Reply to: To all with student loans

[expat]

The Scottish government pay out of taxes raised from all British taxpayers and receive a subsidy of 1,000 pounds extra per head under the Barnett Formula. Thus England is paying for Scottish students what it is not paying for English students. Still, it's only fair !!

No, no, FFS how many times? The Barnett formula is not a method or giving more money to Scotland, it is a method for allowing expendtiture in Scotland to catch up with some expenditure in other parts especially London.

The fallacy that you are guilty of yet again is in imagining that:
1. there is balance in receipts and expenditure in each part of the UK, specifically Scotland in this case; and
2. then in pops the Barnett Formula to give Scotland more money.

What actually happens is:
1. Scotland puts in more than it takes out;
2. some expenditure in e.g. London is identified as being in excess of corresponding expenditure in e.g. Scotland; so
3. The Barnett Formula is applied to correct this identified expenditure imbalance.

The Barnett Formula is a complete red herring: it is visible, whereas a much much larger proportion of public spending, which is weighted towards London, is not visible; and of course the receipts from Scotland, which Barnett represents a tiny re-payment of, are not easily visible either.

In fact it is almost designed to mislead the simpler kind of person into thinking that England subsidises Scotland.

Edit: nobody likes the Barnett Formula, least of all Barnett, who described it as a temporary fix calculated on the back of an envelope. The English don't like it because they think that it is a subsidy to Scotland, and the Scots don't like it because they know that it is not and they are tired of overpaying and at the same time being accused of being subsidised.

[Cyberman]

No, your fees do not cover that. Scottish students don't pay fees in Scottish Universities because the Scottish Government covers them. This, like all the expenditure of the Scottish Government, is not a cost to the British/English taxpayer either, but simply a case of spending allocation being decided in Edinburgh rather than in London.

And Scotland of course extends reciprocity to students from other countries, that is, if your country doesn't make Scottish students pay at your universities, then your students don't have to pay at Scottish universities; conversely, if your country does make Scots pay, Scotland makes your students pay. And that is fair.

The Scottish government pay out of taxes raised from all British taxpayers and receive a subsidy of 1,000 pounds extra per head under the Barnett Formula. Thus England is paying for Scottish students what it is not paying for English students. Still, it's only fair !!

[sasguru]

Students Loans are totally wrong, I don't only want them to irradicate the student loans, I also want them to bring back the old student grants!!

I can understand why you're angry, looks like wasted money in your case.

[Moscow Mule]

I'd love to be paying 0% on my mortgage!

If your interest rate was below 4.8% last year, you were.

[Moscow Mule]

As discusses, the Student Loans Company charge zero interest in real terms or zero interest in absolute terms. It's their choice, and students signed up to it. Now they and a few contractors here are moaning about it.

As for tomorrow's doctors, nurses, teachers and architects paying "top dollar" for their education, well 0% loans don't sound like top dollar to me. I'd love to be paying 0% on my mortgage!

No, they signed up to zero interest in real terms, as promised by countless governments since the loans were introduced. You can't backtrack like the government have in this instance. It's immoral.

£15000 minimum in debt before you even start thinking about paying for your rent, let along a mortgage? On a nurse / teacher salary?

[zamzummim]

........They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist ..........

[swamp]

I don't know why this is so hard to understand - do you actually understand how -ve inflation works?

The loan is supposed to be zero interest in real terms.

Are you suggesting that tomorrows doctors, nurses, teachers, architects etc etc should be paying top dollar for their education or that only kids with rich parents should do those jobs? Because that is the logical extension of your arguments.

As discusses, the Student Loans Company charge zero interest in real terms or zero interest in absolute terms. It's their choice, and students signed up to it. Now they and a few contractors here are moaning about it.

As for tomorrow's doctors, nurses, teachers and architects paying "top dollar" for their education, well 0% loans don't sound like top dollar to me. I'd love to be paying 0% on my mortgage!

[Beefy198]

To make one thing clear: I personally have never had an issue with the concept of student loans. I appreciate that many graduates will earn more than non-graduates over their life, I have no problem with contributing to my education.

What I do have an issue with is the government bulltulip and lies to force this through and sell it to the public, then backtracking on it whilst convenient, twisting what they have said in the past and trying to bury it in a minor news release on the student loans website.

[expat]

Is there no net flow of British taxpayers money to Scotland any more then?

There never was: there is a net flow of Scottish taxpayers money to London (some say small, some say large).

Some but not all of Scottish taxes comes back to Scotland, and this flow is more visible than the outflow, most of which is not counted separately, hence the common illusion that England pays for Scotland.

Actually England exploits Scotland. This, as Schumacher (1973) pointed out, is generally what happens in such a case; equally general is the larger country's aggrieved and invariably false belief that they subsidise the smaller.

[NotAllThere]

But that would mean rolling back the massive increase in access to higher education that scrapping the grants allowed. Labour (rightly imho) traded free education for the few for subsidised education for the many.

Nah. That started in 1988. I started university in 1987. The expectation was that we'd have university rooms in the first and third year. In 1988, admissions increased dramatically. Instead of all third years having university accomodation, only half did.

[zamzummim]

How did tuition fees open uni to the masses and kids from poor background? In the past anyone who came from a poor background would be given money (grants – not only the government grants, but the university itself issued extra grants to anyone with hardship) anyone who came from a middle class family (who had an income higher than 30K per year) would not be given grants – at least this was the case when I was a uni student, I didn’t get any grant because my dad’s yearly income was about 32K !! I and my family had to suffer to afford the university expenses for me and my brother and sister, but the kids who came from a poor background managed to get all sort of grants and were financially better off than the students who came from a middle-class background with no access to hardship grants. So to me the kids from poorer background were better off with the old grant system, and therefore would have been encouraged more to go to university.

[Pickle2]

you can't polish a turd

No, but you can teach it media studies.

[EternalOptimist]

But that would mean rolling back the massive increase in access to higher education that scrapping the grants allowed. Labour (rightly imho) traded free education for the few for subsidised education for the many.

Can't really argue with that if you ask me.

you can't polish a turd

[Pickle2]

Students Loans are totally wrong, I don't only want them to irradicate the student loans, I also want them to bring back the old student grants!!

But that would mean rolling back the massive increase in access to higher education that scrapping the grants allowed. Labour (rightly imho) traded free education for the few for subsidised education for the many.

Can't really argue with that if you ask me.

[TimberWolf]

I wonder if the conservative will put the brakes on the practise of half the population going to university, running up huge debts and then being told to fork off abroad?