Student Loan Scheme

[said]

Is the Student Loan Scheme a con or is it genuine? What are your views on this?

[Albion102]

Is the Student Loan Scheme a con or is it genuine? What are your views on this?

It exists and is run by a treasury government sponsored company, called the Student Loans Company. The loans can only be accessed effectively through a regulated provider of higher education and for fees, they are paid directly to said provider.

It is genuine and not a con.

Is it the best currently available way to fund your studies ? Yes

Is it the best way of funding higher education - we'll need to wait for the Augur Review to conclude in Feb 2019 ?

Is a degree, funded by student loan, good value for money ? If you want to do a degree and never expect to earn more than £25k, then its fantastic.

If the degree is going to open up a lifetime of decent earnings and you can pay it off very quickly - yes.

The problem is if you fall into the OK earnings bracket - say £30-£40k and don't expect ever to get above this, then it's a bit of a ball and chain.

Is it good value for the taxpayer - depends upon how you define value.

[gazaprop]

The thing which really galls is that the system was put in place by a bunch of Saville Row socialists who'd all enjoyed free higher education at the tax-payers expense!

[Albion102]

The thing which really galls is that the system was put in place by a bunch of Saville Row socialists who'd all enjoyed free higher education at the tax-payers expense!

True, although the fees were capped at £3k under labour, only rising to £9k under the Tories. The problem was that the only way free education was affordable was to cap student numbers. It meant that the free education was only available to those who knew how to game the system, which made it a middle class thing. The best universities are still dominated by middle class, privately educated kids, but the balance is much better than the old days.

[Alikado]

The con is it keeps the debt off the Government books until it comes time to right the debts off.

[said]

True, although the fees were capped at £3k under labour, only rising to £9k under the Tories. The problem was that the only way free education was affordable was to cap student numbers. It meant that the free education was only available to those who knew how to game the system, which made it a middle class thing. The best universities are still dominated by middle class, privately educated kids, but the balance is much better than the old days.

AH!AH! It was the Labour Government (Blair) who introduced the Student Fees and it was the Labour Government who kept on increasing them! Students were told that by attending University on these loans, when they graduated they would then be able to find work with a sufficiently high salary that they would soon pay off these loans. This is false since there is very little work available to graduates, many are under-employed taking work that requires no higher education, and a great number are unemployed. The Academic Journal "The Conversation" quotes
"Findings from our ongoing research indicate that despite an increase in the proportion of graduates in non-graduate jobs from the beginning of the 1990s, the majority of graduates managed to get appropriate level jobs until the mid-2000s. Since then, during and following the recession, the proportion of graduates unequivocally under-employed has increased steeply. "

[Albion102]

It has always been the case that the majority of degrees are not directly vocational and that Higher Education is not just about employment.

There is a need for real debate about whether what is effectively deferred funding of degrees for everybody is the right thing for us to be doing. It keeps a lot of academics and administrators in jobs and keeps kids doing something useful for a key period in their lives. The question is whether that is a good thing or whether they should be doing the low paid jobs in the NHS, care industry and service industries currently done by EU migrants instead. Most people questioned want one thing for their kids and something else for everybody else's. Therein lies the rub.

[said]

It has always been the case that the majority of degrees are not directly vocational and that Higher Education is not just about employment.

There is a need for real debate about whether what is effectively deferred funding of degrees for everybody is the right thing for us to be doing. It keeps a lot of academics and administrators in jobs and keeps kids doing something useful for a key period in their lives. The question is whether that is a good thing or whether they should be doing the low paid jobs in the NHS, care industry and service industries currently done by EU migrants instead. Most people questioned want one thing for their kids and something else for everybody else's. Therein lies the rub.

I can see that many vocational degrees are not applicable to direct employment - but whereas once the UK was known for its Engineering, this no longer applies, and there are a large number of engineers who have been unable to find work, or are given short term contracts only and even then for the most basic of tasks. The UK was one of the leaders for Chemical Research - there are many Research Chemists unable to find suitable work, many of whom are reporting that the work advertised for graduates is more suited to Secondary School leavers. A Chartered Accountant that I know is earning just £22K per year, whereas a store supervisor is paid £40K per year. Many of the UK's newly graduated Medical Doctors have sought work outside of the UK since the real salaries of Doctors has dropped considerably. The UK has a huge resource of highly educated people in every field - but the jobs are not there.

[Polly Trott]

It has always been the case that the majority of degrees are not directly vocational and that Higher Education is not just about employment.

There is a need for real debate about whether what is effectively deferred funding of degrees for everybody is the right thing for us to be doing. It keeps a lot of academics and administrators in jobs and keeps kids doing something useful for a key period in their lives. The question is whether that is a good thing or whether they should be doing the low paid jobs in the NHS, care industry and service industries currently done by EU migrants instead. Most people questioned want one thing for their kids and something else for everybody else's. Therein lies the rub.

Jobs in the NHS and care sector - even those on the lower rungs - used to come with a rising pay scale, good terms and conditions and a career structure. Reinstate those kind of jobs and young people would have alternatives to a degree with deferred funding.

[said]

Jobs in the NHS and care sector - even those on the lower rungs - used to come with a rising pay scale, good terms and conditions and a career structure. Reinstate those kind of jobs and young people would have alternatives to a degree with deferred funding.

Yes, it would be better to have an alternative career route, it could also be that nurses could train as Doctor's. This scheme is claimed to apply in many institutions - but these days promotions are scarce. This could be due to cronyism or that workers fear rocking the boat.

[Albion102]

Apologies for posting from the Mail but this story quite neatly encapsulates the discussions here. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html#comments

There are world class international relations degrees available from 2/3 institutions in London, and substantially better one a few miles down the road at Essex.

It always amuses me - Anglia Ruskin have bought the naming rights for the street signs in Cambridge. The main signs in say "City of Cambridge", the home of Anglia Ruskin University. Anybody else find the chutzpah amusing ?

[shippy]

Apologies for posting from the Mail but this story quite neatly encapsulates the discussions here. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html#comments

There are world class international relations degrees available from 2/3 institutions in London, and substantially better one a few miles down the road at Essex.

It always amuses me - Anglia Ruskin have bought the naming rights for the street signs in Cambridge. The main signs in say "City of Cambridge", the home of Anglia Ruskin University. Anybody else find the chutzpah amusing ?

I read about this case...poor girl, I can totally understand her frustration... regarding the foreign students attending such a Uni...they are an easy rip off...

[Hamble]

Mickey Mouse degrees are very popular with EU students ditto the student loan scheme.

[said]

Mickey Mouse degrees are very popular with EU students ditto the student loan scheme.

It is not just EU students. Universities cannot be seen to discriminate between various courses. The UK education standard is much higher than many other countries in the EU and in the World for that matter. A student could not gain entry into a University without having three A levels at grades AAB, ABA, ABB, ABC., etc.,at one time. Part of the EU trade talks involved agreeing to educate students in the UK funded by the country that the student originated from. Within a short space of time, EVERY university began to expand - it became a massive business. with numerous new courses.

[Hamble]

It is not just EU students. Universities cannot be seen to discriminate between various courses. The UK education standard is much higher than many other countries in the EU and in the World for that matter. A student could not gain entry into a University without having three A levels at grades AAB, ABA, ABB, ABC., etc.,at one time. Part of the EU trade talks involved agreeing to educate students in the UK funded by the country that the student originated from. Within a short space of time, EVERY university began to expand - it became a massive business. with numerous new courses.

?
EU students get the same help as UK applicants.


https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/eu-students