'Don't pay your kids tuition fees upfront' Discussion Area

A question about : 'Don't pay your kids tuition fees upfront' Discussion Area

One thing I will add, the SLC do employ debt collectors as such, Smith, Lawson & Co. Wouldn't really apply for new students, which I know is what the guide is aimed at, but they do employ them. They may also chase if a student slips from HMRC's radar.

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• One thing I will add, the SLC do employ debt collectors as such, Smith, Lawson & Co. Wouldn't really apply for new students, which I know is what the guide is aimed at, but they do employ them. They may also chase if a student slips from HMRC's radar.
• Great article, dispelling many of the myths about Student funding.
  Yes students on higher incomes after graduation may have to pay more but those on lower incomes pay less than now.
  It really is a capped Graduate Tax. I wonder why the coalition didn't call it that? My guess is that a Graduate Tax would mean tuition fees and maintanance support would be a debt to the state and add to overall govt. expenditure. By calling it a loan, is the debt is assigned to individuals and removed from govt. spending?
  One criticism is that the maintenance is still partly assessed on parental income. This always seemed wrong to me, even in the days of a grant. If you go to university, you are generally over 18 and an adult in the eyes of the state. Why should your income depend on what your parents earn?
  And of course you have no legal recourse to get your parents to pay up their part of the maintenance contribution if they can't or won't do so.
• Anyone have a sense of when the government will make up its mind whether it will introduce an early repayment penalty and on what terms?
  We have been waiting for this detail for months. Until we know this it is impossible to make a definite plan.
  We are filling in the 2012 UCAS forms right now; it asks if the applicant is taking student finance or not. Don't know how to answer.
  Does anyone know what the hold-up is on producing this crucial detail?
  Thank you.
• What a spin! Firstly, average salary in UK at present is around Ј25K. This means that only very few, if any indeed, university graduates would be exempt of paying back the loan by the time they are qualified. Second, many courses run for more than 3 years and some may go on for even 4-6 years (depending on Univerity) including for instance medical, dental, veterenary, pharmacy etc. Thirdly, the interest on the loan is calculated from the time the loan is taken and at a startling rate of inflation + 3% (compound) and not at Bank of England Base rate (currently at 0.5%) this is at a time when inflation is running at some 5%. Fourthly, students would not be allowed to pay back early or may be asked to pay a hefty penalty to do so. Fifth, it is not true that loan companies may not pursue the debt repayment or get a Bailif knocking on your door. Sixth, students will keep paying 9% of their income to repay the loan until they retire resulting in them paying far far more than the amount borrowed in the first place. to put things into perspective, if students join a 4/5 years course they will end up borrowing Ј36-Ј45K (excluding maintenance loans) and by the time they retire they may end up paying well over 80K-Ј90K. This is a betrayal to our children and future generation and betrayal to the concept of fair access to university education even to the poor as well as a betrayal to future of the UK that depends on investing in education.
• I wouldn't lose sleep over where the debt lies with the state or graduate at the end of the day it is in the Governments hands, massaging the figures may make them feel better that is all and keeps the bond markets happier.
  Many people will never repay the loans. Many "professions" stagnate in the Ј40K mark and at this level massive right offs will occur.
  As for saying finance is to be applied for on UCAS forms, simply say yes you don't have to take it.
  As far as whether it is tax or a loan if you decide to emigrate and never come back then it would be interesting to see how they could pursue you. If you reenter the country after 20 years and you have to start repaying the inflated loan it will never get repaid and you will be no worse a position.
  By assigning the debt to an individual certainly makes it a golden handcuff. If it were free and taxed and you simply emigrated then the link would be lost.
  If you can afford to fund your off spring entirely and not take up the finance then I think it would be a great gift to your child.
  As most can't IMO you would be better off keeping what capital you have towards a deposit on a property,for example, for them, when they graduate.
  As Martin says if you contribute a large amount and then for whatever reason your child can't maintain the repayments and the debt gets written off then you will have "overpaid".
  IMO the Government is storing up a time bomb as a lot of this debt will never get repaid.
  Like another poster said if you are going down this route parental income/contribution in this loan/grant calculation should be totally ignored.
  IMO it should be a tax on all graduates since say 1980, could be a sliding scale, taper relief for older graduates from that date.
  Interestingly there is alot of ballyhoo about the 50% tax rate for high income earners yet this is what the government is proposing for all graduates, over Ј40k ish equivalent in 4 years time (40% + 9%).
  Like cutting it's own costs the government should be looking to bring down the cost of degrees - 2 years maybe for most and "declassifying" jobs that need a "degree" to do them.
• Yes what an appalling discriminatory mess. Hold your heads in shame Lib Dems. Yes do dare look us in the eye. Note the deep disappointment and resentment you will see behind eyes perhaps a good deal more intelligent than your political ones. Britain would be a fairer nation tomorrow if you had kept your promises.
  I sat through a talk at an established University earlier this week to hear that about 25% on a particular science course get First Class honours degrees, about 55% get 2.1, and the rest get 2.2. No one lately has got Third or less.
  That got me musing that a degree of shading has occurred over the years and I can't for the life of me think what is good about it for graduates or anyone else except for those who spin their hyperbole at higher educational establishments' marketing events.
  I got a 2.2 thirty odd years ago (when people had to be special to get First Class honours degrees and at the other end of the spectrum, people actually failed. None of yer resit nonsense and "Don't worry if you don't like exams, you can choose coursework assessed modules instead").
  I sat a whole set of fierce final exams over several exam periods throughout my three year course. They were indeed final. I have actually been discriminated against in the past 10 years because my 2.2 was measured against more recent 2.1's and found lacking by 1 digit after the dot. But that's no discrimination at all compared to the discrimination now waged against students in families who are making decisions like "Wow .... Ј9,000 a year for three ... no four years (because Batchelor degrees are worth about what non-honours degrees were worth thirty odd years ago and now you need a Masters) ... ok so Mum and Dad will pay for two years and little Jimmy will borrow Ј18,000 from SLC to help him keep his total student debt down to something sensible, right?" WRONG!!!
  VERY WRONG!!!
  The current scheme is unlawful, isn't it, in so many ways? And right now, literally, as up and down the country 17 and 18 year olds are trying to make sense and value the worth of one outfit called "university" against the next, this Ј9,000 a year tuition fees nonsense is skewing the pitch for a whole intake currently in the UCAS system. ('Cohort' they call it now in higher educational pro speak).
  I'd love to know who is in cohorts with who actually.
  Come on you Human Rights Legal specialists who graduated in recent years ... contribute. Or are you paid too much not to contribute, or perhaps your employers' version of what's right and wrong is too distracting or conflicting for you to tackle something truly for the benefit of the public good just yet?
• I am sure I have said something like this before, but MSE should publish a simple short declaration clause for the 2012 cohort to add to their SLC loan agreements at a suitable point in time which should be sufficiently publicised in advance in order to swamp the system in some deliberate 'straight between the eyes/never had a chance to move' fashion to remind the government that the cohort is signing under duress and that use of the clause is approved by MSE's Martin Lewis, government adviser on Student Finance matters.
  Naturally legal opinion would be required to give the clause maximum efficacy and also timing of such a campaign would be crucial.
  Martin might thereby release the cohort from this disgraceful harness and that would serve this government right and show them what is so WRONG!
• My personal concern in all this is that I let my daughter get into this level of "debt" starting 2013 only to find it all rehashed at a future point leaving her in the worst position of all.
  Fully agree with Martin's interpretation thus far.
  "Luckily" we have one already under the current scheme but finding someway of balancing their position so that they end up in a similar position is key to us.
  It could be that my daughter may be better off