Today the BBC reported the comments of the Vice Chancellor of Essex university Professor Crewe
“A graduate who starts off at £18,000 a year in London will be paying back £5.30 a week – which is a couple of pints of beer,” he said BBC article.
My god thats not much at all … how could i have been so foolish i thought i would be in debt for the rest of my life but now i find my degree will only cost me price of a couple of pints of beer … errr hang on a minute though…
3 Years at an english uni at £3000 a year in tution fees amounts to £9000 of debt before you’ve even paid your rent, food or other costs that go with being a student.
at £5.30 a week you pay back £275.60 a year – to clear of your £9000 tution fees will therefore take you a mere 32.65years (this is obviously excluding the cost of compound interest on your loan) – but hang on a mo. The most prestigious UK universities want to charge annual tuition fees of up to £5,000 instead of the £3,000 the government proposes. So instead of £9000 your tuition fee only debt is £15000 which will take you 54.42years to pay off at the “couple of beers rate” – … and the cost of actually feeding and clothing yourself for those three years.
The governments argument is that obviously graduates will be paid lots and lots and then be able to pay of these “small debts” easily
Post graduates are paid £8000 by the EPSRC which you can live off although you won’t be living the life of Reilly on that. So if we use that as a rough guide to the cost of rent etc to a student then the cost of 3years at a “premier” university (Edinburgh and Bristol are among those seeking 5000 a year tuition fees) becomes a staggering £24000 – before you even start earning – so lets add the 3years working at the national average wage (16.5 thousand) means that you would effectively be
seventy three and a half thousand pounds out of pocket.
The national average graduate starting salary is £18,276 (compared to about 16500 for non graduates (in the 20-25 age range) therfore your degree is worth £1776 a year extra – so having done your degree you will need to work for 41years before you actually recoupe the money you’ve lost out on by doing the degree in the first place.
Excluding of course the interest…but then it would just be silly to include that now wouldn’t it…
Those of you who know me know i couldn’t have afforded to have gone to university if i had to look at that amount of debt – not through lack of ability (being towards the end of my PhD makes me think i might be clever – ‘ish’ ) – how many other kids out there are there with the ability but not the rich mummy and daddy have decided to not go to university ?? i don’t know the answer to that one
Blunkett was on telly the other day justifying the tuition fees hike and he said basically “how could the government pay for everybody to go to university”
Its sample Dave – you don’t – you take the top 5% of school leavers you give them a decent- livable maintanence grant (£5-8000 is enough) – if a student wants to go to university but isn’t good enough exam result wise then they have to pay – easy as that.
Yes the university system would be elitist – but not financially as the goverment is driving it now but intellectually – if you can’t pass your A levels, highers or CSYS , through lack of ability, lack of dedication or just plain old laziness, then how do you expect to perform well at university?