‘We need to rethink university education’: Readers on student loan reform and who should fund degrees

Debate over how student loans should be funded and repaid is growing after Rachel Reeves froze the Plan 2 repayment threshold, hitting 5.8 million graduates in England and Wales.

Normally rising with inflation, the threshold – currently £29,385 – will now stay frozen until 2030. This means more graduates will start repaying sooner, and those getting pay rises will hand over a larger slice of their salaries.

Consumer champion Martin Lewis slammed the move as “not moral,” arguing the government is breaking a contract with students and urging graduates to write to their MPs.

Independent readers have been weighing in too, with many pointing out that the current system favours the wealthy and university executives while burdening middle- and low-income graduates.

Responding to university guide expert Alastair McCall’s analysis of how the poorest end up paying the most, several readers suggested that education should be treated as a national investment, with costs shared fairly between students, the state, and employers.

Proposed reforms ranged from interest write-offs and means-tested grants to a graduate tax, alongside stronger support for teaching staff and student welfare.

Here’s what you had to say:

It seems to me to be very unfair that the people who introduced the whole student finance system benefited from a grant-based university education and many ‘Boomers’ have managed to get to their cosy, property-owning affluence on the back of a state-funded university degree or degrees.

As I see it, our people are our resource and we should invest in their education – be that university courses, vocational training or apprenticeships – in the same way that we invest in national infrastructure like HS2, Crossrail and decarbonisation.

There does need to be a rethink of the higher education system, however, as far too many universities are offering poor-quality teaching, facilities and student support, with teaching staff pay and conditions having been eroded while vice-chancellors and senior management are being fabulously well rewarded.

The false argument about 50 per cent of the population paying for the other 50 per cent to go to university needs to be thrown out of the debate. You could say the same about Universal Credit and the cost to taxpayers of the health issues that tend to affect lower-income and generally less well-educated people far more than graduates.

CanPeopleReallyBeThisStupid

Does the country want an educated population or not? All forms of education should be free, whether it’s state school, training, vocational colleges or apprenticeships. School shouldn’t be the end of the road for education and training. Everyone should be going on to some form of further education or training to ensure they’re fit for the workplace.

Maintenance grants should be available for those who need them and to ensure that everyone who has the qualifications for university or other programmes has the means to study. These should be means-tested – although, from my own experience, not all those who should be funding student children do. Interest rates on these loans should be low and fixed.

On the one hand, the UK wants to push everyone onto the so-called property ladder, yet those who traditionally were able to finance somewhere to live are now hard put to even finance living in shared accommodation or with mum and dad, as not all those who finish courses hop into a good job paid at some of the rates mentioned here. Even with £29,385, how do you pay tax, NI contributions and repay student loans whilst living in London or another city where the jobs are?

The UK needs to decide what its priorities are: an educated population qualified for the jobs that need doing, or increasing numbers who should be at university avoiding further education rather than saddling themselves with debt for most of their lives. So much money is wasted in the country and far too little is invested in those who are needed to improve standards, which are diminishing.

This is simply an extension of the way the country is going. If you’re born into a wealthy family and your parents have the money and contacts, the world is your oyster. You don’t even need to be particularly bright or well educated. It starts with education. How many dismal politicians with no interest in those they were elected to serve went from prep school to Eton or similar before getting into Oxford, with far less effort than those not so ‘well born’?

Those wanting to study need to be resourceful before signing up to never-never debt, where the government can or may move the goalposts to suit themselves.

Ambigirls

University expansion, loss of overseas students and high interest rates for university student loans mean that only the rich will get a university education in the UK. We have a skills shortage, a housing crisis and the interest rate for students is unmanageable for most.

Do we need all these students? If my northern city is anything to go by, the only housing being put up seems to be student tower blocks. Parents are paying upwards of £200 per week for 50 weeks of the year. Students don’t get face-to-face tuition and lectures – most is online. So why are they at university? Unless it’s a vocational course, they can do it from home.

So the rich will get to go to uni for the experience; the poor will be penalised by where they can afford to go. How much they pay over the decades makes it less value for money. We need an educated, skills-based workforce. We need them, so we should help support them like we support schoolchildren. Support for students should be means-tested – the rich pay and the poor subsidised with a sliding scale.

And finally, get those universities to focus on students and not just bums on virtual seats.

Red Dragon

I would suggest writing off the interest – all interest – and ask for the loan principal to be repaid. The idea was to get students to pay towards the education, not to make money out of them taking a loan. Student loans should not be treated as normal business loans, but rather as students contributing towards what once was totally free.

We are at a place where rich people have figured out that it is not difficult to buy politicians and reduce the rest of us to serfdom. If you want to understand this, look at what is happening in the US. Healthcare a commodity, education a commodity, everything – including creating wars – a commodity. Any way in which to make more and more money, bigger and bigger profits for shareholders, extracting maximum benefits for minimum costs. A very short-sighted view of life.

Western societies became stronger by building solid middle-class and working-class families, earning fair wages, having good affordable housing, healthcare and generally improved living standards. Impoverishing the middle and working class will, in the long run, weaken our countries and subsequently affect the profits of these multinationals. For some bizarre reason, neither the corporates nor the governments understand this simple logic. Everything is short-term gain.

punda

Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.

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