Dawlish Discussion

Please draw to the attention of any young persons you know and who may be dismissing going to university because of the massive hike in tuition fees wef 2012, that there is an alternative to studying in England and the other home countries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/06/university-europe-no-debt

With our nearest university, Exeter, having announced last week that it wishes to charge the full £9,000 per year for tuition fees, going abroad to study may have just become more financially advantageous than going to Exeter and living at home!

Yes if you want to be a billionaire hedge fund manager go abroad. If you seek employment in teaching, social work, or other socially useful job –that doesn’t pay a salary higher than the GDP of a small nation, stay here -you'll be better off.

Graduates will have more disposable income under the new system than they do under the current system, when they enter employment. The new student loan system requires repayment at 9% of everything you earn over £21,000; rather than the current 9% of everything over £15,000. So if you earn £21,000 under the old system you pay £540 and nothing under the new system. In fact even when you are earning £50,000 you would be paying more back under the old system £3,150, than the new system £2,610. Under the new system you’re always repaying £540 a year less than the current system (and nothing below £21,000).

In terms of ability to get a mortgage, as student loans don’t go on credit files and disposable income is increased, the new system actually should to be an advantage not a detriment.

Look at the real impact of that:

As can be seen, under the new system you’re always repaying £540 a year less than the current system (and nothing below £21,000). The hedge fund manager will pay more back - quite right too, the social work less.

@Archidamus

You wouldn't be a Lib Dem activist would you, by any chance?

Let's see what happens, shall we. You know what students (and voters) do, don't you? Yep, that's right, they vote with their feet.

Would I want a £40,000 debt or so on leaving univeristy (3x £9,000 tution fees plus student loans for living costs etc) or a lesser debt if I could study abroad. Hmm........

No brainer really.

PS Just been told of one really bright student living in Dawlish who has already been looking at studying at universities overseas.

PPS As on other matters I have been in correspondence with our MP over this. I have asked her (amongst other things) with effect from which year will the magical 21k be based. I have asked this because 21k in 2011 may well not have the same buying power as, say, 21k in 2016, what with inflation 'n all (currently running at 4%). She doesn't know the answer to that so has forwarded on my question to the relevant governemnt department. They have yet to respond. So I take it they don't know either.

Bit simplistic - it isn’t a debt as most people understand it, in fact it’s closer to the Graduate Tax idea that the National Union of Students wanted.

Which developed English-speaking countries have cheaper average tuition fees than the UK average? Ok there is always Maastricht University, lectures in English, three A’level Cs will get you in - annual tuition fees are just €1,721 (about £1,500) great! Until you consider they require the fees up front; so if you take out a standard loan to pay your tuition fees, but don’t get a high paid job once you graduate you pay back more than if you went to Plymouth Uni.

'She doesn't know the answer ' - so much for a Oxford education.

'So I take it they don't know either' - well actually I do – the £21k will increase with average wages.

Maybe she doesn't know the answer to my query re from which year the 21k will be based because, quite simply, that hasn't been decided yet. If you are so well connected within Coalition circles why don't you find out from your Lib Dem MP friends and let us know.

I know that the 21K will be annually adjusted according to inflation. My question is, wef which year will this start. Will it be wef 2011/2012 or wef 2015/16 when 21k will no doubt be worth far less than it is now. Inflation is presently running at 4%.

And what is so wrong with 3 Cs getting one a university place? I see no problem with that. You might. I don't.

And with regard to student loans and repayments. No doubt students and parents will look into it all and decided accordingly.

Just as they will at the ballot box........

what is so wrong with 3 Cs - nothing, A' Levels are a very narrow measure of ability, the IB is much better. I am not well connected to government, I do know a former president of the LSE Student Union, who is concerned that misinformation is putting off poorer students from going to uni.

Oh good, something on which we agree, ie that'A' levels (and their grades) shouldn't be the only measure of whether or not someone should be offered a university place.

Poorer students and going to university.........well.......as far as I am aware Simon Hughes , along with others, is still working on that one isn't he? So.......if we have no information thus far as to how poorer students will be financially helped to go no wonder speculation is rife!

And I know the Gen. Sec. of a university and college lecturers union and she is very concerned about the impact of the new system and poorer students.

You see, you are not the only one who can, sort of, name drop.

from today's Guardian editorial:

If the problem in policing policy is drift, the problem in higher education funding policy is impulsiveness. It ought not to have escaped the finest minds in Whitehall last autumn that the massive cuts in teaching grants in the spending review would cause universities to make good the lost income by making larger increases in student fees than they had initially planned. Those increased fees inescapably mean increased loans, thus loading the Treasury with significantly greater expenditure than it had budgeted for. The higher fees would also irresistibly act as an increased deterrent to students from less well-off backgrounds, thus increasing the pressure for more effective equalising social access arrangements of the sort which the regulator Offa set out yesterday. The combination of increased momentum towards a higher fee bill plus the difficulty of enforcing an effective equal access policy points more strongly than ever to a two-tier higher education system for the affluent and the poor. Here, as in policing, the failure to think clearly has triggered unintended consequences – and that is being charitable. But both policing and higher education are too important to be treated in such cavalier ways

For more info re studying for a degree (but not at an English university) click on:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/mar/12/english-students-escape-tuition-fee-rise?INTCMP=SRCH

So our English Universities are soon to be filled with the offspring of Bankers, Hedge Fund Managers, GPs and Dentists whilst the kids of working and lower middle classes bugger off to Scotland or Ireland to get educated?

I'd go to Ireland if I were a student and use the £27,000 I would have spent on a student loan on a nice apartment or house. Then in a few years time when Irelands' property market has recovered and Englands' has nose-dived, pick up a nice property here to go with my new high paid job.

http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2011/03/11/are-you-a-bad-parent-if-you-dont-pay-for-university/?icid=main|uk-ws-bb|dl6|link3|http%3A%2F

Oh and I've now had a response from our MP re wef which year will the 21k repayment base line be invoked. It is April 2017.

Which means of course that 21k in 2017 won't be worth the same amount as 21k in 2011.

Here is the quote from the letter from David Willets who is the minister responsibile for universities.

" Uprating of the income threshold in line with earnings growth will occur in April of each year; the first uprating will occur in April 2017."

Inflation is presently running at 4%. If that rate of inflation were to continue between 2011 and 2017 then 21k in 2017 will be worth approx £16,600 in 2011 terms.

For more info re the new system have a read of this interesting article

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n01/christopher-prendergast/short-cuts