@607 Yes. An undergraduate degree costs £27,000. Young students like myself obviously do not have £27,000 unless our parents are middle class rich toffs. As such, we take out a tuition fee loan from the government that is paid back once we start working in monthly instalments with an interest rate of 3-6% depending on what we earn in our future job.
Full time students, especially those who live away from home in student accommodation, will also have to pay £15,000 rent and need more to cover food and hygiene.
To cover this we take out a separate loan from the government called a maintainence loan, which should cover the rent + food and scales depending on your parent's income and can go up to £9,000 with an interest rate of 5.2% that is paid back the same way as the student loan.
Yeah, but in terms of tuition, aren't your universities in the 4 figures? My local university here is 30 thousand bucks for a single semester, not including textbooks! And it's not even a very good school!
Tuition fees are a very new thing here. Tony Blair's Labour Party introduced them back in the 1990s, and we still had maintainence GRANTS back then. The Conservatives and the Liberals then decided to increase the tuition fees and turn the grant into a loan. I'm just glad at least Labour wants to scrap the fees and bring back the grant.
For me (starting this year with university) it is €2000/year (excluding textbooks), but the first year is half the price so just €1000. A bargain. This means that most people shouldn't have to borrow any money. Many however still do, to live lavishly on the (until now) 0.0% interest rate.
This 0.0% interest rate thing is weird though. You have 35 years to pay it off, and are allowed 5 years (5x1) in which you don't have to pay anything. If you earn lots, it seems like you'd have to pay back much more, while if you earn little, you might be allowed to goodbye the rest of your debt after 35 years.
When you say "most people shouldn't have to borrow any money", do you believe most people live with their parents? This might be true, I have noticed that a lot of people do, but this seems to be mostly in the first year.
Well, as someone who'll stay at home I'm obviously slightly biased (literally the only extra costs is the 1/2000 euro yearprice and books), but I'd say that for someone living outside of home the only extra costs would be rent, power, water, and gas.
Um, yeah, not quite. :P I think power, water and gas are usually included with the rent, and you're missing groceries. But that together would be about €500... (it's less for me because I pay rather cheap rent) How are you going to pay that without a loan? :P
I forgot internet, actually. :P Where I live, power, water, and gas are all separate, and depend on how much you use. Groceries are of course also necessary, but don't count in my opinion, as you need those whether you live at home or not.
I'd ask my parents for those 500 euros. It's much easier that way, than to (potentially) have to spend extra money for a loan. I would, without a doubt pay that for my own kids. Of course, if the parents can't afford it, it's an entirely different story.
Huh? I've never heard of someone living with their parents having to pay for groceries. Clothes, sure, phone credit or subscription, yes, but never groceries. Interesting. :P
I feel like most people wouldn't be able to afford that, actually. Especially considering that still even now many families have multiple children, that would all like to study. Keep in mind that you likely won't be able to pay it back until you finish your study, and can either spend a lot of time at a job you didn't have time for otherwise, or get a job you got a degree for.
I mean that money the parents spent for your groceries just gets moved to money you spend for your groceries. I'm not of the type "kids, byebye, good luck lol". I'd see possible rent for a kid as an investment for the future, I wouldn't WANT that back. If anything, that gives them extra money to support their kid. :)
I hope it works out for you. The realist in me wants to just point out that there are other life paths available. You have the power to choose a path that avoids taking on a crippling amount of debt.
I think I'd like to become a teacher. Even if I don't, the degree is really beneficial because people who don't get one are at an extreme disadvantage for the rest of their lives - I've seen it myself all across my industrially eviscerated town. Either way other paths aren't viable right now unfortunately, and likely won't open up while the country is distracted with unicorn chasing.
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