Yes, debts, great idea (Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?)

Name: northernlass

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Product:	Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?
Date:	13/04/02 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: ???

Disadvantages: HUUUUGE debt, being skint all the time, guilt for your parents having to cough up for their adult child whether its just tuition or much more

Warning this opinion is told from a very subjective and personal stand point.

I have wanted a degree since I can remember. It was always my plan to go to university and I never imagined it would be anything other than a really fun, stimulating experience where I would meet brilliant people in a friendly atmosphere. Unfortunately I haven't found that at all. I am currently in my first year at Liverpool John Moores University doing Media and don't like it so I am going to leave at the end of the year and reapply for somewhere else through UCAS (by the way any suggestions for a different uni please feel free). Believe me I couldn't just bear it, I'd crack up first and probably fail because I wouldn't have the motivation. This hit my mum and dad pretty hard because they had been really good to me by paying my tuition, accommodation, books and £35 so I didn't have to use my loan. It all added up to lots of money which would have meant that I wouldn't have to suffer a massive debt when I came out. For this I was seriously grateful. However this turned out not to be so good when I found that I didn't really like the course, the uni or the people and you can imagine how much I dreaded telling them I didn't want to stay. As predicted they weren't happy and felt pretty sick that they had spent that amount of money for nothing. Money that had been inheritance from my grandfather. Money that they still couldn't really afford especially that my little sister still wants to go to uni in a few years so now they will have a two year overlap. This would all be a lot easier on them if the cost of uni was so astronomically high. And I will now finish uni with an extra years loan debt on my hands not to mention any overdraft I have.

I don't know how the government can think that the current system works. They have got thousands of students (who don't really know otherwise) that having a £10-15,000 debt is okay. Thats
how I felt until about 3 weeks of nagging took its effect. I just figured, oh well everyone else has it so it can't be so bad. Then I hear horror stories about how much students are struggling to pay it back. Especially when the interest takes effect and especially now that the government have lowered the income you have to earn to start paying it back. It used to be £16,000 a year and now its £11,000. Have you ever tried living off £11,000 alone without having debt repayments? I bet no member of the government has.

The benefit of having a higher paid job thanks to a degree isn't guaranteed and is getting less easy as more and more students get their degrees and increase the competition. There are plenty of graduates out there who don't have high paid jobs but still have a whopping great debt to try and pay back. £15,000 is how much my parents took out for their mortgage and they were given 25 years to pay it back. When you lay it down it sounds impossible.

I understand how the government can't afford to give grants out to all students like they used to but there must be a better way. Is it surprising that more and more people are either not bothering or turning to increasingly extreme ways to find the money. It's easy enough for students whose parents have money. I know plenty whose parents will help them out with the loan, give them spending money or pay for their accommodation. Then there are plenty whose family has very little money.

The loan isn't enough to cover everything, accommodation, food, socialising, clothes... Most students have to get a job and as many will know there are plenty which have you working every spare hour. I remember a friend of mine who worked at Etam had about four or five essays to do in a week and a half and her job had her in for extra hours which was any time she didn't have a lecture (she's only actually contracted to 4 hours a week). She was knackered and VERY cranky. Al
l she kept saying was that she couldn't wait for the deadlines to be over. But she couldn't cope without the money from her job.

Imagine what it will be like in another five years. How many debt-ridden graduates will there be by then? The banks and SLC must be rubbing their hands with glee at the amount of money they will make off the interest. Its not all free money you know. As soon as you leave the interest kicks in and it all starts to pile up. I'm looking forward to it, are you?

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