next ~10 weeks in order to finance my studies.

[roh]

(Original post by Existentialistic)
Yeah...No.

I'm not getting a grant and I'm only being lent enough money to pay for my accommodation. And guess what? I'm 22, I live on my own and my household income is less than £5000 pa.

Seems like a pretty fundamental flaw in the current system, does it not? Not that I'm *that* bothered, it just means I will have to work 48 hours a week over the next ~10 weeks in order to finance my studies.

Much as I sympathise with your relatively a difficult position, I don't get how it relates to the way and rate at which you pay back SLC loan repayments?

Also, how with household income below 5K do you not qualify for the maximum loan and grant?

[Vivskii]

I reckon student finance should assess how much your household income is then allow you to suggest an amount you need as well. As silly as it sounds this would have benefit me highly as this year after a year out of education I'll be doing my first degree and moving away from home. SLC will be paying me £5500 and my accommodation is £5313 so I have literally about £50 to live on per term. This wouldn't be such a problem if I was working but I just lost my fulltime job and I have no idea how I'm going to save a couple hundred to support myself over the duration of my uni year