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Forums - General Discussion - Riots in the UK about tuition fee increases - an observation

jonop on 11 December 2010
Scoobes said:
jonop said:
Scoobes said:
jonop said:
PS3beats360 said:

Drop out of university and  do not bother doing anything with your life. Tories have tripled all university fees across the board.

They claim it is a measure to pay back the debt, reduce the deficit and increase the number of youth unemployment. Government bureaus can magically smooth the figures to cover up the increasing unemployment rates.

Unless you are an upper-middle class or closely related to the Royal family like most Tory MPs, you will not be able to afford to go to university.

Sign up on the welfare and just play your War Craft and console games or do whatever you want. 

People will be able to afford it because you don't have to start paying it back until you start earning £21000 a year.

You do realise how quickly the interest will build up? What if they decide to do a post-grad degree? Or can only get a job that amounts to slightly more than the £21,000?

Already, a lot of graduates on the current system come out with debts of >£15,000 and get jobs paying approx. £22K. Do you know how quickly the payments pay off that amount? They don't. They all go on interest payments. With £40-50,000 debt they'll be losing money on the starting salaries. Most students will be in debt for the majority (if not all) of their professional career.

The interest you pay is based on how much you earn. If you earn 21k you don't pay interest.

This is the full policy from the BBC

The government has pushed through plans to allow universities to charge up to £9,000 per year, raising the cap from its current level of £3,290. Universities wanting to charge more than £6,000 would have to undertake measures, such as offering bursaries, summer schools and outreach programmes, to encourage students from poorer backgrounds to apply.

The government would continue to loan students the money for fees. The threshold at which graduates have to start paying their loans back would be raised from £15,000 to £21,000. On 8 December, the goverment announced this threshold would rise annually with inflation - not just every five years, as had been planned.

Each month graduates would pay back 9% of their income above that threshold.

The subsidised interest rate at which the repayments are made - currently 1.5% - will be raised. Under a "progressive tapering" system, the interest rate will rise from 0 for incomes of £21,000, to 3% plus inflation (RPI) for incomes above £41,000.

If the debt is not cleared 30 years after graduation, it will be wiped out.

 

You edited your post, lol!

OK, fair enough. Now I'm just pissed at the interest my student loan has built up.


Oh, sorry I shouldn't do such stealthy edits. lol

I'm gunna probably have the same problem as you as I'm in my final year now.

edit: also I haven't heard a single coalition member explain this policy coherently, which I think has lead to a lot of confusion about it. 



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MrBubbles on 12 December 2010

Homer_simpson is scifiboy, right?



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

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pacman91 on 12 December 2010
Machina said:

I completely disagree. I'm 24, recently graduated from a UK university with not insignificant levels of debt, and have zero sympathy for the protestors.


First of all, the scenes last night were disgusting; why should taxpayers pay for a three year extended holiday for these people? The people who spent all night vandalising public property, urinating against war memorials, laying waste to some of this country's most famous landmarks and hospitalising police officers. And they feel the country owes them something?

Secondly, I question how many of those people even know what they're protesting about, and not just because of the misinformation being spread by the NUS, but also because these demonstrations are clearly being hijacked by those who just want to have a fun night out smashing stuff up, and it's completely undermining any public sympathy there was for the students.

No one is forced to go to university, it's entirely optional. The concept of 50% university attendance dreamt up by the last government was absolutely ridiculous and completely unsustainable financially. If you want a system of free university education then you need to re-introduce exclusivity and drastically reduce the number of university places. Something tells me the NUS would oppose that as well, which means you're left with current levels of university attendance and a growing financial black hole in the higher education budget.

Nothing is free in this world - if you want something, you pay for it. I for one am bloody glad that fees are going up. University was treated as a 3 year gap year by most students when I was at university. Why should someone who leaves school at 18 and who goes out to work 40 hours a day have to pay for another 18 year old to spend a year getting pissed on a university campus before they even begin to do any real studying? Under these plans, students will start paying for the real cost of their tuition, as they should imo, but only once they start their careers - there are no up-front costs. Seems more than fair to me.

Meanwhile stateside...

 

Almost all college tuition protesters in my state have been peaceful.  The state spending has been rather loose, while pinching the students as hard as possible.  Should it be the college students penalty for states/federal gov'ts who have a loose budget?  China is laughing their heads off right now.  Rather than investing in education the west allowed corporate heads to go unchecked and useless mega-bills supporting random segments of the economy.

Some of these reports are sick, and it could have occurred in the U.S., or any EU nation.  However, this is not the norm.  Most students realize why the protests occur and more broadly, why education should be supported.

Also some students at the university level do waste their time, but to penalize the majority b/c of this is uncalled for. 

Rath on 12 December 2010

It sucks for the students that they're going to see massive fee increases and absolutely no improvement in the Universities because they will be getting the same amount of income as before.

I can really understand why they're pissed.



Kasz216 on 12 December 2010
MrBubbles said:

Homer_simpson is scifiboy, right?


Nah, I mean, Sci-Fi boy believed in a form of socialism based on Star Trek techonology. (Though said technology didn't exist but whtaver.)

Homer Simpson seems actually farther out then that.



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SamuelRSmith on 12 December 2010
Kasz216 said:
MrBubbles said:

Homer_simpson is scifiboy, right?


Nah, I mean, Sci-Fi boy believed in a form of socialism based on Star Trek techonology. (Though said technology didn't exist but whtaver.)

Homer Simpson seems actually farther out then that.


He also seemed less aggressive.



Kasz216 on 12 December 2010
SamuelRSmith said:
Kasz216 said:
MrBubbles said:

Homer_simpson is scifiboy, right?


Nah, I mean, Sci-Fi boy believed in a form of socialism based on Star Trek techonology. (Though said technology didn't exist but whtaver.)

Homer Simpson seems actually farther out then that.


He also seemed less aggressive.

Yeah, though you can blame that on the alt.  Granted Scifiboy isn't exactly descriptive but people tend to take value in their first screenname.

SciFiboy could get outlashy at times if I remember right.



MrBubbles on 12 December 2010
Kasz216 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Kasz216 said:
MrBubbles said:

Homer_simpson is scifiboy, right?


Nah, I mean, Sci-Fi boy believed in a form of socialism based on Star Trek techonology. (Though said technology didn't exist but whtaver.)

Homer Simpson seems actually farther out then that.


He also seemed less aggressive.

Yeah, though you can blame that on the alt.  Granted Scifiboy isn't exactly descriptive but people tend to take value in their first screenname.

SciFiboy could get outlashy at times if I remember right.


i thought the positions and vitriol were right in line for him...then the fact that the account was created just a few days after the last time one of the scifiboy accounts was online. 



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur

darthdevidem01 on 13 December 2010

Won't affect me. My fee's will remain the same till my course ends, changes will only affect people joining uni in 2012...so let them be pissed. I am happy I missed these changes tehehe.

Attack on the royal's was disgraceful and shows the standard of people rioting.....even if both of those royal's had ruined a princess' life.



All hail the KING, Andrespetmonkey

sapphi_snake on 13 December 2010
darthdevidem01 said:

Won't affect me. My fee's will remain the same till my course ends, changes will only affect people joining uni in 2012...so let them be pissed. I am happy I missed these changes tehehe.

Attack on the royal's was disgraceful and shows the standard of people rioting.....even if both of those royal's had ruined a princess' life.

Damn, those silly royals are better than soap opera characters, no?



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