The Student Room Group

Universities are already increasing their fees above £9000

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Original post by jneill
That will be the maintenance loan. You get the tution fee loan on top of that.

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Ah thank you both
Reply 81
Original post by Racoon
Its disgraceful. You only get 4 months of teaching each year, if that.

Swanky new buildings and unnecessarily flash accommodation.

Problem is, if like someone I know, they were struggling with ill health but managed to do two years. Too ill to complete the third year but will have a 30k debt for nothing. SFE don't take anything into consideration if you finish the year even if you were struggling and unwell.

These type of debts should be written off IMHO.


They can have an extra year to finish the course. And if there are mitigating circumstances (eg severe illness) that can be claimed too.

They only start to repay the debt when they earn enough. If they don't the debt is written off.

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Original post by Underscore__
Where have you plucked that figure from? You can live at halls called Bethnal Student Living and Helen Graham House for £120 a week. That gives you more than half of your loan to spend on other things. Most people don't need to buy clothes throughout the year, they choose to. Food can be done relatively cheaply if you're smart with what you buy. Pens? Really?


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That's how much it costs for a room in the only mature student friendly dorm at UCL. £120 might get you a room miles away from campus, but you just end up paying a fortune on travel. So £1500 is what I'll have for living costs, that's about £38 a week - could you manage on so small a sum?
Original post by stevey396
"great degrees" - yeah, a 2:2 from Roehampton is a great degree. And 58.8% of graduates are in non-grad roles (1), with a lot of them earning no more than minimum wage. Complete waste of tax payer's money to fund their degrees. If they want to go to uni it should be entirely out of their own pocket.

I pay my tax, I have a job. I have the right to complain about these whiny scroungers who have never worked a day in their lives.

(1): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33983048


How about we look at actual government statistics? From the same year as your great little biased bbc article:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/432873/BIS-15-304_graduate_labour_market_statistics-January_to_March_2015.pdf
Even the graph on page 2 shows that the only time the non-graduates become the majority is when it comes to unemployment. Therefore it suggests even a degree, even if it's a 2:2 from Roehampton, makes you more employable then not having one at all. And you having your job, are going to moan about students who will likely pay more in tax than you, to pay for your pension? Oh can't wait till you're a pensioner moaning how little you get but you sit on your ass all day, with holidays to Spain. Doubt those students are gonna moan about it.
Funny how you generalise saying they've never worked in their lives. I could bet thousands of pounds that I could find a minimum of several individual that at age 18 have worked much harder than you ever have or will. Students often work to fund themselves at uni on top of their degree work too, you're just being ignorant and completely oblivious to that fact.
Original post by Snufkin
That's how much it costs for a room in the only mature student friendly dorm at UCL. £120 might get you a room miles away from campus, but you just end up paying a fortune on travel. So £1500 is what I'll have for living costs, that's about £38 a week - could you manage on so small a sum?


Well then stay somewhere else, the one I just mentioned in Bethnal Green is half an hour away from UCL, a return journey would be about £4. So no, you'd only have £1500 left if you choose to make things more expensive for yourself


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Original post by JordanL_
The elders that grew up with free higher education?


Only a very small minority of baby boomers went to university, and it was generally extremely competitive to get into even the lesser ones.

Nowadays thanks to the bullsh*t "50% of young people to attend university" target brought in by the Labour government pretty much anyone can get in and the over-subscription of students has lead to the creation of pointless bottom-feeding institutions for the dumb such as those universities in the Cathedrals Group and Million+.

Due to the massive expansion of the higher education sector, it would not be able to operate today without significant contributions from it's customers (the students), hence the fees. If you want to blame anyone, blame Labour.
Original post by Underscore__
Well then stay somewhere else, the one I just mentioned in Bethnal Green is half an hour away from UCL, a return journey would be about £4. So no, you'd only have £1500 left if you choose to make things more expensive for yourself


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Just looked at Bethnal Student Living and a single room costs £219 a week on a 40-week contract. You might be happy to share a room with an 18 year old, but as a mature student, I'm not. Total cost: £8760, only about £100 cheaper than the UCL accommodation I mentioned. :rolleyes:
(edited 7 years ago)
So how will students respond to the increasing fees as well as the freezing of the £21,000 repayment barrier. Their answer is to go in even larger numbers. Talk about walking yourself into the abattoir.
Original post by Racoon
Its disgraceful. You only get 4 months of teaching each year, if that.

Swanky new buildings and unnecessarily flash accommodation.

Problem is, if like someone I know, they were struggling with ill health but managed to do two years. Too ill to complete the third year but will have a 30k debt for nothing. SFE don't take anything into consideration if you finish the year even if you were struggling and unwell.

These type of debts should be written off IMHO.


You can't just write off debt, someone always ends up paying for it. That will be the tax payers. This is why I encourage prospective students for universities to be much more savvy with their finances. Try to take as little loans as possible. It's too late for the 2012-2015 lot, they marched themselves into the fire and still protest about it(they really have no right because they agreed to take on that debt).
Original post by jneill
You only pay back when you earn more than £21k per year. And then it's 9% of the amount above £21k. If you earn £30k it's equivalent to a Starbucks a day (£67 per month). Not bad for a degree education.

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That's the way to lure them into debt. Pat them on the head, put the carrot in the cage, tell them how good the carrot is and then thwomp, they're caged. There is something incredibly wrong with the education system when we are actively encouraging 18 year olds to carry debt that will stay with them for the next three decades. It's an incredibly bad and increasingly worse deal. If we get a rise in inflation as a result of Brexit, the student borrowers are screwed, period.
The man has a point if you look a bit deeper into it. If you actually made universities a market based system where the government kept out by not providing loans, you'd actually have universities competing on costs to attract as many students as possible. The crummy universities would die and the cost would go down(no more easy government money) a fair bit. But no, apparently the equal opportunity cucks would rather all students be in extreme debt with their worthless media studies degrees.
Reply 91
Original post by marco14196
That's the way to lure them into debt. Pat them on the head, put the carrot in the cage, tell them how good the carrot is and then thwomp, they're caged. There is something incredibly wrong with the education system when we are actively encouraging 18 year olds to carry debt that will stay with them for the next three decades. It's an incredibly bad and increasingly worse deal. If we get a rise in inflation as a result of Brexit, the student borrowers are screwed, period.


It's not a normal debt.

It's effectively a graduate tax of 9% on earnings over £21k. If inflation occurs then the repayment rate doesn't change (it stays at 9%), just the length of time it will take to repay the loan.

The debt desn't affect their credit rating (although repayments do affect affordability calculations).
Original post by jneill
It's not a normal debt.

It's effectively a graduate tax of 9% on earnings over £21k. If inflation occurs then the repayment rate doesn't change (it stays at 9%), just the length of time it will take to repay the loan.

The debt desn't affect their credit rating (although repayments do affect affordability calculations).


You'll still end up paying for longer because with inflation plus up to an extra 3% of interest, none of these students will ever pay off the principle of the debt. They will be trapped in that debt for much longer.

It's still a bad debt to have and you're not giving thought to the fact that the government are liable to make more changes in the future, even retrospectively. It is still incredibly stupid to let 18 year olds who have no financial assets to be able to take out these enormous loans. If that takes the government having to make the terms even worse to make students start to think about their financial future, so be it.
Original post by marco14196
The man has a point if you look a bit deeper into it. If you actually made universities a market based system where the government kept out by not providing loans, you'd actually have universities competing on costs to attract as many students as possible. The crummy universities would die and the cost would go down(no more easy government money) a fair bit. But no, apparently the equal opportunity cucks would rather all students be in extreme debt with their worthless media studies degrees.


I agree that there should be a lot less pointless degrees out there like media studies and oddities such as underwater basket weaving and surf studies and even stuff like bookbinding? Does there really need to be a higher qualification in subjects like art, music, photography etc? Can we not just make an apprenticeship equivalent for the arts subjects because what is an art student going to learning at university worth getting £27,000 in debt for? Same with photography. Why get so much in debt just so you know how to click a camera? Half of the university courses out there are just hobby subjects like photography, sports etc

Universities should stick to teaching traditional subjects like medicine, law, economics, biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, history, english, theology, philosophy etc You know, the stuff that requires actual academic substance? All other subjects, in my opinion, should be made into a more practical format like an advanced apprenticeship or something
Don't even get me started on photography degrees. No real photographer has put themselves under that guillotine. Maybe a few have but most of the prominent ones are self taught or have learnt it through practical experience through normal classes. The university system needs to go through an immense collapse. Wipe off half the universities, wipe off most of the degrees and reduce the numbers going.
Reply 95
How many students have "non-traditional" degrees? I doubt very much it's actually 50% but even if if it is, what is their unemployment rate? What are their average earnings?

If a student does a photography degree and starts a career as a photographer...

Or golf management and then manages the Pro shop at your local golf course...

Or...

Although I do agree there could be more higher-level apprenticeships.

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(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by marco14196
Don't even get me started on photography degrees. No real photographer has put themselves under that guillotine. Maybe a few have but most of the prominent ones are self taught or have learnt it through practical experience through normal classes. The university system needs to go through an immense collapse. Wipe off half the universities, wipe off most of the degrees and reduce the numbers going.


There are a lot of reforms I would make to the education system in the UK if I had my way, number one is to get rid of all the non academic arty farty subjects currently proliferating in the universities across Britain. Number two would be to introduce computing as a compulsory GCSE and key stage 3 subject. The world is racing ahead with STEM and Britain sorely lacks in computing skills. I'd probably also make at least one modern language compulsory aswell. It's disgraceful that most other countries in the EU have bilingual citizens and our youth can barely master our own language.
My question is when will students finally admit that this horse race should end. £12,000 a year. £15,000 a year. £20,000 a year. When will you wake up and realise you're being screwed by the universities. They do not care about you. You are a walking wallet. They know you will come out of it with nothing. When university was free, you could afford to study what you want because there was no risk. That is no longer the case. When will you stand up and give the finger to the universities, to student finance and to the government. As long as more of you march to university, you're allowing the system to continue. Either do something or shut up and enjoy the debt fuelled alcoholic binge you'll be on for those three years.
Reply 98
What's the unemployment rate for CompSci grads?

Agree about languages though. :wink:

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Original post by jneill
What's the unemployment rate for CompSci grads?

Agree about languages though. :wink:

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Computer science is a STEM exception although most of that comes down to lack of actual industry coding experience rather than the subject itself. A self taught programmer whose worked on many successful projects and has a good portfolio built up is going to be hired over the compsci graduate with no experience and a first any day of the week.

With respect to your other comment, becoming a photographer or golf course manager is all very well and good but does the government (and you later on) really need to pay £27,000 for it? There is nothing you could learn about photography or golf at university you couldn't learn on an apprenticeship or in industry itself.

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