This time it's debt that debtors mostly cannot escape from..

[Saving For a Space Ship]

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/390126-episode-max-keiser-1077/

8 mins in 

Max Kaiser & Stacey make the important point that debtors in the US (and partly the UK) cannot escape debts from student debts & car loans like the 2007 mortgage credit crunch, by handing back the keys & walking away.

They go further to say that if the Government are involved or on the hook (ie student debt) they can deduct it from your benefits / pension etc

Student debt cannot even be escaped by bankruptcy 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Saving For a Space Ship

[thisisthisitmaybe]

14 minutes ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/390126-episode-max-keiser-1077/

8 mins in 

Max Kaiser & Stacey make the important point that debtors in the US (and partly the UK) cannot escape debts from student debts & car loans like the 2007 mortgage credit crunch, by handing back the keys & walking away.

They go further to say that if the Government are involved or on the hook (ie student debt) they can deduct it from your benefits / pension etc

Student debt cannot even be escaped by bankruptcy 

 

 

 

The only way to escape it is by leaving the UK or dying. Or voting for Corbyn and hoping the lot is wiped off.

[Up the spout]

7 minutes ago, thisisthisitmaybe said:

The only way to escape it is by leaving the UK or dying. Or voting for Corbyn and hoping the lot is wiped off.

Or don't get into debt for student debts & car loans. I've never had a car loan, at uni worked in McDonald's, a cinema, 12-hour night shifts in a factory, weekends in a packing place, various other temp jobs, plus took a year out halfway through to work full-time in a bank. Oh, there was the fifty quick my parents gave me for my 21st, I shouldn't forget that. All that work and I still had a few grand overdraft when I graduated, but not £30k like some.

[thisisthisitmaybe]

1 minute ago, Up the spout said:

Or don't get into debt for student debts & car loans. I've never had a car loan, at uni worked in McDonald's, a cinema, 12-hour night shifts in a factory, weekends in a packing place, various other temp jobs, plus took a year out halfway through to work full-time in a bank. Oh, there was the fifty quick my parents gave me for my 21st, I shouldn't forget that. All that work and I still had a few grand overdraft when I graduated, but not £30k like some.

At £3k a year, it was just about possible to do that - I just worked in my holidays, but still took the £3k a year loan to see me through. Now I just don't see how it's possible to pay-your-way through uni with fees at £9k a year. The system needs to collapse through its own contradictions or be systematically reformed, I bet is the former will happen before the latter.

[adarmo]

3 minutes ago, Up the spout said:

Or don't get into debt for student debts & car loans. I've never had a car loan, at uni worked in McDonald's, a cinema, 12-hour night shifts in a factory, weekends in a packing place, various other temp jobs, plus took a year out halfway through to work full-time in a bank. Oh, there was the fifty quick my parents gave me for my 21st, I shouldn't forget that. All that work and I still had a few grand overdraft when I graduated, but not £30k like some.

I did something similar but was lucky to go to uni when fees were 1200/ year. I had a well paid part time job in sales and graduated with my entire loan in an isa. I have to say though that if i was at uni today with 9k per year in fees alone I'm not sure if be in the same position

[Up the spout]

1 minute ago, thisisthisitmaybe said:

At £3k a year, it was just about possible to do that - I just worked in my holidays, but still took the £3k a year loan to see me through. Now I just don't see how it's possible to pay-your-way through uni with fees at £9k a year. The system needs to collapse through its own contradictions or be systematically reformed, I bet is the former will happen before the latter.

I didn't go to uni straight from school, I worked in a supermarket warehouse for a year first, and I'd been working since I was 16 p/t. Yes fees weren't £9k back then, if they had been I probably wouldn't have gone. My job requires a degree so it's a good thing I did!

[Saving For a Space Ship]

9 minutes ago, Up the spout said:

Or don't get into debt for student debts & car loans. I've never had a car loan, at uni worked in McDonald's, a cinema, 12-hour night shifts in a factory, weekends in a packing place, various other temp jobs, plus took a year out halfway through to work full-time in a bank. Oh, there was the fifty quick my parents gave me for my 21st, I shouldn't forget that. All that work and I still had a few grand overdraft when I graduated, but not £30k like some.

 

6 minutes ago, thisisthisitmaybe said:

At £3k a year, it was just about possible to do that - I just worked in my holidays, but still took the £3k a year loan to see me through. Now I just don't see how it's possible to pay-your-way through uni with fees at £9k a year. The system needs to collapse through its own contradictions or be systematically reformed, I bet is the former will happen before the latter.

 

5 minutes ago, adarmo said:

I did something similar but was lucky to go to uni when fees were 1200/ year. I had a well paid part time job in sales and graduated with my entire loan in an isa. I have to say though that if i was at uni today with 9k per year in fees alone I'm not sure if be in the same position

Are those jobs available to graduates anymore ? 

or have immigration / shrinking job market / automation etc removed them for students ? 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Saving For a Space Ship

[Up the spout]

Er, yes there are jobs in McDonald's, cinemas and factories still. 

[thisisthisitmaybe]

1 minute ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

 

 

Are those jobs available to graduates anymore ? 

or have immigration / shrinking job market / automation etc removed them for students ? 

Jobs I had when a student included: bar work (still there), working in an account department (probably automated), data entry at an insurance company (probably automated), teaching (still there). 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

1 minute ago, thisisthisitmaybe said:

Jobs I had when a student included: bar work (still there), working in an account department (probably automated), data entry at an insurance company (probably automated), teaching (still there). 

How do the wages compare ? 

[adarmo]

5 minutes ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

 

 

Are those jobs available to graduates anymore ? 

or have immigration / shrinking job market / automation etc removed them for students ? 

 Ironically i worked for an estate agency while at uni and that paid me about 3 times what bar work would have done. I think most agents would take a weekend boy or girl providing you had your own car and were half presentable. Half the time i used the company car though. 

[thisisthisitmaybe]

Just now, Saving For a Space Ship said:

How do the wages compare ? 

This was before minimum wage. Teaching was probably the best paid, but it was hard work. The boring office jobs formed a useful reminder that I didn't want to end up working in an office. 

I suppose the main thing is you are working rather than sitting around spending money. 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

  Quick google found this..

One in seven students work full-time while they study Most students now take on some paid work while at university

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/11/students-work-part-time-employability

[Sancho Panza]

1 hour ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/390126-episode-max-keiser-1077/

8 mins in 

Max Kaiser & Stacey make the important point that debtors in the US (and partly the UK) cannot escape debts from student debts & car loans like the 2007 mortgage credit crunch, by handing back the keys & walking away.

They go further to say that if the Government are involved or on the hook (ie student debt) they can deduct it from your benefits / pension etc

Student debt cannot even be escaped by bankruptcy 

 

 

 

The key thing with car loans is that historically-according to the FT-they're the last to be defaulted on.People can always room share,live in their car etc.

As I pointed out on another thread,whilst the car debt figures are low as a %age GDP,in terms of cashflow,they pretty much loom as large as a 25 year mortgage,

The bulk of these PCP agreements won't survive a job loss.

[dgul]

2 hours ago, Up the spout said:

I didn't go to uni straight from school, I worked in a supermarket warehouse for a year first, and I'd been working since I was 16 p/t. Yes fees weren't £9k back then, if they had been I probably wouldn't have gone. My job requires a degree so it's a good thing I did!

I'll throw in an alternative way of thinking.

All the clever people I knew back in the day who didn't go to university have now got pretty good jobs, mostly doing things they enjoy.  All the dullards who did go to university are stuck as middle income teachers, 'third sector', etc.

Perhaps your earning potential is about you and your ability to work, not so much about education.  Sure, you need a degree to do your current job, but even without it you'd have worked your way into a different job with potential for greatness.

Perhaps the actual beneficiary of your getting a degree is the UK/government*, who likely have you doing a job that they wouldn't be able to get you to do otherwise.

[I do, however, think that things have become more difficult for the current generation -- getting a degree is a certificate saying 'I can sort of apply myself and am capable of turning up when it is demanded of me', with the pain in the argument being that someone without this certificate is plainly incapable of applying themselves and/or turning up on time.  Thus the only way to get 'a decent job' without a degree is to start your own business -- something which I see a good proportion of clever 18ish doing at the moment]

[*I don't mean a job in gov, or a teacher, etc.  More like, for example, you might be in engineering and the UK benefits from having engineers.  Without a suitable degree you'd have done something else which didn't benefit the UK so much.  Doesn't matter what -- maybe started a shop selling bicycles (made in China); all fine for GDP, but not actually doing much for the real economy.]

[tomandlu]

Anecdotally, I now know 3 teenagers who are no longer taking it for granted that they either should, will or want to go to university. This was almost unheard of a few years ago, and represents a huge shift imho. The high fees have not only put them off for practical reasons, but have also perversely impacted the value of a degree.

[Sour Mash]

35 minutes ago, tomandlu said:

Anecdotally, I now know 3 teenagers who are no longer taking it for granted that they either should, will or want to go to university. This was almost unheard of a few years ago, and represents a huge shift imho. The high fees have not only put them off for practical reasons, but have also perversely impacted the value of a degree.

IMO the degree has replaced the A level (almost).

 

You now almost require a degree for any sort of halfway-decent white collar job (previously, A levels would have been enough supplemented by a diploma/on the job training) .. but having a degree doesn't set you up for easy entry into a higher-paying career path like it used to.  It's been devalued.

Also, since you now have to pay for everything including ever more expensive course fees, it's only those who can afford the fees and to pay their own living costs that can actually go to university.  That means that the kids of well off people can do it easily (Mummy and Daddy pay the bills), whilst those with less money behind them face a huge gamble in taking on a load of debt that will hang around their necks from day one of their working lives ... and the job reward that they can expect from the degree is much lower making the debt load even higher.

It's outrageous, those in my generation got a free third level education (as long as they could reach a suitable prerequisite academic standard at school) yet now, despite the economy being allegedly much bigger, current would-be students have to pay through the nose.  Why the hell young people aren't on the streets protesting about how they have been screwed (and not just by this, in many other ways too) is beyond me.

 

[tomandlu]

6 minutes ago, Sour Mash said:

IMO the degree has replaced the A level (almost).

I think that's changing. My son, for example, has been head-hunted by Bloomberg for a one-year apprenticeship with, assuming it goes well, an implied job offer at the end. He's yet to finish his A' Levels, let alone go to uni.

[scb]

It may be morally wrong but I'd suggest any 21 year old on finishing uni takes out a loan for the 30ish grand they owe the SLC, pay it for a few months then just stop paying. Wait 6 years, forgotten about.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

1 hour ago, scb said:

It may be morally wrong but I'd suggest any 21 year old on finishing uni takes out a loan for the 30ish grand they owe the SLC, pay it for a few months then just stop paying. Wait 6 years, forgotten about.

Was just about to post the same.

 

 

[Sour Mash]

3 hours ago, scb said:

It may be morally wrong but I'd suggest any 21 year old on finishing uni takes out a loan for the 30ish grand they owe the SLC, pay it for a few months then just stop paying. Wait 6 years, forgotten about.

Even with the current lax credit situation, I can't see too many lenders issuing a ~30k unsecured loan to a 21yo graduate with either no job or a low paid one.

And even though bankruptcy isn't as onerous as it used to be, it's still something to be avoided if at all possible.  Especially as it blocks you from taking quite a few career paths.

(That said, if you were ever to go bankrupt then better to do it early in life.)

[Unbowed]

4 hours ago, Sour Mash said:

 

It's outrageous, those in my generation got a free third level education (as long as they could reach a suitable prerequisite academic standard at school) yet now, despite the economy being allegedly much bigger, current would-be students have to pay through the nose.  Why the hell young people aren't on the streets protesting about how they have been screwed (and not just by this, in many other ways too) is beyond me.

 

When I went to Uni back in the 80s, it equated to about 7% of us. Plus 6% going to the old Polys. Now its something like 45%, and I don't believe that all those old colleges of HE calling themselves Universities really cuts it. Its been totally debased.

On top of that the young also face an ever growing number of 'Internships' as a further barrier to employment. Of course as pretty much anyone can now get a degree, it is who you know more than ever.

 

[TheCountOfNowhere]

21 minutes ago, Unbowed said:

When I went to Uni back in the 80s, it equated to about 7% of us. Plus 6% going to the old Polys. Now its something like 45%, and I don't believe that all those old colleges of HE calling themselves Universities really cuts it. Its been totally debased.

On top of that the young also face an ever growing number of 'Internships' as a further barrier to employment. Of course as pretty much anyone can now get a degree, it is who you know more than ever.

 

They're no longer University's, they are hatcherys.  Where the little embyo's go before they are born into a world of debt and banker slavery

 

How this is benefiting the UK is beyond me....benefiting the bankers for sure tho

 

 

[Up the spout]

7 hours ago, dgul said:

I'll throw in an alternative way of thinking.

All the clever people I knew back in the day who didn't go to university have now got pretty good jobs, mostly doing things they enjoy.  All the dullards who did go to university are stuck as middle income teachers, 'third sector', etc.

Perhaps your earning potential is about you and your ability to work, not so much about education.  Sure, you need a degree to do your current job, but even without it you'd have worked your way into a different job with potential for greatness.

Perhaps the actual beneficiary of your getting a degree is the UK/government*, who likely have you doing a job that they wouldn't be able to get you to do otherwise.

[I do, however, think that things have become more difficult for the current generation -- getting a degree is a certificate saying 'I can sort of apply myself and am capable of turning up when it is demanded of me', with the pain in the argument being that someone without this certificate is plainly incapable of applying themselves and/or turning up on time.  Thus the only way to get 'a decent job' without a degree is to start your own business -- something which I see a good proportion of clever 18ish doing at the moment]

[*I don't mean a job in gov, or a teacher, etc.  More like, for example, you might be in engineering and the UK benefits from having engineers.  Without a suitable degree you'd have done something else which didn't benefit the UK so much.  Doesn't matter what -- maybe started a shop selling bicycles (made in China); all fine for GDP, but not actually doing much for the real economy.]

Of course there are outliers, a close family member who left school at 15 is on six figures running his own business, someone I know who went to LSE retired at 40 after working in finance in Hong Kong. Others I know who didn't try at school are stuck in dead-end jobs, and also many who got a tertiary education are limited by their imagination and circumstances. Starting your own business is all well and good, but by God is making it successful very, very hard work. Many in my family had/have their own businesses and the hours are long and building/maintaining a reputation is a daily slog. 

If I hadn't got a degree, sure I would've worked at whatever I did. One thing I considered before my present career was getting a skilled trade, they seem to do well enough until;

a] their body can't take the physical demands from being a plumber/electrician/mechanic/builder etc

or b] they get undercut by skilled immigrants.

Being a self-employed shopkeeper seems to be going the way of the dodo with high business rates, cheaper internet competition and supermarkets. I can't stand office politics so going into management is completely out of the picture, once I got as high as I could working in my retail bank (without going into management or relocating to the head office in Edinburgh) I grabbed voluntary redundancy with both hands.

After which I've been working overseas, mostly - teaching, as a matter of fact. What have I always been interested in since I was young? Education, so I think I'm probably in the right profession for me, and I quite enjoy it. I gave my last lesson today before our long summer break, and so am feeling quite enthusiastic about the whole caper. I work as a contractor on a one-year rolling contract, and the conditions are very diverse from country to country, so I've usually not re-signed, although I've been with my present employer for four years (in my sixth country). I have colleagues in their early 70s, so although I'm not on a huge salary I'll probably be able to keep working for longer than people in some other professions.

I'm in (arguably) the second-best University in this country, but who knows what will happen in the future, and working in a good institute for a long period of time doesn't do the old CV any harm. I could, at some point, go back to Uni and further my qualifications, but the industry is developing so quickly those new qualifications could be unwanted by the time I graduated. What I've found really counts is experience, but the initial barrier to entry to teaching overseas is a degree (and a passport from a native English-speaking country; the UK, US, Canada, Oz, NZ or S Africa). The day of an unqualified backpacker using a gig here and there to boost their savings is almost completely over, and I see few other opportunities where you get such a large choice of countries to work in, in a growing industry. 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Up the spout
clarification

[madmax2]

Ive got a relevant story....I grew up in another country where if you didnt have millions you werent going to go to university, so almost nobody did..which meant you could get a job (most jobs) without a degree. I'm a rather intelligent chap and managed ok. I then came to the Uk in my early 20's and really struggled to get a well paying job. I could get "a" job, but not a well paying job..they were reserved for graduates (pre-approved due to having a degree on a c.v. etc) Most of my working life I bumped into graduates and never rated them as much really (there were exceptions though, but slim pickings). I did ok at my menial job reserved for dumb-dumbs, all the while shaking my head at my inability to get even the silliest interviews due to the c.v. going into the bin in a pre-selection process.

 

Anyway (told you its a long story)...I started saving for a house, then the house got too far ahead, so I was just saving instead for ...dunno...now I have enough savings and son is going to university, I'm paying..me, the dirty renter. Because I'd rather he start his adult life with a STEM degree at a good university (which he has been accepted for) with no debt..at least he will have  chance at a good job, and eventually a house.

 

Does the story end there? no. I've recently got my good job..all my fellow co-workers are Dr this and Professor that and the pay is pretty awesome. Where? At a university. A bit of vindication that you dont really need a degree, as a place that sells degrees ended up employing someone without a degree. I wont give you the sector I am in as it is very very specialised and you/they will figure out who I am, but I'm about 10 years behind in my career had I started with a degree..