Student Loans and Student Debt
Student debt, for the first time, has topped £3 billion. Yes, three billion pounds of debt owed by students, a rise of more than £620 million owed by undergraduate in England. This student debt of £3 billion is three times that owed by students in 1997.
Whilst Student Loans may be the cheapest loan anyone is likely ever to get [as interest is only at the rate of inflation] it is not nice to know that there is such a huge amount of debt hanging around your debt. I have more than £9,000 of student loans debt and several thousand pounds of other debt accrued through my time as a student [finally ending in September]. And first-years now will end their time at university with at least £18,000 of student loans debt - so from that perspective, I’m lucky - although my younger brother isn’t. I can, however, understand that to some extent students loans are necessary to fund the massive increase in the number of students - despite the fact that I think it is not a good thing.
What really annoys me is that Scottish students are set to have no fees at all - and most annoyingly, funded by English taxes:
“BRITISH taxpayers are to meet the £2 billion cost of reintroducing free university education in Scotland – but students from England and Wales will still have to pay the full fees.
Under plans to be announced by the Scottish executive on Wednesday, Scottish students who now pay £2,000 on graduation will be charged nothing from 2009. From 2011 at the latest they will also see loans wiped out and maintenance grants reintroduced.” (The Times)
It is outrageous that Scottish students get free education whilst English and Welsh students are paying through the nose, especially when the money to make it possible for this to happen is coming from England and Wales. It really is hypocritical that the Scottish Nationalist Party will fund their policy on free university education through funding that they would not have were they an independent state. If they want to prove that they can act and live as an economically viable independent state, then they should only use Scottish-raised taxes to fund the elements of Scottish policy on which the Scottish Parliament currently controls.
If the SNP were to provide free university education from their own taxes, I could have no opposition to it - and I would in fact applaud their prioritising. But when they plan to provide free university education off English taxes when English student debt has breached £3 billion, I can have nothing but contempt for their hypocrisy and for this government for allowing it to happen.
That a British Prime Minister can have his constituency where his own educational policies are not applied, and where indeed the opposite is happening, I don’t understand either.
Sources: The Telegraph, The Times
This entry is filed under Devolution, Education, Inequality, Money, Scotland, Students. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I agree with you that Scottish raised taxes should be used to pay for higher ed in Scotland. I’ve always been against student loans - it’s hard enough being a student anyway, despite the good times and the popular image of it being a breeze.
[...] of the populace. But it’s not. The sheer cost of going to university - with student debt topping £3 billion - makes it more about an opportunity to improve job prospects. And for those at low-ranking [...]