Fifty thousand pounds in debt. Not easy for the young just now, who wish to study.
What did you you think you would have by your current age that you don't?
Govt announces Ukrainian style scheme to bring thousands more migrants to UK
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Reform UK claims it would renegotiate Brexit deal to stop resident foreign students accessing UK student loan system
(121 Posts)Suella Braverman, Reform UK’s education spokesperson, says today, Reform UK would stop foreign students who are resident in the UK accessing student loans.
In recent years universities have become increasingly dependent on foreign students. They can charge them much higher fees, and the income from foreign students helps to fund the teaching for students from Britain, whose fees are capped.
The Reform UK policy would not affect these foreign students – because they cannot access the UK student loan system anyway. Instead, the policy would apply to UK resident foreign students – e.g. EU nationals with settled status (permission to live in the UK granted as part of the Brexit settlement, because they were here before) and foreigners with indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Explaining the policy, Reform UK said: "Currently, 270,000 - 300,000 UK resident foreign nationals access £4bn worth of taxpayer-backed student loans each year, many of which are unlikely ever to be repaid. At the same time, British graduates face long-term debt and rising living costs. This measure will save approximately £2bn annually." The party said resident foreign students from Hong Kong and Ukraine would not be covered by this policy.
As the Reform UK party acknowledges in its news release, stopping people with EU settled status living in the UK from accessing the UK student loan system would require a renegotiation of the UK’s Brexit deal with the EU. The EU would not give up this concession lightly, and any attempt to renege on the agreement could lead to Brussels imposing retaliatory measures of its own.
The young people I know have done better going to a technical college at 16 and learning a skill. By 21 they are fully qualified and earning a full wage, of the 5 that went to university all are doing unskilled work to pay the rent.
One in particular is very disenchanted because her sister who didnt go to Uni is now earning £40k - at 21!
There are many who would be better leaving after GCSE’s at school and others after completing A levels.
twaddle
Or non-sense.
We can’t all agree twaddle
No idea where the how about appeared.
Cossy your over long and rude rant at me shows me how very little you seem to know.
As for my comment ‘good salaries’ there’s nothing incorrect or wrong in that, it’s what every graduate hopes for.
Of course I know that poly’s were turned into universities btw.
Far too many students now end up unemployed or doing shop work that’s not well paid or applying for over 300 jobs with no luck as a graduate speaking on Radio 4 told the presenter recently.
How about
Or non-sense.
BlessedArt
Imagine being so bigoted that one ignores what a loan is and also ignores the fact that educated immigrants are a plus. It checks all the boxes for bitter Reform types, doesn’t it?
No it doesn’t, it ticks all the boxes for some common sense.
The time for students loans not being paid and written off is now 40 years. Student loans are also cancelled if the borrower dies or is permanently unfit to work.
Former students are not able to repay their loans during periods or maternity or paternity breaks, periods of unemployment or any other reason for a period not working- but of course the interest accrues during these periods.
Students leaving university now frequently over £50,000 in debt making the threshold for repayment much higher and fiscal drag by not raising repayment thresholds keeps the students in debt for longer.
For the 2026/27 tax year the income thresholds before which student loans repayments kick in are:
Plan 1- £26,900 per annum
Plan 2- £29,385 pa
Plan 4 £33,794 pa
Plan 5 £25,000 pa except for post graduate loans and it is £21,000.
A newly qualified nurse or teacher, needed in society, would have to work full time to reach the income threshold. If the nurse or teacher, at any stage in their career, has children or parent caring responsibilities and decides to work part time- or for how ever many years, they will not meet the income threshold, not make student loan repayments during that time and rates of interest above inflation will accrue. After however many years, if said nurse or teacher returns to full time work she or he will start again to repay their student loan with added accrued debt until 40 years after loan began. Said nurse or teacher may be reaching or have already reached retirement age.
The fact that not all students loans are fully repaid over a 40 year period, or written off- will include a large cohort of people- deceased, disabled and/or unfit to work, those who worked part time to support their families and those who have reached or gone beyond retirement age. It cannot be said, without any supportive evidence, that the sole or even main culprits for unpaid or written off student loans are those who choose a degree "that gets them nowhere".
* Polytechnics have been given University Status.
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BlessedArt
Imagine being so bigoted that one ignores what a loan is and also ignores the fact that educated immigrants are a plus. It checks all the boxes for bitter Reform types, doesn’t it?
We have educated unemployed or under employed in the UK because the education system does not recognize what the UK needs.
So migrants have to be found to do the worker it doesn't get done.
Imagine being so bigoted that one ignores what a loan is and also ignores the fact that educated immigrants are a plus. It checks all the boxes for bitter Reform types, doesn’t it?
Wyllow3
When many of us were young you could walk into a job within a week.
It must be so hard now.
Yes because we were willing to do whatever work offered, now we think we are too good for that work. I did it, most of us did but now we bring in migrants to do it.
Migrants are willing to do the work that our own young people are not willing to cross the road for, I have no sympathy at all for those that say there is no work.
The 'real reason'? Has this been formally studied?
If so, there will be data.
I don’t do lists or links when posters demand them.
However we all know the sort of degrees and the sort of universities, having a degree in tv soaps and drama for example, gets you precisely nowhere with employers for a job with a good salary. I feel so sorry for teenagers that have been sold a lie when they aren’t academic enough to get to a good university doing a degree in the usual academic subjects.
They may enjoy the course and have a great time with friends but is that enough?This is the real reason that loans never get paid back to the government and this is tax payers money.
Could you perhaps list say ten degree subjects that you consider "don't get them anywhere in life".
These loans btw do become freebies as so many are never paid back, too many students doing the kind of degrees that don’t get them anywhere in life and they end up working in a shop or doing any job that doesn’t need A levels never mind a degree.
twaddle
Oreo
Tolerance has got us the country we have today unfortunately.
If Labour or Conservatives or even Reform were to at last get tough with rules around loans and freebies then it could only be a good thing.
I really fear tho that things have gone much too wrong to ever be righted.Do you actually understand why student loans aren't paid back? It's not that the graduates are defaulting.
Yes, I do understand why student loans are often not paid back, but it’s very kind of you to inquire.
Plaid Cymru! My phone has changed that spelling twice.
I live in Wales and the polls are showing leaders are Plaid Cynru and Reform.
This will be a coalition as no party will get enough seats on their own. I don't want Reform anywhere here in Wales because of reckless announcements such as this about student loans.
An educated citizen is an asset. This costs money- money well spent, I would suggest.
I will declare an interest, here, as my son, daughters, sons in law and daughter in law all have degrees from British universities.
However, my DD living in Scandinavia, is about to collect her PhD, funded entirely by the state . She, is, now, a citizen of that country, but was not when she started this work.
She is, still, repaying loans to Britain, for her Masters.
When many of us were young you could walk into a job within a week.
It must be so hard now.
As someone else said, the student loan is not a freebie. I have read several former students saying that even when they are paying a reasonable amount off every month it makes little or no difference to what is owed because the interest rate is so high. From my recollection, the loan company was sold off and the new company increased the interest.
I can't imagine why any young person would want to take on the responsibility of a student loan unless they were doing a degree that was specifically required to follow a certain occupation. It must be soul-destroying to work hard, get a good degree and then be unable to find a job - with the daunting prospect that even if a job is secured, they will have this student loan round their necks for years on end.
It is popular is some quarters to portray young people as lazy and work-shy but I feel sorry for them.
Appealing yet again to the LCD. Hopefully this time it won’t work, but I won’t hold my breath.
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