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> Ha, a generation of English students will thoroughly enjoy this. They might well do, but it was their parents that didn't stop them and say 'perhaps you ough

> Ha, a generation of English students will thoroughly enjoy this. They might well do, but it was their parents that didn't stop them and say 'perhaps you ought to get a job, do an apprenticeship, or basically anything other than a BA in Madonna Studies and 70k in debt by the time you're 21'. This is another political legacy of Blair trying to get every kid through university and has resulted in pointless degrees and an increasing percentage of the population in debt. And can't afford to get on the house ladder.

concordDance 4y ago
That last bit is 90% due to the insane 10x increases in house prices over the last few decades.
- lmm 4y ago
  Well, they're perfectly sane from the point of view of supply and demand. Boomers have pulled up the housing ladder behind them by blocking anything from being built.
smcl 4y ago
You're deliberately using frivolous, made-up degree to try to dismiss the point. No matter, let's pretend someone doesn't have a "BA in Madonna Studies" and they have a degree you might respect more, like a BEng in Civil Engineering. Do you think they should have 70k in student loan debt that (with the UK's famously awful salaries) they'll be paying for over a decade? Of course they shouldn't. Hell, even less well-off European countries like Czech Republic manage to offer tuition-free higher education under the age of 25 - I don't see why non-Scots UK students shouldn't at least have more affordable tuition. I'd also add that in the UK student loan debt is orthogonal to the problem of young people being unable to get onto the housing ladder. Remember that Scottish students do not incur the same level of student debt (on account of the government paying tuition) and they have similar troubles buying property. Salaries and house prices control this, student loans barely figure into it.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  What part of going to university aged 18 to get a junk degree, just because that's what's expected, and tens of thousands of pounds of debt by the time you're 21 is absurd, is wrong? In the UK in 2022, if you're not inclined to do a STEM or professional degree, you're probably better off going into a trade or apprenticeship. > I'd also add that in the UK student loan debt is orthogonal to the problem of young people being unable to get onto the housing ladder. Perhaps you'd like to tell that to one of my kids that has to factor all their outgoings (including university debt) into their calculations which tells them exactly whether they can afford to take on mortgage?
  - smcl 4y ago
    Civil Engineering is a junk degree!? I was going to say Architecture but I thought CivEng was playing it safe. Wow. Ok so can I take another punt - Mechanical Engineering? Is that worthy? I'm really puzzled by your second part, so you have kids who have sufficient deposit saved up, and a high-enough salary to qualify for a suitably-sized mortgage ... but the difference between their current rent and the would-be mortgage repayments is high enough that specifically their student debt repayments are stopping them? That's an incredibly unique problem. I mean, as someone who is probably within a few years of your kids' age, the overwhelming problems in our age groups are the deposit and the price itself beyond beyond what a bank would lend based on salary. Everyone I know who is struggling to get onto the ladder is facing these two problems. I was lucky with where I bought and more importantly when I bought (on the eve of a 3x price boom) otherwise I might have hit the same issues.

concordDance 4y ago

That last bit is 90% due to the insane 10x increases in house prices over the last few decades.

lmm 4y ago
Well, they're perfectly sane from the point of view of supply and demand. Boomers have pulled up the housing ladder behind them by blocking anything from being built.

smcl 4y ago

You're deliberately using frivolous, made-up degree to try to dismiss the point. No matter, let's pretend someone doesn't have a "BA in Madonna Studies" and they have a degree you might respect more, like a BEng in Civil Engineering. Do you think they should have 70k in student loan debt that (with the UK's famously awful salaries) they'll be paying for over a decade? Of course they shouldn't. Hell, even less well-off European countries like Czech Republic manage to offer tuition-free higher education under the age of 25 - I don't see why non-Scots UK students shouldn't at least have more affordable tuition. I'd also add that in the UK student loan debt is orthogonal to the problem of young people being unable to get onto the housing ladder. Remember that Scottish students do not incur the same level of student debt (on account of the government paying tuition) and they have similar troubles buying property. Salaries and house prices control this, student loans barely figure into it.

DrBazza 4y ago
What part of going to university aged 18 to get a junk degree, just because that's what's expected, and tens of thousands of pounds of debt by the time you're 21 is absurd, is wrong? In the UK in 2022, if you're not inclined to do a STEM or professional degree, you're probably better off going into a trade or apprenticeship. > I'd also add that in the UK student loan debt is orthogonal to the problem of young people being unable to get onto the housing ladder. Perhaps you'd like to tell that to one of my kids that has to factor all their outgoings (including university debt) into their calculations which tells them exactly whether they can afford to take on mortgage?
- smcl 4y ago
  Civil Engineering is a junk degree!? I was going to say Architecture but I thought CivEng was playing it safe. Wow. Ok so can I take another punt - Mechanical Engineering? Is that worthy? I'm really puzzled by your second part, so you have kids who have sufficient deposit saved up, and a high-enough salary to qualify for a suitably-sized mortgage ... but the difference between their current rent and the would-be mortgage repayments is high enough that specifically their student debt repayments are stopping them? That's an incredibly unique problem. I mean, as someone who is probably within a few years of your kids' age, the overwhelming problems in our age groups are the deposit and the price itself beyond beyond what a bank would lend based on salary. Everyone I know who is struggling to get onto the ladder is facing these two problems. I was lucky with where I bought and more importantly when I bought (on the eve of a 3x price boom) otherwise I might have hit the same issues.