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Student debt - how do you cope?
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Over the last week, I've been thinking a lot about money, for several reasons. It's well-established that students get into quite a lot of debt. I know some of the people here are, reading their LJs and their threads. So, it's quite a worry on my mind. However, it doesn't help when I read this story last week;
According to the Daily Mail...
"A trainee doctor said today she warned Tony Blair that student debt would one day lead someone to kill themselves - and now it has. Julia Prague, 21, spoke after the suicide of a politics graduate [Lisa Taylor] who believed she would never be able to repay her debts of £14,000."
Isn't it awful that someone should kill themselves because of the dreadful strain their finances go under at university? And I think this story makes it even worse. From talking to some student friends, I get the distinct impression they really aren't bothered by their debts. And to make it even worse, those people that do work during term time are likely to get lower grades, says this.
Right, what I'm asking is; does student debt actually worry you, or do you simply not care?
According to the Daily Mail...
"A trainee doctor said today she warned Tony Blair that student debt would one day lead someone to kill themselves - and now it has. Julia Prague, 21, spoke after the suicide of a politics graduate [Lisa Taylor] who believed she would never be able to repay her debts of £14,000."
Isn't it awful that someone should kill themselves because of the dreadful strain their finances go under at university? And I think this story makes it even worse. From talking to some student friends, I get the distinct impression they really aren't bothered by their debts. And to make it even worse, those people that do work during term time are likely to get lower grades, says this.
Right, what I'm asking is; does student debt actually worry you, or do you simply not care?
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
£14,000 wouldn't take that long to pay off once you're earning £23k plus a year or whatever.
there's no point in worrying about it anyway. what are the other options to finance yourself through uni? plus most people are in the same boat.
Credit cards and other debts are something to be careful about, and not something you want long term.
Quite true.
However, I think it is a bit more scary than it used to be though. I came out of Uni in 95 with about 3K in student loans. Its commonplace now for students to leave with anything from 10-30K in debts.
Student loans only accrue interest at inflation rate, but it is still a debt at the end of the day. The serious problems with credit are with cards or these high interest loans.
This is what Tony Blair said last April about Labour's plans for student loans repayments:
"No one, unlike now, will have to pay towards the cost of their degree until they have graduated and got a job. We give you a real-terms interest-free loan to cover the costs and peg repayments to how much you earn. We are going to raise the earnings threshold when you start repaying the loan from £10,000 to £15,000. This will help you and other existing graduates as well as new students. It means repayments for someone earning £18,000 will be around £5 a week.
"And if your earnings drop below £15,000 because you want to travel, or if you lose your job or want to take time off to have children, as many of you will do, your repayments stop. And because the loan is interest-free, it doesn't keep increasing. "
The point Blair was making was that this is what Labour plan
for a degree and the 4 best years of my life (one in france) i think its so worth it.
Education should be free or at least cheaper for all. The government should look at what jobs we are short of in the UK and offer courses related to those jobs as much cheaper, or maybe even free.
without wanting to get into a debate, don't you think that providing university education free for all that people would just go to avoid working? and then surely the more people who have degrees the less value you could say our degrees now have.
Not really, that's just one extreme. As long as the entry requirements are set properly, not everyone will go to uni. And people have to graduate eventually so they wouldn't be not working for longer than 3yrs or so. Although more people having degrees might decrease their value, what would you prefer: a country filled with educated people who have to compete for jobs, or a country with less educated people? If don't think it can hurt to raise the level of our nation, not in the long run.
i know what you mean but just because you don't go to uni doesn't mean you're 'less educated'. there are other ways of getting qualifications.
fortunately for me, my dad is pretty 'stocked' when it comes to money - so i dont need to get a loan or anything
government is stopping this whole fee paying thing though in 2 years or so - which means that when my sister goes to uni she'll need loan
I didn't mean to make it sound like everyone who doesn't get a degree is stupid. I just meant that everyone who has the potential to do well in a university environment should be able to do it. I suppose you could say the other side is true: every kid who wants to be a bricklayer or a plumber should also have the chance to realise their potential.
i assume things are different in the usa.
haha is that what your essentials are?
mine would be food, clothes/handbags, cds and drink.
I don't think students worry ENOUGH about the debt they're getting themselves into.. a lot of people I know believe they'll leave uni and enter a job earning 100k a year, and think they'll pay it off in no time - and I just laugh because it's really not like that.
Ilora x
I simply had no choice but to do into debt. Because of where I grew up, my nearest university was 200 miles away and simply couldn't commute. And if I didn't go to uni then I would be forced to stay at home and work at the local co-op :yeees: It simply wasn't going to happen. And my parents couldn't have afforded to pay for me to go to uni. This is something that I am fairly proud of - for the majority of it, I did it myself. With no help from my parents. It was only towards the end I got into a bit of trouble, but generally it was all me. And I feel that is quite an achievement.
As much as I hated uni, I wouldn't have done it differently. I am about to qualify as something I always wanted and I couldn't have done that without going to uni. Debt is just one of those things.
Remember, your student loan is a cheap loan to have. I would prefer to have 20k in debt through my student loan than owe the bank 20k. It's just an annoying debt but that's the way it goes.