Student debt

[bgmnts]

Obviously knew student debt was bad but fuck me:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68534953

Obviously a doctor in Surrey is going to be able to much better off than a barista in Doncaster , but it's still mental.

Are you saddled with student debt? Do you reckon you'll ever pay it off? Have you even started paying it off?

[dontpaintyourteeth]

nah I was too stupid to go uni

cheers

[C_Larence]

i was too smart to go ;)

[El Unicornio, mang]

I just keep deferring. Thankfully have always been a bit under the threshold salary wise to be forced to pay it back.

Actually got an offer from them a year or two ago to pay it all off for something like a quarter of what I owed which I kind of wish I'd done.

[Buelligan]

The dog ate my homework and I was saved.

[Underturd]

The trick is to be old enough to have been at uni when grants were still a thing :-)

[Butchers Blind]

No need to go to university these days, is there? It's all on the internet.

[bgmnts]

No need to go to university these days, is there? It's all on the internet.

I think over the years I've found myself trying to get away from the internet as a source of constant information.

[Deano]

It's going to sound like I'm making this up but literally finished paying mine off yesterday, but I was pre-tuition fee hike.

At this point with them being written off after 30 years they're now basically a back-door graduate tax which the very rich can get out of.

[Proactive]

I'm just starting an OU degree at age 45 so quite willingly taking on the debt knowing that I'll be very unlikely to pay it all back before retirement, or if I do somehow end up paying it all back then by definition I'll be earning an amount of money I'm happy with.

[tookish]

Obviously knew student debt was bad but fuck me:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68534953

Obviously a doctor in Surrey is going to be able to much better off than a barista in Doncaster , but it's still mental.

Are you saddled with student debt? Do you reckon you'll ever pay it off? Have you even started paying it off?

I'm among the higher end of debt-havers and very very low in earnings, so I strongly suspect I'll kick the bucket without having paid them a penny piece.

It does make me feel like a failure but what can you do?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Paid mine off but I was the final year where the tuition fees were a grand.

Never really worried about it though, it didn't really kick in until wages were okish and it's not like they send the boyyyys round if you don't pay.

Dunno if I'd have gone if the fees were 9 grand per year though. Might've considered an apprenticeship or something. I think the main benefit of uni was getting out of a commuter town I didn't want to be in rather than the education itself though.

[tookish]

Just checked my balance and it's almost 121k, having accrued an eye-watering 8k in interest since I took the loans out. I have repaid £0.00.

Christ alive.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah that's mad, I think I only racked up about 17 grand and that was with a Scottish degree which added an extra year on.

[tookish]

To be honest, I don't think about it as much as I probably should. It's such a vast amount of debt that it feels like looking directly at the sun.

[Gladys]

Mine were from the 90's and were written off last year (after 25 years i think).

[Icehaven]

Mine were from the 90's and were written off last year (after 25 years i think).

Yeah I did my undergraduate degree 1999-2002 and have never earned enough to start paying it back so it'll be getting written off in a couple of years. About 5 or 6 years ago I got a letter from the SLC offering a deal to halve the debt if I paid it all off in one go, then a while after that knocking it down to a third if I paid it all, which was just desperate attempt to claw something back as I was clearly not going to be paying any of it back. Can't imagine what incentive they thought there was for me, it's not like 'real' debt.

[Endicott]

I'm among the higher end of debt-havers and very very low in earnings, so I strongly suspect I'll kick the bucket without having paid them a penny piece.

It does make me feel like a failure but what can you do?

Sorry to hear it makes you feel that way, ol' took. If you can legit get out of paying then fuck 'em. You were unlucky to be in the system at a time when the funding was and still is completely fucked up, and that's not your fault.

[tookish]

Sorry to hear it makes you feel that way, ol' took. If you can legit get out of paying then fuck 'em. You were unlucky to be in the system at a time when the funding was and still is completely fucked up, and that's not your fault.

Thanks mate. It genuinely comes down to shame about being on disability benefits that I need to shake off - the DWP themselves actually told me not to work full-time, but I still feel like a scrounger and work as much as I can, often to the detriment of my health.

[Midas]

Are you saddled with student debt? Do you reckon you'll ever pay it off? Have you even started paying it off?

Yes
No
No

[shoulders]

Imagine how unfeasibly stupid you would need to be to introduce student loans.

Buried in debt, affecting your disposable income and throttling the economy.

Doesn't even make sense from a business perspective.

[Toki]

Thanks mate. It genuinely comes down to shame about being on disability benefits that I need to shake off - the DWP themselves actually told me not to work full-time, but I still feel like a scrounger and work as much as I can, often to the detriment of my health.

I'm in a very similar situation. It's hard not to feel shame when the general consensus is that people on any form of welfare are scroungers. Such attitudes make my blood boil which just reinforces how hopeless I feel about it. I probably have no advice that you haven't already heard, and as a blanket rule I never give advice anyway (especially to people who haven't asked for any), but it's really crappy what you're going through.

[Emma Raducanu]

I graduated 2006 and still owe £11,000 about £2000 more than I owed 18 years ago. How come everyone is getting their loans written off? Mine only ends when I'm 65 apparently.

Seems mental to think that at 64 I'll still be paying for cans of strongbow and entrance fees to shitty nightclubs from 45 years earlier.

[bgmnts]

Thanks mate. It genuinely comes down to shame about being on disability benefits that I need to shake off - the DWP themselves actually told me not to work full-time, but I still feel like a scrounger and work as much as I can, often to the detriment of my health.

As a welfare scrounging dysfunctional wank myself, I say fuck em myself.

And obviously this student loan business seems just a scam anyway, a scam everyone has to go through, regardless of position in life.

[Butchers Blind]

Mine were from the 90's and were written off last year (after 25 years i think).

Yeah I did my undergraduate degree 1999-2002 and have never earned enough to start paying it back so it'll be getting written off in a couple of years. About 5 or 6 years ago I got a letter from the SLC offering a deal to halve the debt if I paid it all off in one go, then a while after that knocking it down to a third if I paid it all, which was just desperate attempt to claw something back as I was clearly not going to be paying any of it back. Can't imagine what incentive they thought there was for me, it's not like 'real' debt.

This sounds a right laugh. Wish I did a bit of this higher education now.

[oggyraiding]

Currently owe £73k, and about to start a new course in September which will add another £60k to that.

[Proactive]

Currently owe £73k, and about to start a new course in September which will add another £60k to that.

Pardon my ignorance but what is this paying for, a PhD or something? Same question for Tookish.

[Zero Gravitas]

Is this really debt though? It's all PAYE deductions isn't it, not like someone is going to bust in and take your tv in the early morning.

Having said that I ran away to Scotland and repaid my English debt with a few years of freelancing, so I'm probably the worst person to ask.

[oggyraiding]

Pardon my ignorance but what is this paying for, a PhD or something? Same question for Tookish.

I started back when the fees were around £3.5k. I changed course twice, did multiple repeat years, so after 9 years of uni I racked up that £73k.

I'm going back as a first year undergrad in September (I never graduated due to illness so I got extra funding due to compelling personal reasons appeal), which will have £9k a year fees and £10kish maintenance loan.

I think I'm a fairly unusual case, to get so many extra years of funding beyond the ((standard length of course + 1) - years of previous of study). In a way I'm lucky I've been so unwell because this time I have 13 years of medical evidence to back my claims up.

[Midas]

A few years of freelancing my arse is the only way mine'll get paid