Reply to: Debt woes

[SueEllen]

We'd even have had a chance of getting our manufacturing industry back up to scratch, so long as the unions didn't start interfering as they did when they sent it down the can in the 70s.

Trick is to do it the German way - stick a union official on the company's board then they won't make trouble.

[LondonManc]

ah now that Chunt Brown & Bliar making University for all was another monumental screw up.

if our top 10-20% by merit had gone to University and the rest being pushed to vocational qualifications we would be better off.

We'd even have had a chance of getting our manufacturing industry back up to scratch, so long as the unions didn't start interfering as they did when they sent it down the can in the 70s.

[vetran]

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...ing-university

ah now that Chunt Brown & Bliar making University for all was another monumental screw up.

if our top 10-20% by merit had gone to University and the rest being pushed to vocational qualifications we would be better off.

[LondonManc]

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...ing-university

These are probably the ones who wouldn't have gone 25 years ago.

[VectraMan]

If you see Debt as a negative thing when its used for an investment in your earning power then maybe.

More than a third of graduates regret going to university, and half reckon they would have landed their current job without having to study for a degree, according to damning research into the finances of the millennial generation.

The research by insurance company Aviva was published days before hundreds of thousands of A-level students discover if they have obtained the grades needed for their desired university course. In the report, entitled Generation Regret, Aviva warns that many will wish they had never bothered attending university, given the level of debt they will accumulate.

It found that 37% of those who went to university regret doing so given the amount of debt they now have. A total of 49% said they could have got to where they are in life without the benefit of a university degree.

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...ing-university

[MyUserName]

Student loans? My daughter, like many of her generation, did her 3 years at Uni and now owes approx £50k

[Platypus]

Debt woes 'weigh heavily' on young people, survey finds - BBC News

Though I would change the advice to be :-

1. Never get into debt
2. See 1

Of course, this does not apply to a mortgage as houses always appreciate.

Student loans? My daughter, like many of her generation, did her 3 years at Uni and now owes approx £50k

[vetran]

Yes I know it amounts to the same thing, but calling it a debt is an overwhelmingly negative thing as you see from the reactions to people being £50K "in debt" by the time they're 21. Even if you never repay you still have that debt hanging over you.

If you see Debt as a negative thing when its used for an investment in your earning power then maybe.

[vetran]

I think people often forget that the publicised £6K or even £9K a year isn't "all inclusive".

I owed about £2K by the time I left university and that seemed scary at the time and that was with the government paying me to go.

It seems to me a graduate tax would be a better solution, or at least a less bad solution. Pay a slightly higher rate of income tax for the rest of your life in exchange for free further education and a grant.

that is basically what student debt is. however unless you turn it into a debt everyone would just go abroad to work.

[LondonManc]

There were grants in the early 90s - if you didn't get one your parents were too rich, weren't divorced or self-employed.

BTW I know some of you only have siblings within a decade of your age and/or only hang out with people your own age - I don't.

I'm not American - I don't hang out. HTHBIDI

[SueEllen]

I left uni having made a profit by working a Saturday job in the first year then full summers of night shifts between the other years. Obviously no fees back in the early 90s but no grants either.

There were grants in the early 90s - if you didn't get one your parents were too rich, weren't divorced or self-employed.

BTW I know some of you only have siblings within a decade of your age and/or only hang out with people your own age - I don't.

[The_Equalizer]

Prices did go down in London.

And if you have a growing family being stuck in a studio or one bed flat is hardly ideal.

Surely no worse than paying X hundreds of thousands of pounds for a flat?

[SueEllen]

Anyone who bought in 1989 only had to wait until 1998 to have made their money back and 2003 to have doubled.

In London prices never went down.....

Prices did go down in London.

And if you have a growing family being stuck in a studio or one bed flat is hardly ideal.

[scooterscot]

Was one of the lucky ones. Despite attending university twice (yes Monday and Tuesday) I never had to use a student loan. But then I remember in the summer I spent 3 months cutting grass for the council which I'd calculated up to my general allowance before tax and would use for accommodation during the semester whilst living with mother and how skint they were.

[LondonManc]

When you are 50 the debt is written off. So that is okay then.

Can't wait to see how GB plc accounts for the first expirations in a couple of decades.