‘We need to rethink university education’: Readers on student loan reform and who should really fund degrees

D.Debate is growing over how student loans should be financed and repaid after Rachel Reeves reached 5.8 million graduates in England and Wales by freezing the repayment threshold for Plan 2.

The threshold – currently £29,385 – which normally rises with inflation, will now remain frozen until 2030. This means more graduates will begin repayment sooner, and those who receive a pay rise will transfer a larger portion of their salary.

Consumer advocate Martin Lewis criticized the move as “immoral”, claiming the government was breaking its contract with students and urging graduates to write letters to MPs.

Independent readers agree with this view, and many note that the current system favors the wealthy and university administrators while burdening middle- and low-income graduates.

Responding to university guidance expert Alastair McCall’s analysis of how the poorest pay the most, many readers suggested that education should be treated as a national investment, with costs shared fairly between students, the state and employers.

Proposed reforms ranged from interest write-offs and means-tested grants to a graduate tax, along with stronger support for faculty and student welfare.

Here’s what you need to say:

Invest in education as we invest in infrastructure

It seems to me very unfair that the people who introduced the whole student finance system benefited from a grant-based university education, while many ‘Boomers’ managed to achieve comfortable, propertied prosperity thanks to a state-funded university degree or degrees.

The way I see it, our people are our resource and we should invest in their education (university courses, vocational training or apprenticeships) in the same way we invest in national infrastructure such as HS2, Crossrail and decarbonisation.

The higher education system needs to be rethought, however, with too many universities offering poor quality teaching, facilities and student support; While vice-chancellors and senior management are incredibly well rewarded, the pay and conditions of teaching staff are being eroded.

The false claim that 50 percent of the population pays for the other 50 percent to go to college needs to be left out of the discussion. You could say the same about Universal Credit and the cost to taxpayers of health problems that affect low-income and often less-educated people much more than graduates.

People ReallyThis Might Be Stupid

Does the country want an educated population or not?

Does the country want an educated population or not? All forms of education, whether public school, vocational school or apprenticeship, should be free. School should not be the end of the road for education and training. Everyone needs to pursue some form of further education or training to ensure they are suitable for the workplace.

Care grants should be made available to those in need, and everyone who is qualified for university or other programs should have the opportunity to study. These need to be tested financially; But in my experience, not all those who are supposed to fund student children do so. Interest rates on these loans should be low and fixed.

On the one hand, the UK wants to push everyone onto the so-called property ladder, but those who could traditionally finance a place to live are now finding it difficult to even finance living in a shared home or with mum and dad, as not all those who finish courses get a good job at some of the rates mentioned here. Even with £29,385, how do you pay tax, NI contributions and student loans while living in London or another city where jobs are located?

The UK needs to decide what its priorities are: an educated population qualified for the jobs that need to be done, or an increasing number of people avoiding university studies in favor of spending most of their lives in debt? Too much money is wasted in the country and too little is invested in the people needed to improve declining standards.

This is just an extension of the path the country is on. If you are born into a wealthy family and your family has money and connections, the world is your oyster. You don’t even have to be particularly bright or well-educated. It starts with education. How many dismal politicians, who have no interest in the people they have been elected to serve, have gone from prep school to Eton or similar before getting into Oxford, putting in much less effort than those who were not so ‘well born’?

Those who want to work need to be resourceful before signing up for the government’s never-never loan program, where the government can move or change the goalposts to suit them.

Ambigirls

Only the rich will get a university education

University expansion, the loss of foreign students and high interest rates on university student loans mean that only the wealthy can afford a university education in the UK. We have a skills gap, a housing crisis and the interest rate for students is unmanageable for many.

Do we need this many students? Judging by my northern city, the only housing being built seems to be student skyscrapers. Parents pay up to £200 a week for 50 weeks of the year. Students cannot receive face-to-face education and lessons; Most are online. So why are they in university? They can also do it from home, unless it is a vocational course.

So the rich will be able to go to university for experience; The poor will be punished according to where they can go. How much they pay over the decades results in diminishing value for money. We need an educated, skills-based workforce. We need them, so we must support them like we support school children. Support for students should be means tested; The rich are given a stipend and the poor are given financial support on a sliding scale.

And finally, make sure these universities focus on students, not just bums on virtual couches.

Red Dragon

Delete interest, pay principal

I would suggest asking for the interest – all interest – to be written off and the loan principal repaid. The idea was to enable students to pay for education, not to earn money by taking out loans. Student loans should not be treated as regular business loans, but as students contributing to something that was once completely free.

We’re in a place where the rich realize it’s not hard to buy off politicians and reduce the rest of us to serfdom. If you want to understand this, look at what is happening in the USA. Health is a commodity, education is a commodity, everything is a commodity, including creating war. Any way to generate more and more money, greater profits for shareholders, by achieving maximum benefit at minimum cost. A very short look at life.

Western societies have become stronger by building solid middle-class and working-class families, earning fair wages, having affordable housing, healthcare, and generally improved standards of living. The impoverishment of the middle and working class will weaken our countries in the long run and will subsequently affect the profits of these multinational corporations. For some strange reason, neither companies nor governments understand this simple logic. Everything is short term gain.

punda

Some of the comments in this article have been edited for brevity and clarity.

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