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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 5, 2006 19:22:34 GMT
I agree DJ, but that does not justify the SLC charging me almost as much in interest as I'm paying back while I'm still doing crappy jobs and am struggling to survive on what I earn.
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Post by ojiveojive on Oct 9, 2006 11:29:33 GMT
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Post by DJhinckley on Oct 9, 2006 16:42:21 GMT
Obviously I couldn't possibly agree. I go along with the thought that one judges a society and its individuals by their attitude to the most disadvantaged within it. I am disadvantaged by being too thick for university, yet you are perfectly happy for me to have to work extra to provide for people that are not rich enough to do it themselves. how hypocritical is that? Am I less disadvantaged because I am thick but have earned money, compared to someone who is bright but cannot fund their courses? please explain how you class disadvantaged, and then how you decide how one class of person is more or less disadvantaged than another? You might look down your nose at the manual workers of society, but shoes have to be delivered to shops, streets need to be cleaned, restaurants need waitresses, clothes need sewing, food needs to be stacked on shelves - all for a pittance of pay. Aren't these also the disadvantaged people you wish to stand up for? the people who have menial sh*tty jobs because they are too thick and will never go to university, yet the same people who you wish to pay for the those that can go to university to get an education to earn more money than these people will ever see. Obviously you are seeing you're utopian society from the privelged position of above, ignoring the 'dirty' view from underneath that some of the rest of us have to look up to.
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 9, 2006 19:09:27 GMT
I've got to go for 'Villain' on this one. I've had Student Loans for the best part of 20 years now, and have always been dealt with in a rather heavy-handed manner, even though I've religiously informed them of my change of address on each of the dozen occasions (approx.) I've had to move house. They don't give you credit for transparency - and don't make things transparent in return. I first took out a small one in the late 80s (about £400) because 5 friends and I thought we could hire a Lear Jet with it to go skiing. In the end that didn't happen, and sadly we just frittered the cash away frivolously instead. My original Student Loans are still there, but due to my total lack of ambition and general uselessness to Society or capitalism, my salary has never (and may never) exceed the minimum level requiring repayment. Since I don't use my Degree or Further Education in my work - in any shape or form - I can't help feeling aggrieved that I still have the loans hanging over me. My next-Brother-up had no such complication from receiving a Grant. A few years ago I had the bizarre idea that I'd fit into Society as a Primary School Teacher and took another loan to do a PGCE. I never went through with that profession, and therefore wasted that money in trying. Five years on, SLC wrote me a couple of letters out of the blue and told me I ought to be repaying a loan. I'd totally forgotten about this recent one, and no one saw fit to explain that recent loans have a far lower qualifying salary than the earlier ones. After much lack of communication between me and SLC [who only operate during the time I'm working, obviously.... ] I managed to speak to a very Scottish woman who spoke English properly, and who was able to explain things as should have been done before my receipt of nasty letter No.3. Oddly enough, they were threatening me with non-compliance. And even more oddly, they were telling me they'd contacted the Payroll Department of my work and already told them to start Deductions from my wages. Given that "I am" the Payroll Dept. at work this seemed slightly odd..... Politically I can see where DJHinckley is coming from entirely, since I'm still one of those relative 'menials', with or without my BA Hons Certificate gathering dust in a the drawer, but I reckon they need to ease up on people early on after their degrees. People need to come out of College, find a job/career, pay off their overdrafts, find accommodation and get boilers which work [ ], and then when things are starting to pan out as a result of their value-added 'Education', start paying back at a reasonable rate. Certainly my Interest on the early loans is nowhere near as bad as Ambersalamander is suffering. In the early days, the deal was struck at Retail Price Index, or Inflation Rate. So, for example, over about 17 years my £400 loan is still little over £500. I can't say I favour it, but if you extrapolate the way things are going there WILL be the American style system in place by the time the next generation head off to get their photos taken in Mortar Boards..... Also totally agree that this bizarre necessity to rush down the hill to get to University is a daft 'Herd' thing. On hindsight I wish I'd dropped my A Levels and studied to be an Electrician or IT Programmer instead. The blind reverence of the University system proliferates a mismatched binary culture, and leaves huge practical gaps in the employment market. My eldest brother had few of the latter-stage 'Educational advantages' I had, yet his choice to go "manual" - and ultimately self-employed - will mean he will retire on twenty times the pittance I'll be stuck with. College does not always lead to cash. Yours, Mr. Overeducated and totally unqualified. (Though not asking for sympathy! )
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Post by amberaleman on Oct 9, 2006 20:52:33 GMT
I remember a slogan from my student days in the late 1970s - "education is a right not a privilege". An enlightened society is one which gives everybody the level of education that they want. Some people choose to end their education at 16 and start earning a living - that doesn't necessarily mean that they're "thick". There are many people who've had no higher education and become very successful in their chosen careers. Equally (as we've heard!) there are well educated people who haven't exactly struck it rich. And by starting work at 16 you give yourself around five more years' worth of earning power than somebody who goes on to complete a degree. Society would surely be poorer without people who have acquired knowlege for its own sake - whether that be knowledge of nuclear physics, ancient Greek or grass-weaving in Patagonia. If we're not prepared to value - and therefore pay for - that knowledge (along with other things that we don't use but which have inherent value) then that doesn't say much about us as a society. The student loan system may now be deterring youngsters from furthering their education. One of the cruel aspects of the system is that, for those who do go to university, the ongoing burden of loan repayment delays still further their ability to start families and get on the property ladder. This can be a particularly acute issue for women. Anyhow, whatever we may all think about the principle of student loans, I hope we're all agreed that their administration is cack.
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 9, 2006 21:43:24 GMT
Oh right, so that'll be why I'm not entitled to a penny's worth of funding for the five grand's worth of degree course I'm currently studying for?
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Post by ojiveojive on Oct 10, 2006 13:39:38 GMT
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Post by DJhinckley on Oct 10, 2006 17:12:55 GMT
Obviously I couldn't possibly agree. I go along with the thought that one judges a society and its individuals by their attitude to the most disadvantaged within it. having already claimed to disagree according to your quote above I have to assume that what I have previously typed is what you disagree with. If not then why state you disagree? Your hypocrisy is apparent in the fact that you disagreed with my previous post, implying my attitude was negative to those disadvantaged, whereas your attitude towards my disadvantage was just as negative except more patronising. Your hypocrisy is also apparent in implying that I'm not disatvantaged by being too thick for University. Where it is clear in this country that some people are not intelligent enough to go to university and get qualifications at the required grades. Face it, some people are thickos, me included. I'd like to know how you class disadvantaged because I'm trying to decide how you make the claim about Society treating it's disadvantaged. From my point of view low paid manual workers who are too thick to go to university are disadvantaged, and I was wondering why you wanted to hound theses people more by making them pay for someone brighter to go to University. That is where I see the hypocrisy. You then ask why shouldn't these low paid earners be given the chance to go to University for free. First, they are in those jobs because generally they are thick. Second, well the whole point is it isn't for free is it? somebody has to pay for it! you say you never said I should pay for it, but the funding comes from government and government funding comes from taxes. All income earners have to pay taxes, and if the government needs more funding for universities then it is going to need an increase in taxes. So whether you realise it or not you are saying I should pay, along with everyone else who earns income. You try to get out of this by saying that the countries top earners should foot the bill. Why? They've worked hard to go to university get their qualifications, pay off their debts as a student, work their way up the corporate ladder and now because they have succeeded you want to take more money off them. If that is the case then where is the incentive to even succeed in the first place. Well done all your hard work is going to be rewarded by everyone else grabbing wad loads of your hard earned cash. However go back to one line in that last paragraph - 'pay off their debts as a student.' Surely the wealthy people who you seem to target to reallocate their wealth are the very people who have succeeded enough to pay off their own student loans. So it begs the question, instead of targetting the successfully wealthy why don't we have a system where students take out a loan for their education, and when they are succssefully wealthy enough to reallocate their wealth, they simply pay off what they borrowed as a loan. Hang on, that system is already in place. your attempt to imprint guilt on my conscience was wasted I'm afraid. For me, income or life situations have no bearing on how I interpret things. Everybody knows someone who is handicapped mentally or physically, everybody knows someone who is dying or has died of cancer, everybody knows someone who is mentally ill, everybody knows someone who has suffered infant death or misscarriage. Regardless, your patronising tone throughout your previous post still indicates to me that my previous assumptions are correct. You won't like that, won't agree with it, and even think I'm a total tosser because of it. That's ok, it's your opinion of me and fair enough from your point of view, I can live with that because you are nobody to me or my family. An insult from a nobody is just that, nothing, and is never going to affect what I do or how I live.
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Post by Giggy of Telford on Oct 10, 2006 17:27:37 GMT
My thought is that University fees are organised poorly. Ideally everyone would be able to become educated as far as they wish but as it stands it will be rich people who take University places as they can afford them. It should be a case of being judged on what you know/can do, not who you know or how much you/your parents earn.
My brother left college last year with 5 A-levels in maths/sciences all at A grade. He is now at Cambridge but because of things such as top-up fees and the need to take out a huge loan it will also work out very costly.
I suffer from dyspraxia which makes my coordination, physical strength and organisational skills poor at the best of times. One of the things I made in D & T at school is on the table in front of me right now, if you could see it then you'd know what I meant about my coordination. I would not be capable of a manual job because I simply could not do the work. I would not look down my nose at someone who does manual work as they do an important job that I could not do anywhere near as well.
This means that my only strengths for a job will be academic achievment. I plan to go to University but with a brother and a sister who are both the academic type rather than the practical type it will mean every penny will count. As a working class family with working class roots which is incidently just above the level for financial grants it will leave us with large student loans.
As for repayments, they should be affordable but more importantly not off putting to people from not so rich backgrounds when a richer person who is no more/less suitable for a course can walk straight into it without batting an eyelid at the cost.
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 10, 2006 22:19:35 GMT
Everyone has their own individual strengths and weaknesses. And no DJ, you're not thick, obviously. Your posts in this thread demonstrating your ability to clearly argue a point intelligently- if controversially from some viewpoints- demonstrates this. You are simply not academically minded. That's something that does bother me, actually- some people who are extremely intelligent but not academically minded experience a negative bias of sorts in a society geared towards academic achievement for success in later employment.
But what can we do, hey?
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Post by ojiveojive on Oct 10, 2006 22:36:50 GMT
Goodbye
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Post by DJhinckley on Oct 23, 2006 17:17:37 GMT
Student loans are repayable once your gross income exceeds £15,000 per annum. I know it's a while after the original topic debate, but Ruth's deferral document came this morning and things have definatley changed since she took out her loan. The deferrment limit she has is £2034 a month - £24000 a year! quite a bit more than the £15000 they letting you have nowadays. Sal should just have to accept she was born 10 years too late...
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 24, 2006 0:28:19 GMT
Student loans are repayable once your gross income exceeds £15,000 per annum. I know it's a while after the original topic debate, but Ruth's deferral document came this morning and things have definatley changed since she took out her loan. The deferrment limit she has is £2034 a month - £24000 a year! quite a bit more than the £15000 they letting you have nowadays. Sal should just have to accept she was born 10 years too late... I fear so. Like I say, if you extrapolate from the golden years when you got a full grant no matter what, through the part-grant times, into the 'easy terms' student loans and all the way through to today, it makes you realise that the Future HAS to be the American way, I'm afraid. "Education, education, education" or not. I guess there'll be a minor reverse migration to places like Poland, soon, where you could get a first Degree at a recognised European Standard for a fraction of the cost.
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Post by medibot on Oct 24, 2006 10:22:15 GMT
It's £15,000 cos they've realised that now apparently everybody can go to uni they have to cover their arses for all the lazy people who swish through and go into the lower paid jobs they probably could've have got without a degree. If it was £24,000 now the SLC would have no money.
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