Student debt

[Captain Z]

Not if they can lance it for free

Edit: No, you can go back a page for context.

[Proactive]

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.

Ah, fair enough. Tbh I had already neglected to factor in the maintenance aspect of it so can see how it would all add up.

Good luck with going back to it.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

I left the UK after my degree, and could have deferred ad infinitum until they dropped it.

After 9/11 I was hyperbusy and did 16 hours of work a day for 9 weeks and cleared my entire student debt from back then to be able to move on and not have the thought of that debt living rent-free in my head.

It felt similarly good to have cleared my mortgage a couple of years ago.

But the biggest satisfaction was when I consolidated two hustles into a single full time job and cleared a massive overdraft. The amount of mess I was in had only sunk in when my account balance in the red was shown on screen on an ATM in Ulaanbaataar in Tugrik rather than Euro.

A decade previously I cut up my UK credit cards at the airport in Malta and cleared the debt on them.

[canadagoose]

Most of my debt now is from my failed postgrad in 2015/16. I still have debt from my undergraduate degree, but it was in Scotland so it wasn't a terrible amount - just the student loans I had. Managed to pay off about £800 over the years I think, and now I'm on ADP and constantly "almost going self-employed" so I imagine my £19000 or whatever it is will be written off. The interest on it these days is higher than I ever remember it being, but who cares.

[Arbiter]

 In the last couple of years or so you can switch to paying it off by DD instead of them just taking it. I don't know if they ripped me off but almost certainly. They just keep taking the fucking money I heard if you don't tell them to stop or you can switch to DD. Almost certainly they make more when you pay DD but at least they won't steal from you until you ask them not to. It's liking inviting a vampire into your bank account. Thank god the pound is up the FTSE ass these days.

[PlanktonSideburns]

If a loans company wants to pay for me to get both a degree and a masters in subjects with the word 'creative' in the title, they deserve all the lack of repayment they get

[Chollis]

haven't looked at mine in years, if i don't think about it maybe it will just go away

[Poobum]

About 60k. Not that bothered to be honest. If I ever get a conservationist job that pays enough I go over the threshold I take it.

[mippy]

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.

The latter point is the main one for me - how do you get out of a shit, or at least boring, home town if you're working-class and can no longer afford to go? It was expensive for my generation - still pissed off that I applied for a hardship grant and half of it was extra student loan, meaning I was still paying for my ability to now buy groceries ten years later until I paid it off - but it's just going to fuck social mobility, in the same way it's now impossible for someone to move to London or wherever to take an entry level job because they can't afford the rents to do the thing that will hopefully kickstart their career.

I was one of the first intakes to have to pay fees/take out a loan, felt cheated, but my god is it worse now. I know a few people younger than me who just sacked off the idea much as I realised early on that studying in London wasn't going to happen.

[mippy]

"University is a choice!" say the same pisspots who say that all young people are entitled whingers and why are all the doctors foreigns these days that's if you get to see any at all

[Deano]

The latter point is the main one for me - how do you get out of a shit, or at least boring, home town if you're working-class and can no longer afford to go? It was expensive for my generation - still pissed off that I applied for a hardship grant and half of it was extra student loan, meaning I was still paying for my ability to now buy groceries ten years later until I paid it off - but it's just going to fuck social mobility, in the same way it's now impossible for someone to move to London or wherever to take an entry level job because they can't afford the rents to do the thing that will hopefully kickstart their career.

I was one of the first intakes to have to pay fees/take out a loan, felt cheated, but my god is it worse now. I know a few people younger than me who just sacked off the idea much as I realised early on that studying in London wasn't going to happen.

I honestly think the horror stories of "look at the awful size of the debt" have done more to damage social mobility than the actual system itself. I mean, it is ridiculous, and unfair, and we shouldn't be charging such massive tuition fees when previous generations paid less or paid nothing... but apparently that's not a good enough argument, or it's one people are uncomfortable to make.
And so instead we get the "this will stop poorer people going to uni" narrative which I admit, is now true, but it was pretty much summoned into existence by people repeating it and poorer people going "oh dear, maybe I shouldn't be going to uni then".

Currently those going this year will pay 9% of what they earn over £25k until the loan is paid off or 40 years have elapsed. That's manageable for most people. It shouldn't be putting anyone off. It's not good. It's not fair. But for the vast majority of people it shouldn't be the difference between going to uni or not going.

But the anti-fees campaigners consistently use the high "debt" figures to scaremonger and their hearts are in the right place, but it doesn't help.

I do wish it was just a straight up "5% tax on what you earn over £25k for 40 years if you go to uni". Instead of letting the very successful just stop paying it quickly, the moderately successful after about half that time, and the others not at all. And also, maybe it would put off the rich but dumb lot from going. Young Sebastian is getting a £100k job in the family firm with a fancy title that amounts to "PA" regardless of if he goes to uni, why hand over £5k more of that in tax?

And you're exempted if you go work for the NHS.

[jamiefairlie]

"University is a choice!" say the same pisspots who say that all young people are entitled whingers and why are all the doctors foreigns these days that's if you get to see any at all

I got mine for free and got a fucking grant on top of it despite living at home and having no expenses, no debt at the end  and more money than I could drink.

Beat that!

Seriously though, leave the country if you can. It'll be better for you in every way, not just financially. Also if I was doing it now I'd be tempted to just get a trade instead, builder or something like that. Damn sight more useful in the longer term.

[PlanktonSideburns]

I got a trade, worked as a builder for 8 years before I did my degree and masters, and I've STILL not fuckin bothered to make enough money to start paying the debt off yet. In your FACE whoever it was that leant me that money. David Cameron? I dunno

[TheAssassin]

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

And you could still take loans out then.  I took one out because I could invest it and receive more interest than the interest rate of paying back the loan accrued, and make some money from it.  In mid-90s when ISAs came out, it was a 20% return after three years, but the loan was only an additional 3.5% APR.  You do the maths.

[poodlefaker]

i went to university before fees and had a grant, but i've spent the thirty years since working in state education, so have i paid my debt to society?

[imitationleather]

The first time I saw the student debt deduction on my salary invoice was a real "chickens coming home to roost" moment.

[beanheadmcginty]

Just move abroad. All I get these days is a meek email every year or so asking me to update my contact details, which I laugh at heartily and chuck in the bin. Still technically owe the cunts the thick end of 28 grand.