Cost Of A Degree Thanks To Nu Labour

[South Lorne]

..... it is known as a city of Sanctuary, inviting refugees from around the world.

....the way Labour recruits and buys votes.....

[Game_Over]

50000 students there, only a few of lap dancing clubs, but plenty of regulated brothels and hidden ones too, plenty of foreigners mind you. Only 1/5 of the population is on the housing list, it is known as a city of Sanctuary, inviting refugees from around the world.

So would you say that students would find it easy to find part time work then?

[South Lorne]

So would you say that students would find it easy to find part time work then?

..it's difficult for most to get a job anywhere right now but that should not stop people trying ....

[Self Employed Youth]

So would you say that students would find it easy to find part time work then?

Having recently not graduated from there with a lower degree than I expected, (massive family problems led to me being homeless twice throughout the course - and I could not afford my contribution to the fees based upon my parents income, thus owing a £1000 or so before I can collect the certificate), not really. There is work available in call centres (4 hour shifts) and 4 on 4 off,12 hour shifts at a few factories, bit off bar work when the students are in town, but this seems to be filled by previous students long term after graduation. All at nmw. I worked in a factory for half a year, jacked it in and moved. Although the centre looks nice (from the town side of the station up to the town/city hall) after receiving 100s of millions from the EU, the rest of it doesn't and the place is going downhill. I get by on the dole for the time being, while I plan what I want to do. Even the immigrants are leaving now too, well the Eastern Europeans I was working with are, they realised they couldn't save anything and might aswell be working at home, living with their families.

[miko]

Having recently not graduated from there with a lower degree than I expected, (massive family problems led to me being homeless twice throughout the course - and I could not afford my contribution to the fees based upon my parents income, thus owing a £1000 or so before I can collect the certificate), not really. There is work available in call centres (4 hour shifts) and 4 on 4 off,12 hour shifts at a few factories, bit off bar work when the students are in town, but this seems to be filled by previous students long term after graduation. All at nmw. I worked in a factory for half a year, jacked it in and moved. Although the centre looks nice (from the town side of the station up to the town/city hall) after receiving 100s of millions from the EU, the rest of it doesn't and the place is going downhill. I get by on the dole for the time being, while I plan what I want to do. Even the immigrants are leaving now too, well the Eastern Europeans I was working with are, they realised they couldn't save anything and might aswell be working at home, living with their families.

Yes even Eastern Europeans are leaving as no one on **** money can afford to live in this country any more even if they live hand to mouth on baked beans four to a room.

[porca misèria]

Decided to start this topic after someone on another thread explained how my son should only have 2K of debt not the 20K plus I had said when he graduates.

This is a link to a BBC article which backs up my figures.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10952303

Once again I post the reality of a situation and it is rubbished by people who don't have a clue what they are talking about.

"The students in England had an average of £5293 per year"

You said in the other thread your son is getting £4.9k/year in grant/equivalent, which leaves just £400 gap to fill to reach that figure.

[miko]

..it's difficult for most to get a job anywhere right now but that should not stop people trying ....

Yes keep going , chin up, carry on give it the war spirit , swallow your pride , never sign on , work for peanuts , take a pay cut, work more for less,

and they wonder why so many chav as they call them and non chaves have given up having the piss taken out of them and have just had kids instead.

Edited September 12, 2010 by miko

[OnlyMe]

Yes even Eastern Europeans are leaving as no one on **** money can afford to live in this country any more even if they live hand to mouth on baked beans four to a room.

Had to happen sooner or later - trashing sterling and faking the inflation figures have not hidden reliaty, it seems.

It will get a lot worse before it gets better though, the monetary authorities are hell bent on having a second go at following an utterly failed experiment in producing growth out of nothing.

Edited September 12, 2010 by OnlyMe

[miko]

ad to happen sooner or later - trashing sterling and faking the inflation figures have not hidden reliaty, it seems.

It will get a lot worse before it gets better though, the monetary authorities are hell bent on having a second go at followed an utterly failed experiment in producing growth out of nothing.

So so many people I talk to are now waking up to the fact how expensive it is to live in this country . More and more have been pushed onto benefits as if they have kids and housing cost's they can not afford to work for the peanuts that so many jobs offer.

[porca misèria]

With regards to students working

If you took a university town like Sheffield as an example, with 24,000 students and 16,000 people claiming JSA

Having spent a little over two years doing research at Sheffield uni, I can firmly recommend it. A great place to live, and also very cheap (not just housing - you could get a really good meal out for a Wetherspoons price, though on a student budget that would of course be suitable as a treat when $parent visits). My knowledge of the jobs market isn't up to date, but there are student-type jobs for the sufficiently-bright-and-motivated.

[porca misèria]

The previous system asked people without degrees to pay for others to get them, which seems very unfair to me.

We couldn't've got a student loan back then. TPTB considered it an anomaly that students going to the bar (future barristers) had to self-fund for a year, which meant you absolutely had to have finance so every barrister in the country had got there with the help of family money.

I went to a Russell group Uni and there was plenty of time for working in the summer holidays, you could have got 3 months work in each year without any trouble at all.

I worked in the summer holidays from age 16 through 20. It certainly helped the finances through Cambridge.

[miko]

I worked in the summer holidays from age 16 through 20. It certainly helped the finances through Cambridge.

Yes so did many others it was the norm back then the 80's ? , different story for the students of today with so many after so few jobs.

[South Lorne]

Yes keep going , chin up, carry on give it the war spirit , swallow your pride , never sign on , work for peanuts , take a pay cut, work more for less,

and they wonder why so many chav as they call them and non chaves have given up having the piss taken out of them and have just had kids instead.

.....referring to students...as they are competing with foreign workers who are not yet entitled to benefits....locals on benefits cannot afford these jobs ...and students can work tax free ....but none of the jobs come easy...

[South Lorne]

Yes so did many others it was the norm back then the 80's ? , different story for the students of today with so many after so few jobs.

...when could students in the past claim benefits....?....

[Tiger Woods?]

...when could students in the past claim benefits....?....

You used to be able to sign on during the summer holidays iirc. At least people did it, even if it was somewhat dodgy.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Tiger Woods?

[porca misèria]

You used to be able to sign on during the summer holidays iirc. At least people did it, even if it was somewhat dodgy.

I could be wrong, but I think that changed about 30 years ago.

[Game_Over]

"The students in England had an average of £5293 per year"

You said in the other thread your son is getting £4.9k/year in grant/equivalent, which leaves just £400 gap to fill to reach that figure.

Err...........

The average debt figure quoted - being an average obviously includes students receiving grants and bursaries also students receiving large sums from their parents.

The average debt therefore is after grants and bursaries etc which is exactly what I said.

Everyone else seems to understand these figures so I'm not exactly sure why you are struggling to get your head round them, I thought that anyone who went to Oxford or Cambridge was supposed to be one of the intellectual elite.

This is what annoys me about this situation, people on the left who got virtually a free education under the 'nasty' Tories cannot now accept that under Nu Labour any working class kid going to university is going to emerge with around 20K of debt.

[Game_Over]

Having recently not graduated from there with a lower degree than I expected, (massive family problems led to me being homeless twice throughout the course - and I could not afford my contribution to the fees based upon my parents income, thus owing a £1000 or so before I can collect the certificate), not really. There is work available in call centres (4 hour shifts) and 4 on 4 off,12 hour shifts at a few factories, bit off bar work when the students are in town, but this seems to be filled by previous students long term after graduation. All at nmw. I worked in a factory for half a year, jacked it in and moved. Although the centre looks nice (from the town side of the station up to the town/city hall) after receiving 100s of millions from the EU, the rest of it doesn't and the place is going downhill. I get by on the dole for the time being, while I plan what I want to do. Even the immigrants are leaving now too, well the Eastern Europeans I was working with are, they realised they couldn't save anything and might aswell be working at home, living with their families.

Thanks for your input, like me you know the reality of the situation.

I am fed up of people who got a virtually free degree telling me that I don't know what I am talking about when I have kids who are actually going through this situation at the moment.

I hope things work out for you in the future.

[Game_Over]

.....referring to students...as they are competing with foreign workers who are not yet entitled to benefits....locals on benefits cannot afford these jobs ...and students can work tax free ....but none of the jobs come easy...

The point is - students are supposed to be studying hard to get a worthwile Degree

If they are spending most of their time trying to find a job or working it becomes a totally pointless exercise

They might as well not have gone to Uni in the first place.

Studying Engineering my son has lectures and labs every day and is expected to do many hours of study in his spare time.

Perhaps a 2:2 would be ok but I suspect that when he graduates the jobs market will be so tough that he will really need a 1st or a 2:1 to stand any chance of getting a decent job.

This is the reality of the situation IMO.

[porca misèria]

This is what annoys me about this situation, people on the left who got virtually a free education under the 'nasty' Tories cannot now accept that under Nu Labour any working class kid going to university is going to emerge with around 20K of debt.

Are you calling me "on the left" ?

Don't get me wrong, I think today's system is a lot more unfair than it was in my day (and my family is on the better side of it: my nephew, like your son, is getting means-tested help).

However, I don't consider £20k debt even remotely realistic on a like-for-like basis. The means-tested grants still exist, and the means-testing is rather more generous than it was in my day. Take the fees out and students today are back to boomer levels of grant(!) Add the fees back in, and you get something under £10k like-for-like debt (and something very nasty indeed if fees rise as much as some are calling for).

I also blame NuLab policy for that. Instead of mad expansion (50% of 18-year-olds), they should concentrate much more on improving opportunities for university education to older people, and making it clear to 18-year-olds that the choice of whether to do a degree isn't now-or-never but can perfectly well be deferred.

In the real world I see students doing expensive things that would've been out of the question for us, like running a car, or going out on the booze on a regular basis, or (locally here) running canoes on our rivers anytime we get enough rain to make them exciting. Those students are no doubt dragging *average* figures up, while others are keeping their debt levels much, much lower.

[Charlie Don't Surf]

Open University degrees cost between £3-5k

I guess it all depends whether you feel a degree is a rites of passage or an education

[Game_Over]

Are you calling me "on the left" ?

Don't get me wrong, I think today's system is a lot more unfair than it was in my day (and my family is on the better side of it: my nephew, like your son, is getting means-tested help).

However, I don't consider £20k debt even remotely realistic on a like-for-like basis. The means-tested grants still exist, and the means-testing is rather more generous than it was in my day. Take the fees out and students today are back to boomer levels of grant(!) Add the fees back in, and you get something under £10k like-for-like debt (and something very nasty indeed if fees rise as much as some are calling for).

I also blame NuLab policy for that. Instead of mad expansion (50% of 18-year-olds), they should concentrate much more on improving opportunities for university education to older people, and making it clear to 18-year-olds that the choice of whether to do a degree isn't now-or-never but can perfectly well be deferred.

In the real world I see students doing expensive things that would've been out of the question for us, like running a car, or going out on the booze on a regular basis, or (locally here) running canoes on our rivers anytime we get enough rain to make them exciting. Those students are no doubt dragging *average* figures up, while others are keeping their debt levels much, much lower.

Don't get me wrong either.

You can't blame me for getting annoyed when I know how much debt my son is incurring and people tell me I don't know what I am talking about.

The fact is the average debt figure is now 5K a year which is 15k for 3 years or 20k for a 4 year course.

And the BBC's estimate for average debt for those starting in 2010 is 25k in total which seems realistic to me.

My sons debt will hopefully be under 20k at the end of 4 years only because - so far - he has received grants and bursaries, without them it would be much higher than the average 25k figure quoted because tuition fees and accommodation alone cost a minimum of 6K a year (6*4 = 24k) and on top of that there is the cost of food, transport, books, clothing, etc, etc.

I just assumed that you would have to be a Nu Labour supporter to be defending the current situation because if you are not I really cannot understand why you keep rubbishing the figures I am quoting - they are the actual figures - not something I just made up.

And the idea that any student can afford to run a car unless 'Mummy and Daddy' bought the car, have the student on their insurance (which is illegal) and give money for petrol and repairs, is frankly ridiculous.

TBH, I have no idea why you are even arguing with me - apart from the fact you can't seem to admit when you are wrong.

[Game_Over]

Open University degrees cost between £3-5k

I guess it all depends whether you feel a degree is a rites of passage or an education

I don't think you can do an Engineering degree or a medical degree at the OU.

My sons department has tens of millions of pounds worth of equipment that he needs access to.

Not sure what kind of future this country has if we don't train any engineers, scientists or doctors

[PopGun]

If I had my way, no graduate would pay tax until all Uni debt was paid off. Either this or abolish tuition fees altogether. Of course access would be tightly restricted to the intellectual/talented privileged few.

Unlike the current system, were anyone could join and graduate with a massive burden of debt AND tax. Of course this isn’t a problem for those with the bank of mum and dad behind them.

It used to be a matter of the government giving with one hand whilst taking with the other. Over the last 10 years or so, they've been using both hands for taking. I wouldn't mind if there were many jobs left worth graduating for.

[Game_Over]

On a general note:

I seem to be being attacked by Nu Labour supporters who cannot accept that they completely screwed up the education system and ruined the chances of the kind of working class people who prospered in the Thatcher years.

I am also being attacked by people on the right who think that anyone from an ordinary working class background has no business going to a top class university in the first place.

As it is sometimes difficult to work out which angle particular posters are coming from, I apologise if I get any of you mixed up.