How students resist with a huge debt on their had?

If I can give my opinion I can say that I personally couldn't accept this debt.

The USA has real student debt - you have to pay. The UK doesn't - it's more a graduate tax that many won't even pay the interest with, and the debt will eventually be written-off.

Are you never going to buy a house?

the debt isn’t like bank loan debt - it just comes straight out of your pay, doesn’t affect your credit rating or ability to apply for other loans. £50 a month is a small price to pay for a degree which enabled me to do my job IMO.

I know, but prices like 70k are huge, those are the money my family make in 8 years.

Yeah it’s ridiculously expensive in theory but you don’t start even paying until you’re earning something like £25k a year and it only goes up when your pay goes up. Yeah the higher your fees the longer you pay but there’s no time limit that you have to pay in, and I think it gets written off after a certain time (? Correct me if I’m wrong, that may be a rumour!)

My fees we’re only £9k but I wouldn’t let the “debt” put me off encouraging my children to go to uni. Unless of course the way it works changes in some capacity.

But thing about a german student, if he save the same money a US student do, to bay back with debt, he will have enough money to buy a house, everywhere he want.

I mean, in the end, if we continue in this way, we will have a very rich German country, that will continue to accumulate wealthy.

I live in Silicon Valley. A house in a nice area dwarfs any student debt.

I currently pay £28k a year in fees for my son to study in the UK, plus travel, accommodation and living expenses. I think that it's worth it.


Germany is a high-tax economy - it needs to be to pay for universities, not that I disagree with that approach for rigorous degrees.

No I don't see it as a problem, I kind of went in knowing that I would have a debt (like everyone else)... so no it doesn't annoy me etc. I'm paying money to get into a career which will help me pay it off and will give me a satisfying level of achievement. It's not going to be paid off instantly but it won't result in me having financial issues since its a certain amount taken out each year.

I can't judge how much are £28k for a person that live in Silicon Valley, but I guess is more cheap than the tuition fees of California, isn't it?
I mean, in the US tuition fees can be so high that maybe for an american is more convenient to go to the UK to study.

What do you mean that Germany is a high-tax economy ?
That you have to pay high taxes for other things?
If so, also the sanitary system work in that way there.

Germany like a number of European countries has higher income taxes than, say the UK and the US. China, India, Singapore etc have much lower tax rates. Therefore an English graduate paying for their student loans may not be worse off than their German counterpart. Likewise, its far more worthwhile investing in education if you are from Singapore of Hong Kong as you keep far more of your earnings.

Some Americans do study in the UK but the rates for overseas (non EU) students are far more than the £9k per annum for UK/ EU.

Ok, so Germany is paying the universities with money from taxes and not from students.
Anyway, can be this a good thing?
I mean, does the university research receive enough money from this kind of system?
Is business more difficult in this way ?
Is this the Adam Smith invisible-hand?

So they aren't so much, considering how big is the USA, isn't it?

I don't know if its a good thing - it certainly rewards those who study relatively to those who don't. University research is mainly paid for through government on any system so no real difference. Adam Smith has no place here - all is managed by government. The invisible hand may prompt people to move to lower tax economies. I've come across a fair few software types who have moved to Bulgaria to pay less tax - tax competition is a real risk as more people speak languages and communications are cheaper.

Not many- but why leave America where you pay USD 20k a year to move to the UK and pay £25k for overseas student rates? Some whose parents have saved for private school fees in America do - and some who have EU passports consider moving and gaining residence to study for free.

Yes, Adam Smith is against the intervention of the government, so how those country can live in a capitalistic system and have a so massive interference of the government ?

I thought that tuition fees in US are about 40-50k per year.

Not many- but why leave America where you pay USD 20k a year to move to the UK and pay £25k for overseas student rates? Some whose parents have saved for private school fees in America do - and some who have EU passports consider moving and gaining residence to study for free.

UC Berkley is just over $14k a year (in-state). However, the competition for top places in the US is insane, and includes school grades and extracuricular activites. A Masters is 6 years and includes a broader range of subjects (at almost all US universities)

The UK system is competitive, but (typically) only on academic merit in subjects relevant to the degree. A Masters is 4 years and doesn't include other subjects.

My son is at Imperial (£28k per year - Oxbridge is ~£30k). It's a far better university that he would have got into in the US, as he doesn't have pages of extracuricular activities, or a Nobel prize. It costs a lot more than a University of California would, but a little less than Stanford (very close to us) / Harvard etc.