Student loans - do we have to pay it back?

[Amatay]

Just seen this thread. I graduated about 8-9 yrs ago and still have an outstanding student loan of about £8k ish. Been playing poker for a living since Jan 2008 and have basically written this debt off in my mind

[Girgy85]

Just seen this thread. I graduated about 8-9 yrs ago and still have an outstanding student loan of about £8k ish. Been playing poker for a living since Jan 2008 and have basically written this debt off in my mind

Pay back your debts!!

[DMorgan]

This is a guy who binked a big score back in November @ DTD

You must be mistaking me for someone else

btw, if you read the OP I clearly said that I'm not trying to screw over the SLC. Nowhere do I say that my plan is to not pay back any of it.

Its also easy to say 'lol obv pay it back' when the £19k bill isn't on you

[Amatay]

Just seen this thread. I graduated about 8-9 yrs ago and still have an outstanding student loan of about £8k ish. Been playing poker for a living since Jan 2008 and have basically written this debt off in my mind

Pay back your debts!!

FU. I've blatched the Student Loans Company

[Girgy85]

This is a guy who binked a big score back in November @ DTD

You must be mistaking me for someone else

btw, if you read the OP I clearly said that I'm not trying to screw over the SLC. Nowhere do I say that my plan is to not pay back any of it.

Its also easy to say 'lol obv pay it back' when the £19k bill isn't on you

So u didnt make the FT of the DTD £330 then?

[StuartHopkin]

Lolaments

Hopefully they will change it one day so students have 5 years to pay back the debt in full.

The whole only over 15k thing just shows how many people waste three years of their life at university and are still unemployable.
They could have used that 3 years to get experience on both the checkout and the stock room.

[Jon MW]

...

Hopefully they will change it one day so students have 5 years to pay back the debt in full.
...

That's more or less what the old system was - but only once you earned over something like 80% of the national average wage.

slightly more complex than all those people wasting it though - generally I think an oversupply of graduates due to the ridiculously random idea that just having more people go to university is a good thing in itself rather than work out 'why'.

[Jon MW]

Also as a point of order, there will be plenty of graduates earning over 15k a year who don't pay it all back after 25 years.

It's a fixed percentage of what you earn over 15k, so if you're earning 17/18/19k for example then the percentage you pay back each month still won't be enough to pay back the oversize loan plus interest within that time frame.

[DMorgan]

lol @ me thinking that this had a shot at not turning into a 'lynch the students' thread

[DMorgan]

So u didnt make the FT of the DTD £330 then?

no

[outragous76]

This is a guy who binked a big score back in November @ DTD

You must be mistaking me for someone else

btw, if you read the OP I clearly said that I'm not trying to screw over the SLC. Nowhere do I say that my plan is to not pay back any of it.

Its also easy to say 'lol obv pay it back' when the £19k bill isn't on you

must be - sorry

as for the 19k bill - been there paid it sunshine - didnt quibble for a second, just got on with it

[erse]

The threshold will seem tiny in 10 years time though.

http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppoweruk/result.php?use[]=CPI&use[]=NOMINALEARN&year_late=1995&typeamount=1000&amount=1000&year_source=1995&year_result=2005
In 2005, £1,000.00 from 1995 is worth
   £1,290.00   using the retail price index.
   £1,510.00   using average earnings.

So in 10 years time that 15 grand will seem like 7.5/10K in today's money. Which is minimum wage.

[Jon MW]

Unless they've changed it, it's linked to the average wage.

The old threshold was something like 80% of the average wage
the new threshold is something like 50% of the average wage

[lazaroonie]

it has changed from when it was first introduced in 1990 from being a loan provided by the government which could be paid back within a couple of years (i think the max loan back then was abuot 700 quid per year) of earning decent money, to basically what amounts to as a tax on students, which they are basically going to be paying at 3 or 4 % of their annual income for the forseeable future.

good enough for them. freeloading *****...

[DMorgan]

Lolaments

Hopefully they will change it one day so students have 5 years to pay back the debt in full.

The whole only over 15k thing just shows how many people waste three years of their life at university and are still unemployable.
They could have used that 3 years to get experience on both the checkout and the stock room.

Average graduate wage is £22k and you think its fair to have students pay back ~£4k a year out of what could very possibly be a small pay packet from an intermediary job after uni?

The prevailing attitude seems to be that students are given this money for the hell of it to go and get a degree and have a jolly holiday for 3 years and that the taxpayer gains nothing from this. If the social returns to higher education were not greater than the private returns then the government wouldn't fund it which is the situation we had years ago when only the rich or the very very talented went to university.

Over the years as the european economy has become more and more services and skills based, the UK needs more skilled labour as we shift away from intensive procedures like manufacturing and agriculture. Therefore the social returns to higher education rise and the government starts opening up higher education to more and more people with grants etc.

The resulting massive influx of people going to university has reduced the marginal social benefit of graduates so we now don't get grants, we get loans instead.

Bottom line is that the UK needs graduates and the economic gains from increased productivity affect everybody positively.