Would you be doing your degree at your chosen uni at £10k a year?

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To be honest, the student loan shouldn't even be considered a debt. In the sense you can't lose your home or be forced to claim bankruptcy if you can't pay it back. It's effectively the same as a tax in all but name

Exactly. IT's not as bad as people are making it out to be. A few facts need to be remembered:

1) There have been/will be massive cuts to a lot of government funded programs, including a ridiculous 25% cut in science funding, which will really hurt the economy in the long term.

2)Universities are primarily research institutions. If they want to maintain their position as second only to the US, they NEED money, and a lot more of it. Compare fees over there to here.

That said, I do think that universities are obliged to improve standards of teaching and assessment now, with higher fees. Hopefully the market will punish those that don't do a serious job of providing high quality teaching.

Reply 41

Hakue

I found out the other day that my 3rd year is going to be costing me £7,500 as it is a ba hons top up year after a 2 year foundation degree. almost straight away most people on my course said they would be leaving after the second year. I think I am going to stay on to do my third year as I would feel like I haven't completed what I set out to achieve!

Reply 42

WelshBluebird

I really don't know. I realise that I probably wouldn't pay it all off anyway, but £50,000 is still a crazy amount of money for an 18 year old me to think about. Of course, it wouldn't affect me anyway thanks to being Welsh :smile:

. Yay for devolution.

Original post by spex

you're paying exactly the same in real terms - this is the cheapest loan you're ever going to get and it doesn't increase in value the longer you leave it.

Wrong. That is the case right now, but the new system WILL involve real rates of interest above inflation. It is still better than any other loan you will ever get, but the amount you owe WILL increase in real terms (from what I have read, depending on how much you earn your repayments may not even cover the interest). 60% of people will pay more than what they do now.

Original post by Dirac Delta Function

Universities are primarily research institutions. If they want to maintain their position as second only to the US, they NEED money, and a lot more of it. Compare fees over there to here.

Except of course that universities will not get more money under the new system than what they get now. All the higher fees are doing is replacing the government funding.
And you can't really compare our unis to american ones as ours are public. The ones in america that cost so much are private.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 43

Dirac Delta Function

Original post by WelshBluebird

Except of course that universities will not get more money under the new system than what they get now. All the higher fees are doing is replacing the government funding.

Which is all the more reason for them to raise fees.

Original post by WelshBluebird

And you can't really compare our unis to american ones as ours are public. The ones in america that cost so much are private.

You can compare because the primary function of a university is research, and they are competing against all of them, not just the public ones. However a uni get's it's funding, research is an open playing field.

Personally, I think Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and Imperial should all just go private and indeed they have talked seriously about doing so.

No.

Definitely not. I think my uni is quite crap, I'm paying 3290 a year for rubbish support and facilities and I really don't like my course or the structure of it. I'd stay at home and go to the uni there because it's much better.

Reply 46

ilickbatteries

Yes, because my GCSEs and A-Levels are nowhere near good enough to get me a decent job. I want to go into teaching so of course a degree is needed as standard.

It's got to the point where a degree is just a standard qualification, there's nothing special about having a degree anymore, unless it's a first class BSc or medicine or a 2:1 from UCL, ICL, LSE, Oxbridge, Durham, St. Andrews etc.

Reply 47

Bslforever

Without a doubt. No idea how i would manage to afford it but i would.

Reply 48

smilee172

I can't believe there are so many people willing to pay 10k a year for their degree course. 3k a year is too much as it is for some degree courses!

Reply 49

TheSownRose

It's hard to say. It's pretty easy for me to sit here and say yes, knowing that I won't be paying that ... but I've not been faced with the prospect of paying more than my entire student debt will be just for tuition.

I probably would.

Yes.

Original post by TomInce6666

100% without a doubt. Theres almost nothing as important to me as the value of my university degree.

Yes but you're doing medicine, not just going to uni along with the masses for the thrill of it.

Reply 52

Leon Trotsky

I'm not going to university until next year, but if the fees were higher I'd still go. It's not like I wouldn't be able to afford it, although I'd obviously be unhappy that I'd have more debt.

Reply 53

mummyperson

I would not have been able to do my degree at the proposed price, my parents could not have subsidised me that much. At 17 I was too shy and sheltered to work in a bar or cafe in the evenings and in any event medicine is very full time. Being in that amount of debt would have been a mental burden for years and it doesn't allow any leeway to save up for a postgraduate education or a home or a family.

Reply 54

shiny

As someone who is in full-time employment and is actually earning and paying things I can honestly say that student loan repayments are no big deal. It is just another thing on a long list of things that has to get paid every month - income tax, NI, private pension contributions, council tax, utilities, rent/mortgage, food, housing/car/health insurance, travel, etc. I mean for most of my friends the biggest shocker was their cars. Many only started running a car regularly once they left uni and the insurance costs are insane for young drivers, petrol is ridiculously expensive and if you drive an old banger, like many young drivers, you are always facing the prospect of breakdowns and repairs which can result in bills running into the hundreds.

Reply 55

happyfeet92

Without a doubt, yes. The only sustainable way you can land a professional job (unless you have family ties or have a cracking talent) is to obtain a degree from a good university. Also, you can never get in trouble in terms of debt as you will only pay them off when you can afford to!

I think of it like this, money wise: short term loss, long term gain.

Reply 56

mxcs

Only if the tutors got themselves a bit more organised..the amount of times my friends and I turn up and get told to go home because a session's been moved without notice or a tutor's 'too busy' to help us with our work is ridiculous.

Reply 57

TomInce6666

Original post by Physics Enemy

Yes but you're doing medicine, not just going to uni along with the masses for the thrill of it.

Exactly. But even other graduates, if your prospective starting salary is £5-10k higher than a non-graduate then its gonna pay for itself in the long run, even if you run up £50k of debt. You dont have to be looking at a 6 figure salary in 10-15 years to realise that most uni courses are worth their weight in gold.

Reply 58

Jungs&Roses

As a new member, I am very impressed by the balanced discussion here. I happen to agree with many of you that the student loans system is very fair and well designed to protect students. Of course, people like Welsh Blue Bird are right in showing that this is not a trivial matter. For those who are worried, I found this article very helpful and well explained. As it will explain itself, it may be out of date and all these policies are subject to change. Nonetheless, it appears to very sensible advice.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/student-loans-repay

And, to answer the question, I probably would.

Reply 59

Physics Enemy

Original post by TomInce6666

There's loads of grads who are unemployed or do lame jobs; the unemployed list isn't even accurate, because I know grads who don't claim benefits, yet they are unemployed. They don't want to face the shame of it. In those 3-4 years, time could have been spent far more productively IMO.

One has to wonder whether degree's make logical sense; spending several years learning a specific branch of academia, only to then try and get a totally unrelated job afterwards, does seem a puzzling concept. I don't get why the government want grads to learn stuff only for it to go down the drain. If you're not bright, hardworking etc by 18/19 then uni won't fix it for you.

You can talk about grad jobs and so forth, but the actual % of total grads who land one of these is very low. And even some of these grad jobs are a 'joke' when you check them out. So the % who land relevant, quality grad jobs is even lower.