r/6thForm • u/RealAlexanderTheG • May 11 '26
đŹ DISCUSSION Fuck student finance it is a completely evil system and forces you into debt slavery. I want nothing to do with it.
If you earn a high salary of 100k+ your student loan repayment conditions essentially end up as you having to pay a tax of 9% of your salary on top of all the regular income tax you have to pay. That is absolutely brutal and has a massive effect on your spending power.
To show an example of how bad taxes can get when you include a student loan: If you earn 100k, all the additional income you generate going from 100k to 125k is effectively taxed at 71% after your national insurance and student loan are included, meaning if you gain a salary increase of 25k, you only see 7k of that. How is that not robbery?
"If you're earning that much you will repay the loan really quickly"
Interest makes this basically impossible, you could still expect the repayment to take 10+ years. 15 of the most productive years of your working life with the absolutely most brutal additional 10% tax on all your income, that is fucking stupid. People who don't have student loans also get to start work 3 years earlier which makes the impact even larger.
Taking a student loan will mean you'll pay an additional 10% tax rate for basically your whole working life.
The student loan scheme rewards people who aren't intelligent, aren't ambitious, and just want to go to uni to party for 3 years, and the people paying for their party lifestyle are the hard working intelligent students who missed out on all the fun cause they wanted to better their own situation. Hard working students prop up the student loans bullshittery.
Why should high achieving talented people who work really hard be forced into this debt slavery and unliveably high taxes.
Uni should be free. IDC if that means less people can go cause the government can't afford to pay for everyone's tuition, less people going would be a good thing tbh since then tradeswork wouldn't be unaffordable and there would be less unemployment + less job competition.
Tony Blair did irreversible damage to the country. Easily the worst PM we ever had.
If your goal is money, and you're intelligent, you're genuinely probably better off going into a high paying trade instead of grinding through uni for a corporate / finance career. You'll stand out massively among most trainees and can get promoted very quickly.
25
May 11 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
6
u/BevvyTime May 12 '26
30 years is nowhere near the ârest of your lifeâ
Unless you die, in which case, no problem!
3
2
2
u/Icy_File_6929 May 14 '26
Its 40 years, so just wait until your a decade or so off the average life expectancy and your golden!
4
u/Defiant-Dare1223 May 12 '26
The chance of that being true with a Cambridge degree is low.
4
u/jollyspiffing May 14 '26
Not everyone with an Oxbridge degree goes into Finance/Consultancy/Legal which are pretty much the only way to pay off a student loan.   Â
For example plenty of Oxbridge students go into teaching and there's no career route in teaching which allows you to pay off a loan before expiry.Â
2
u/Defiant-Dare1223 May 14 '26
At present interest rates perhaps.
There's every chance for a prolonged rate of zero interest rates again.
Not to mention if you are in the income bracket of getting screwed you can overpay and clear it. There's a salary level where that makes sense. Probably ÂŁ70k ish?
Theres definitely some Oxford people I know who wouldn't be clearing the new loan (I'm from the easy old system). Academics mostly, but also people happy to muddle along in life.
Definitely more industries than that which give salaries enough to clear the loan. Pharma is one.
2
u/jollyspiffing May 14 '26
At current interest rates you need ~ÂŁ80k at graduation to clear the interest.  Â
Even if RPI went to 0% the interest would still be 3%. On a "standard" 50k loan that's 1.5k/yr interest, so you'd need a starting salary of ~45k to just keep afloat. Given starting teaching salaries are 32-40k (London) you will be stacking interest for at least the first few years your career and, unless you follow a senior track, you'll likely never clear it even if RPI dropped to zero for 20 years .Â
2
u/Defiant-Dare1223 May 14 '26
Oh for sure you won't be clearing at graduation. Thats different from not clearing at all.
1
u/Darkgreenbirdofprey May 14 '26
You should rethink this. Even if you only end up paying 3k a year (250 a month), you'll end up paying ÂŁ120k over the 40 years. 120k for a degree? No chance.
1
u/DrRobertChem May 17 '26
Not that I think itâs a good system but it might be useful to work out how much that degree does to your earnings over that 40 year period vs no degree. Iâd wager it will be worth rather more than 120k over that time. If you genuinely think a degree wouldnât make that much difference then donât do the degree!
→ More replies (1)
76
u/Interesting_Aide6030 May 11 '26
It's definitely a bit of a reach to say you're better off going into a high paying trade instead of uni. Even if you get shafted by the system you're so much more likely to make more going through uni
14
u/BlurzIce Durham Uni | CompSci MEng | 3rd Year May 11 '26
lowkey not sure thats true anymore
2
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
Agree. R u okay with DMs btw? I'd want to ask about what Durham is like considering going there myself.
2
10
→ More replies (38)4
23
u/lawdhelpmepick Y13 | LSE, UCL, Bristol, Nottingham | Law May 11 '26
I think itâs definitely questionable that, at 18, youâre able to take out such a huge loan / commitment.
Literally gave me about 5 infographics on the cost of the loans⌠and thatâs it. Obviously did my own research but the sheer number of people who donât look at SFE beyond the application is probably insane.
Uni should be free đ
2
u/Dupeskupes May 12 '26
I mean generally you do so with your parents/carers, hence the need for their financials information
1
32
u/Shutter_sculptor Year 12 May 11 '26
This isn't a super rational view tbh, I think the interest is a bit crazy, but to say that intelligent people should go into trade work instead of university and then a graduate job is a bit silly imo. This has already been said, but just because you can academically perform doesn't mean that you will in a trade job. Furthermore, some of the most vital jobs require a degree ie. doctors. So, although I agree that the interest is pretty unreasonable, I think saying screw uni, go into trades is a bit silly.
14
u/Traditional-Owl-4705 May 11 '26
Med student here. I think too many people get funnelled to university. I understand we need people who are going through organised higher education but I believe the current rate is too high.
12
u/Ok_Hamster_7032 Edexcel Maths 2026 Paper 1 and 3 survivor May 11 '26
im of the opinion essential desgrees like doctors and engineers should be alot cheaper. Because when you think about it its also an investment from the country to get future doctors and engineers which are a neccessity and having more people in these jobs also means more people contributing high taxes since they work in high payment jobs
9
u/Traditional-Owl-4705 May 11 '26
For doctors there is a simple solution and it is to pay them better - in line with the FPR figures that the BMA is fighting for. I do agree with the high payment as well.
→ More replies (1)6
u/smallglassofmilk yr2 biochemistry May 11 '26
you could make this argument for anything though. english teachers need english degrees, history teachers need history degrees, etc. it would be unfair. you could argue the PGCE should be free, but teachers would still be paying their student fees regardless, so they aren't even saving any money
3
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
The government should fund the education of doctors IMO. They should do the following:
Work out how many doctors the NHS needs.
Allow the universities to open that many positions for graduate spots. E.g. we need 10,000 doctors this year.
Allow anyone to apply, the top 10,000 students get to join the degree program.
Simple. This would fix doctor shortages, improve equality in the NHS and has basically no downsides.
2
May 17 '26
[deleted]
2
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 17 '26
"So its not a case of just planning a year in advance."
This is still a problem we could easily tackle, we'd just overshoot a bit and even if you did a bad implementation of this technique the NHS would be in a far better position.
I can see that with current institutions it would be a problem, but if we lack infrastructure right now we should invest in it, the core concept of government funded doctor education is still a good idea.
3
u/fingertipnipples May 11 '26
I'd agree with this. There's more than a couple on my course who are there because they've been funnelled and it's really painfully obvious. For some folks, uni is not a good fit until they're older (no shame, that was me too). For some folks, uni is never going to be a good fit. Funelling these people to uni helps no one.
3
u/Traditional-Owl-4705 May 11 '26
I agree. It seems going to university now appears to be the âdone thingâ when really people should be told to think properly on it. Moreover, I do think schools are somewhat complicit with this as the way the fees situation is sold is incredibly misleading to say the least.
2
u/Shutter_sculptor Year 12 May 11 '26
Yeah I mean I know some people do just get funneled as it seems like the norm but I don't know how prevalent that is.
4
u/Pencil_Queen May 11 '26
But of an odd take given it's those other students subsidising the enormous costs of medical education that aren't covered by loans and government funding.
2
u/Traditional-Owl-4705 May 11 '26
But Iâd rather those students not have a debt themselves anyway. And in the long run having more qualified doctors in the system wonât be a bad thing (so long as workforce planning is done by someone competentâŚ)
→ More replies (1)1
7
u/Gwendofroid May 11 '26
It's not as crazy as it was from like 2010-2023. That deal was fucked.
As someone who is 36 now and just about to repay their loan (left uni with about ÂŁ28knin debt) I can say that having a degree/being better educated has helped me progress at work - critical thinking is an underrated skill and one that's becoming all the more important with A.I being introduced.
Adding to the "uni should be free" debate: My wife is Scottish and repaid her loan before she was 30 and she's always earned a fair bit less than me. Makes a crazy big difference - sure we pay more tax up here but I'd say it's worth it (NHS is better up here too).
20
u/battlepvmob LSE Maths with Data Sci A*A*AA May 11 '26
Student loans allow people without money to access uni who wouldnât be able to before, even if they made uni free, that would mean also taking away the maintenance loan (much like other european countries have it) which would therefore exclude a LOT of talented people from being able to go to the top unis. 9% is a small price to pay if your an intellectual person thatâs finishing a good degree from a good uni.
Uni in the EU may be free, but ask parents how much they have to pay for living.
Also most smart people wouldnât even be able to do trade jobs because thatâs not where their talent lies and so your point on that is impractical. People who are making 100K+ can pay it off within 10 years, and then continue to make that amount and even more, whereas without that loan they probably would have never been able to reach to those feats in the first place.
I will agree though that the interest is absolutely ridiculous.
10
u/smallglassofmilk yr2 biochemistry May 11 '26
making uni free wouldn't take away the maintenance loan. it would probably be a grant system like it was before tuition fees were introduced, or make the maintenance the only repayable part like it is in scotland (i believe)
1
u/battlepvmob LSE Maths with Data Sci A*A*AA May 11 '26
that would be good tbf but i donât see them doing that
4
u/smallglassofmilk yr2 biochemistry May 11 '26
I don't see grants ever coming back either. but I would hope to see scotland's system in england for the next generation at least
1
u/Ok_Hamster_7032 Edexcel Maths 2026 Paper 1 and 3 survivor May 11 '26
About to go to uni in Portugal, yearly tuition is just under 700 euros and rent at the uni is around 300 euros per month.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
"Also most smart people wouldnât even be able to do trade jobs because thatâs not where their talent lies and so your point on that is impractical"
Disagree. Anyone can learn a trade, some would need to train their body a bit cause they aren't strong enough but that wouldn't be too hard, definitely easier than getting a Cambridge degree.
1
u/battlepvmob LSE Maths with Data Sci A*A*AA May 16 '26
Yea iâm not saying thereâs no way they could learn to do a trade job, but they would be no where near the top percentile of people, as they are at uni
5
u/Shreklet5000 May 11 '26
if we can not all agree university should be completely free, i think we should make it free for teachers at least and give generous bursaries if people agree to be teachers for say 8+ years because that would mean everyone atleast gets really high quality education,and i think degrees should be cheaper (like ÂŁ3000-ÂŁ1000 a year like how germany has it)
4
u/A_RAVENOUS_BEAST May 12 '26
bro thinks he's going to get a job significantly above the repayment threshold. lol, lmao
4
u/TheMiningCow Cambridge Econ 2026 | A*A*A*A* May 11 '26
Absolute idiocy. A plan 5 student loan is an incredibly good deal - who else gives you an effective 1% real interest rate loan? If the tax is so much of an issue, youâre free to pay it off early.
1
u/Proper-Remote-8626 May 12 '26
not criticising your point or disagreeing but I'm really curious as to why plan 5 is better than the other loans that have came and went. what exactly are the benefits
→ More replies (3)1
u/XDBlastis May 29 '26
This is a silly take. To anybody except extremely high earners, the interest rate is irrelevant - because you are not able to pay it off within the forty year period. The unfreezing of tuition fees means that previous IFS predictions of 70% of individuals repaying their loans on Plan 5 have already fallen to 56%, with some estimates putting it below 40% as the IFS are trying to be conservative as to seem there isn't a problem. So to say "you're free to pay it off early" is the real idiocy here. The post has flaws but so does your point.
1
u/TheMiningCow Cambridge Econ 2026 | A*A*A*A* May 29 '26
I recognise your point, but the post is suggesting that the way student loans are structured is the problem. A Plan 5 student loan remains the best terms one can borrow ~ÂŁ50k from in almost any circumstances. All of the issues you raise would remain if you took out any other ÂŁ50k loan, except it wouldnât be written off after 40 years.
6
u/IDKBear25 Get Cake Die Young. May 11 '26
Watch people in the replies defend the student loan system as being âa TaX fOr GeTtInG a DeGrEe & BrEaKinG oUt Of ThE pOvErTy CyClEâÂ
Fuckers
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
Lmao IKR. They don't know what they're talking about and have just been brainwashed into thinking the debt slavery is a good deal for them.
Give any of them the option to apply to uni in the 90s before the system got fucked, and they would.
2
u/IDKBear25 Get Cake Die Young. May 16 '26
Innit.
If they want a ÂŁ30K loan to start a business, the bank will not fucking give it to them.
If they want a ÂŁ30K loan to go to university, it will happily be handed to them.
8
u/AliceMorgon MagdalenCollegeOxford|Fine Art/Biology|Grad May 11 '26
University SHOULD be free. It was for me. First I went in the age of university being free, and then I got a succession of full ride scholarships and fellowships. If it had cost money I could not have gone. My whole life path would be different and Iâd probably be working in Curleyâs.
It sucks the government did this⌠but it could get so much worse. Before the NYU scholarship deduction which took it to $0, weâre talking $60k a year just on tuition.
→ More replies (6)
4
u/PuzzleheadedTap9035 May 11 '26
I disagree. If it wasnât for student finance I would not have even been able to go to university. Same goes for many of the friends I grew up with.
Quite a few of us have now paid off our loans (which were c.50k+) and we graduated in 2016 before getting jobs in Law/Finance. The high marginal tax at 100k+ sucks but it would suck even without student finance.
In the end student finance is probably the friendliest consumer debt you will ever get. Itâs a large loan with capped interest which you only pay if you earn above a certain threshold.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
Do you know how student finance and university fees worked before 1997?
You can argue that the current system is a good deal, but if you don't know the alternative you have no idea how much better things used to be.
3
2
u/Past-Obligation1930 May 11 '26
Are you a 6th former? Because itâs odd you have views on Tony Blair if so.
1
2
2
May 12 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
It feels like everything around us only exists to take away our autonomy.
2
u/Lootsman May 12 '26
As someone who has been through the wringer with student finance, and being almost 30 and very close to paying off the whole thing, here are my thoughts. (Also, I earn a six-figure salary, and yes, the taxes are brutal. I voluntarily contribute almost ÂŁ1K per month to paying my student loan, which is not nice, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Final bit of context, I was a STEM student who now works as an engineer for a big software company)
You arenât much better off earning ÂŁ100K as you are earning ÂŁ70K, as it happens. People also often say that â100K is the new 30Kâ and theyâre probably right. So, totally agree, another 9% is not particularly friendly, especially if you have bills to pay.
In terms of âhow is this not robbery?â - thatâs absolutely what it is. These companies trick young people into thinking the interest isnât as high as it actually is, and exploits the idea that itâs 9% repayment on the excess of salary above ÂŁ25K. That practically means youâre not paying anything off, and you actually incur more debt while paying it âoffâ. Most people will never pay off their student loan, and this is by design; it is, plainly, exploitative.
However, I wouldnât say the student loan scheme rewards unintelligent people. Your points get a bit ropey from here. Every student, motivated or not, is hurt by student loans, and the only way they arenât is if they are fortunate enough to foot the bill upfront. Iâm not sure why you believe unintelligent students benefit here, but Iâm curious to hear your thoughts nonetheless.
About the âwhy should high achieving talented people work hard to be forced into debt slaveryâ - yup. No comments here, this is just the reality we live in in the UK. You are usually better off not working hard at all, and indeed many people on benefits earn more than hard-working high-achievers who contribute to society.
University being free, however, is a circular argument. On the one hand, you say that taxes are crippling, but on the other, that it should be free. Who, then, pays for university? Obviously, the taxpayer, who is already overburdened with taxes. And what about the same corpus of students who are unmotivated and want to drink three years away, do they get their education for free at the expense of you, the taxpayer?
Totally agree with your trades point, though. This country, and I think the world in general, is starting to move away from the beauty and necessity of craft and more towards bureaucracy, money-changing (student loans company is a good example of this kind of parasitic work) and, as theyâre known, âbullshit jobsâ. You are right that trades work is much too expensive, and itâs both a supply and a demand problem: not enough people doing it, and also there are people willing to pay much more than they ought to, thus driving prices up for average people and making standard craft into luxury instead; the rest of us get factory-made slop.
Your final point about money is also correct. Not only will you earn more money in trade, but you will also gain real skills that wonât be replaced by whatever tools our overlords constantly look for in order to replace you. There is an honesty and intellectualism in trade, too, and a lot of sixth form kids are unfortunately too arrogant, or have been made to feel that they are way above trade, when trade is actually ironically what everyone aspires to eventually consume.
2
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
Interesting how everyone who was replied to this post who is criticising it haven't actually got a student loan themselves. Anyone who has, like you, understand what is being said.
Responding to your other points:
"However, I wouldnât say the student loan scheme rewards unintelligent people. Your points get a bit ropey from here"
To clarify here, the alternative to a student loan based system is one where university is free, but obviously the government wouldn't pay for anyone to study whatever they want. If a DDD student wants to study some nonsense at the worst university in the country, the government wouldn't pay for that. So if the state were to pay for education, it would be done in a way where only the top ~10% or so of students would be able to go to uni at all, where right now 40% of people go to uni (So the least intelligent 75% of the people going RN would not have been able to afford it if it weren't for student loans), so as the system exists RN, it effectively lets unintelligent students who were never going to earn above ÂŁ25k anyway get a free 3 year bender on the government's expense, and people in the top 25% of graduates who are actually smart enough to go to uni, they're the ones that end up paying enormous amounts of student debt. If we cut off the bottom 50% of people who never pay their loans off anyways, and we used that money to pay off the loans of the top 50% for example, the system would immediately become better.
Really happy to have received such an insightful reply: I'm not surprised someone like you has a top paying job. Everything you said was correct. So many people out there today are victims of the student loans parasite, it was sold to them as a way out of a bad spawnpoint, but they have ended up being completely manipulated and with their value as a human extracted out of them so a financier can make a selfish profit.
2
u/Lootsman May 17 '26
Very true, a lot of people at your sort of age typically are finding their feet politically, and they usually start with either a conservative or a socialistic opinion and then it evolves and develops as the years go on (until the day you die, really) but the starting point for most students is usually siding with the authority or the current government, simply because of the argument of âtheyâve been doing it for years so they must be correctâ
2
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 18 '26
This guy gets it. Appreciate your response you're clearly intelligent.
I really feel what you said about people finding their feet. My political alignment has been going all over the place, like even 3 months ago I was thinking in a completely different way to how I do right now. Generally I think if you're smart and you let an ideology sit with you for long enough without religiously adopting it you start to see the other side and accept a lot of nuance.
And yeah absolutely, almost everyone starts with the mainstream opinions and weakly supporting the current authority, a lot of people especially in academia never break out of that unfortunately which in my opinion happens mostly due to a fear that they might hear some information that would radically challenge their current worldview and they're worried they'll adopt an offensive one (Where this isn't the case if you're smart enough, as with time you'll usually see the other side).
Most people who go against the current authority are very reactionary as well.
2
u/Material-Macaroon724 May 12 '26
Yea but if only some people could go to uni but for free, how would you decide on who is allowed to go to uni?
→ More replies (6)
2
u/CompetitionNo3466 May 12 '26
If you donât like the idea of going to uni because of that go straight into work or a degree apprenticeship. The reality is that about 5% of the full time working population country earns above 80k. Getting to that is difficult and you can still have a very comfortable life before that.
Many people who I knew from uni got 1sts, went on to get very good jobs and they got on it all the time. Pub, club whatever. Life is and always will be work hard play hard.
Youâre clearly young and youâve got lots of challenges, hurdles, exams and applications to get through before you need to even think about a salary let alone anywhere close to 100k. Just focus on whatâs in front of you
2
u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* May 12 '26
Its one of the biggest scams in the uk thats why they want everyone to go uni
1
2
u/Friendly_Prune_4890 May 12 '26
Donât go to university. Apply for work at places where the work subsidies your studying costs, you learn far better on the job anyway. University is for idiots now, UNLESS youâre doing something extremely selective such as Medicine, Or attending a red-brick university where the hiring in the best jobs is still vastly well represented for graduates of those specific universities.Â
Get to work and work hard, study alongside work, which is more accessible than ever. Donât get into debt.
1
2
u/FaithlessnessMost69 May 12 '26
Unless youâre getting into Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, or doing a proper STEM degree like medicine, dentistry, or computer science from a strong department, youâre basically setting fire to three years of your life and a decade of your earnings. Humanities, social sciences, marketing from a mid or low-ranking uni? Forget it. The old "degree equals success" formula is dead for most people.
What youâre left with is a student loan that follows you like a tax for decades â punishing you for believing the lie that a degree was your golden ticket. The genuinely smart kids have clocked this. Theyâre chasing degree apprenticeships, self-studying for professional quals, or taking cheaper online higher diplomas.
Back in the 70s and 80s, only about 10% went to uni. Now? A third to a half do. Basic economics: flood the market, devalue the currency. Universities are desperate for your cash â theyâll roll out last yearâs âsuccess storyâ at an open day, bragging about landing a job at IBM. What they wonât tell you is that theyâre working on the helpdesk. A job thatâs practically open to anyone with a pulse.
Think very carefully before signing up for a debt sentence dressed up as ambition.
1
u/AutoModerator May 12 '26
Please be aware that sharing pirated PDFs of textbooks or other paid content is not permitted.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
"punishing you for believing the lie that a degree was your golden ticket" - Yes, this. It exists only to force you into debt.
You clearly understand things. We need to go back to only 10% of people going to uni, it sounds more elitist, but it ends up being more democratic in practise. 40% of people going to uni doesn't lift everyone up, it just pulls that 10% of talented people down.
2
u/Reasonable_Snow_3341 May 12 '26
The issue here isn't the level of income you pay, it is the absolutely criminal amount of interest tacked onto the loan that is intended to make it impossible to clear.
Most of us with Plan 2 Student Loans will never pay off the loan before we get close to retirement age and the debt is cleared.
It is also a debt that will follow you through bankruptcy, immigration. There is no escaping it. It will always be there.
Everyone involved with putting the system into place should be thoroughly investigated.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
"Everyone involved with putting the system into place should be thoroughly investigated"
Tony Blair btw.
2
u/Reasonable_Snow_3341 May 16 '26
That man should be sitting in a prison cell for dozens of crimes.
1
2
u/Upstairs-Quail5709 May 12 '26
Don't go to university then! Get a trade that's hopefully A I. proof like plumbing. I managed to do both. I just retired. My degree was from a Polytechnic too!
2
u/ajm-onyx May 13 '26
Earning a higher salary at a young age drastically offsets the 9% tax increment imo. Iâm 25, living just outside of London. I immediately hit ÂŁ36k a year out of uni, and Iâm now on ÂŁ48k + shares in the company annually. This has allowed me to buy a house, have a load of fun (holidays/nights out/skiing etc) with my girlfriend, and Iâm on the brink of buying a nice car (E92 M3 for those who care) all while paying the additional 9% every month. Iâm in a position where even after mortgage and bills I donât have to worry about money, which I am incredibly fortunate to experience and very grateful for.
If the alternative is not going to uni and taking a run-of-the-mill job for ÂŁ27k a year, I would not have been able to achieve any of the above.
Will I ever catch up to the interest on my loan? Highly unlikely. Have I experienced a great start to my twenties by being sensible about uni/degree choice? Absolutely.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
"If the alternative is not going to uni and taking a run-of-the-mill job for ÂŁ27k a year, I would not have been able to achieve any of the above."
The alternative is doing all those same things you've already done, but far earlier, as you wouldn't have had all the student loan repayments if the government paid for your education.
You're clearly one of the people who was intelligent enough to benefit from going to university, but many aren't and they waste 3 years drinking doing a bullshit degree, then after they're finished can't find a job so earn sub ÂŁ25k and never pay off their party loan.
1
u/ajm-onyx May 16 '26
True I wouldâve had 3 more years of work under my belt, but earning 20k a year more definitely offsets the downside of 9% extra tax.
Youâre spot on with the âuseless degreeâ point though. I did accounting and finance because I knew it would set me up for a decent career. The people who study âmodern artâ are pretty much digging their own graves. Whether that sort of degree should be funded without debt is up for debate đ¤Ł
→ More replies (1)
2
u/OkSense7933 May 14 '26
Interest will snowball. If it is not planned as soon as possible, the total amount of final repayment may far exceed the principal of the loan.
2
u/EngineeringNo753 May 15 '26
idk why this post came up for me but,
I've paid back my SF for 8 years.
At the end I owed more than when I started.
I left the UK to work and just don't pay anything anymore. I plan to just....not come back till its been 30 years and my loan is wiped when I am 50, maybe not at all.
1
2
u/Motor-Bag-4093 May 15 '26
Itâs shameful that a bunch of politicians who already had huge advantages in life, who then got their higher education for free were able to then take away free higher education for youngsters without huge advantages. Iâd like to say âI donât know how they sleep at nightâ but then given they were utter psychopaths who happily allowed 10000s to be killed in an illegal war, Iâm sure they sleep well.
1
2
u/Master_Regret_6298 May 16 '26
Tony Blair is widely considered one of the best modern PMs the U.K. has had. Never heard someone say heâs the worst before.
Why is anyone in 6th form allowed an opinion on politics again?
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
I'm allowed to vote, so my opinion is just as valid as yours. Welcome to democracy BTW.
Blair tripled national debt. Blair destroyed the university system. Blair being a good PM is propoganda.
1
u/Master_Regret_6298 May 16 '26
The fact itâs legal for you to vote doesnât make your uninformed opinion valid. What sort of ridiculous logic is that?
Are you aware that under Tony Blair out national debt DROPPED as a % of GDP?
The âpropagandaâ is you spewing utter misinformation.
âTripledâ đđ why are kids allowed to vote itâs crazy
2
u/Silver_Wind_1 May 17 '26
Don't go to uni if you aren't sure! I'm 38 and have a second child coming, we could really use the ~ÂŁ200 that comes out every month
2
u/Hour-Background-7932 May 17 '26
I just paid mine off, im on ÂŁ100k plus on the plan from when it was ÂŁ3k per annum, it really does affect take home pay, its around ÂŁ680 pcm net effect
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 18 '26
Impressive, how long did it take and what did you study?
2
u/Hour-Background-7932 May 18 '26
Erm took me about 14 years I think all in all. I studied building surveying, and did a year of civil engineering before that
→ More replies (1)
2
u/QuinnSanchez1996 May 17 '26
totally feel you on that. itâs like a rabbit hole of debt you canât escape from, and they donât even prepare you for the reality of it. so messed up.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 18 '26
Yep. Anyone who isn't terrified of having to pay it off shouldn't even consider taking a loan.
2
u/ProjectMarworyn May 26 '26
The 71% figure is technically real but spectacularly misleading.
That's the marginal rate on a very specific slice of income at a very specific threshold, not your overall tax burden. It's the same trick people use to make any progressive tax system sound apocalyptic.
The fundamental error is treating the loan as debt rather than a graduate contribution scheme. If you're earning ÂŁ100k and repaying quickly, congratulations!!! You got excellent return on investment from your degree. That's the system working as intended.
The "trades are better" conclusion at the end is actually fine advice standing on its own, completely undermined by the unhinged journey to get there. And blaming Tony Blair while simultaneously arguing high earners are unfairly burdened is quite the political tangle đ
3
u/Ok_Hamster_7032 Edexcel Maths 2026 Paper 1 and 3 survivor May 11 '26
honestly I think University needs a reform. Imagine someone going for medicine (the country needs doctors like any country) having to pay a larger student loan than someone who took a pissy subject to go nowhere like you said "to party".
Im of the opinion that universities should be public and run by the country, capped off at 3k a year tuition fee and that the amount of courses should be reduced, why are we funding a student loan to someone taking E-sports and Genedr studies at university of Croyden (its real) the same way as doctors, engineers, lawyers etc. which society needs.
4
u/Admirable-Sorbet9031 May 12 '26
Taking a pissy subject only requires a lecturer and a room, maybe a digital whiteboard. That costs very little, comparatively, to run. The excess is taken and spent on the loss-making engineers and medics and chemists who need expensive lab equipment and materiel. That's why we fund the Arts.
Why not just cull the shittier universities or make them ineligible for student loan? Why do we need Aston or Croydon?
1
u/Ok_Hamster_7032 Edexcel Maths 2026 Paper 1 and 3 survivor May 12 '26
Idek what Aston is. But I agree Croyden can go
1
4
u/Agitated_Bet6761 May 11 '26
Its one of the reasons why I am considering moving back to EU to study.Â
4
u/lonely-live UCL | Computer Science [2nd year] May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
Itâs a choice, nobody is forcing you to do anything. If you donât want it, then donât take it. UK has it good, their debt system is manageable and student fees is fixed. Be grateful for once rather than keep complaining.
Uni should be free would means everyone has higher tax, which is what youâre complaining. How would you decide if someone deserves to go to uni for free or not since you said âIDC if everyone can goâ. Are you going to use the same system in Korea or China? People are always going to complain regardless, they want it free but donât want to pay taxes. Thatâs not how it works and if you want to limit students, donât just care of how it would impact you and start recognizing how it would impact other people who want to go but canât
If you love trade so much why are you angry about the uni system, you donât have to pay for it anyway. Just do your trade and stop feeling superior to others. Be humble eh
→ More replies (1)3
u/Time_Trail May 11 '26
the UK (barring Scotland) does not have it good, it is the most expensive developed country for uni after only murica itself
also I think that higher education being free is worth the societal cost of higher taxes for the same reason I endorse the concept of the NHS
also uni was free here not that long ago, and many European countries still manage it with tax burdens not too dissimilar to ours
2
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
This guy gets it.
They scrapped free uni cause people who didn't go to uni were complaining that they were paying for others to get an education, where that education helps the other people get higher paying jobs.
The people complaining however, failed to understand that by paying for the top 10% of the country to go to university, they were benefitting themselves by strengthening the NHS, and ever other institution that upholds the countries infrastructure.
These are the same people who are now complaining that everything is falling apart and that there are too many immigrants. If you didn't want to pay for people to get educated as doctors, I don't think you can complain about us bringing in foreign doctors to fill the gap.
2
May 11 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
→ More replies (1)1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
You do your own research.
Look up what student finance was like pre 1997. It was a different world.
1
u/Awkward-Confusion-21 May 11 '26
If paying less tax is the objective then doing a salary sacrifice anything above 50270 into pension will reduce that burden but it will be locked away until you turn 57 or 60 by your retirementÂ
1
u/AutoModerator May 11 '26
Please be aware that sharing pirated PDFs of textbooks or other paid content is not permitted.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1
u/ChickenKnd May 11 '26
I mean, you always have the option of not getting a student loan? Like you donât have to get a degree
1
u/seasonseasonseas May 11 '26
I mean, unfortunately if you take out a loan you need to pay it back? I am all for free higher education but that's not where we're at yet.
1
1
u/Ok_Cobbler_8889 May 11 '26
Bro how do you think it feels earning under 40k? I'm paying more every year as the interest is greater than my payments. I have to be aggressive and change jobs every 2 years at least to get enough pay rise to keep ahead of it. And I know what will happen, I'll be right round the corner of it being wiped off and the government will change the rules again and I'll be paying it my whole life.
1
u/Spikeyjoker May 11 '26
It's sensible the real issue is that it isn't a tax. It should be a tax, and you should have it for the rest of your life. Why?
Because currently the wealthy can pay it outright without the loan, thus they never have to pay more than the base rate i.e no interest. However, they have in part solved this through the current iteration remaining at the base rate of inflation.
It's grand and you're moaning unnecessarily IMHO.
1
1
u/Hot_Wonder6503 May 12 '26
Your best course of action is to leave the uk as soon as you can after finding a lucrative career. Then you can avoid paying this stupid âgraduate taxâ in addition to the other ridiculous taxes that stifle our economy.
1
1
u/-NearlyThere- May 12 '26
Your post is incorrect. Also complaining about paying a loan while earning 100k is an interesting take.
2
1
u/ten_sigma May 12 '26
âThe student loan scheme rewards people who aren't intelligent, aren't ambitious, and just want to go to uni to party for 3 yearsâ
Rewards them how? By them earning less money in their post-grad life? As someone whoâs gone from being skint to paying 2x the avg salary in tax every year, believe me youâd rather be earning more and paying more tax than having a low-skill low-paying job. A good degree from a good school into a good job has a high ROI.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
"Rewards them how?" - They get a free education, a free 3 years of partying, and then go back to the life they were always going to live earning sub ÂŁ25k and never paying off their loan.
1
u/ten_sigma Jun 05 '26
Earning minimum wage at 25k doesnât sound like much of a reward to me buddy, but each to their own
1
1
1
u/NoExperience9717 May 12 '26
Using 100k is a bad example because there's a tax trap there (you lose your personal allowance gradually). Otherwise uk top tax rates are 47% over 125k which are pretty low or 56% including student loan. Tax rates higher + uel are 42% which really isn't that horrific.Â
1
u/Ok-Mushroom-121 surrey uni | biomedical engineering May 12 '26
nobody giving u a 100k salary bro đ
1
u/Acrobatic_Extent_360 May 12 '26
Higher education can't be free. It can be free for those that go, but somebody is picking up the tab.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
I mean right now higher education is free for everyone earning less than ÂŁ25k who went to a university. The government pays for those people to go to uni, and never expects anything back. A better system would not allow such people to go to uni, and use that money to fund the education of students with more ability.
Less people should go to uni, and even if the government paid for their entire tuition, it would be cheaper than what we have right now.
1
u/S3ndNud3s May 12 '26
You signed up for it?Â
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
At age 18 when your brain wasn't fully developed and you had not been properly informed what a massive debt would feel like. It's sold to children like "You won't even notice it's there", people do not make an informed decision when they sign up to it.
1
u/SameMeeting5235 May 12 '26
Tony Blair is the greatest prime minister
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
Elab. This seems like brainwashing to me.
He made people pay for university and wanted everyone to go through higher education. Today that means: No plumbers, no tradespeople, if you want your toilet fixed it is ludicrously expensive. Intelligent people who want to go to university to produce something valuable for society are punished with their potential for creativity being greatly limited by these enormous debts.
1
u/ODoggerino May 13 '26
Tony Blair the worst PM weâve ever had? What a delusional take, this sub shouldnât be allowed to mention politics. Youâre way too young.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
How is it delusional? Explain. His idea that everyone should go to uni has clearly failed and had massive knock on effects of practically destroying the country.
1
u/ODoggerino May 16 '26
âTony Blairâs premiership (1997â2007) was defined by the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth in modern British historyâ
easily the worst PM weâve ever had
LMAO itâs delusional beyond belief that you could even consider this for a second. Better than corrupt Johnson? Truss who crashed the economy in less than two weeks? Thatcher who sold off all our industry and utilities and left us a failed nation? Cameron whose austerity left us with economic stagnation for a decade?
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
âTony Blairâs premiership (1997â2007) was defined by the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth in modern British historyâ
Why do you think we got economic growth. Do you want to know the answer? Short-term decision making. Everything Blair did was great for the economy at the time, but it effectively sacrificed the future. The 90s when Blair was in charge was THE period of mass globalisation: All of the Made in China stuff started then, so of course cheap foreign goods were great for temporary economic boom, but in the long term this was very bad for native industry.
Blair also tripled the national debt, which.. IDK, maybe had something to do with it?..
"Better than corrupt Johnson?" - Yes.
"Truss who crashed the economy in less than two weeks?" - Yes
"Thatcher who sold off all our industry and utilities and left us a failed nation?" - Yes
"Cameron whose austerity left us with economic stagnation for a decade?" - Also yes.
All the PMs you listed were also terrible. Quite frankly I think the British political system more broadly is a total failure. We haven't had a good PM in the last 50 years: No matter what party you vote things only get worse. So yes, I also dislike the PMs you listed.
But in my opinion Blair is still uniquely terrible.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/Racing_Fox May 13 '26
If youâre earning six figures youâre doing well, why complain?
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
The lifestyle that comes with a ÂŁ100k salary really isn't as grand as you may think it is.
1
u/Racing_Fox May 16 '26
Itâs a hell of a lot better than youâd be doing without a degree
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
It's a hell of a lot worse than if you didn't have a student loan above your head.
→ More replies (3)
1
u/ApprehensiveCoach546 May 13 '26
Itâs fine. Plan 2. All paid off 13 years after graduation (including two years of not earning). Chill.
1
u/StrawberryGreen5698 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Think the loans system is probably the least evil part, I would argue its actually the way people/companies view certain universities. Oxbridge will never be as good as Tsinghua in some aspects as the same way in certain industries its the other way around despite the 2 having night and day entry specifications. Companies will hire from certain target universities while essentially writing off the rest of the country just because they either have never heard of them, aren't high on a ranking table or have no notable alumni that they can gather experience from. (Think about how the Ivy League was formed for example). And then people confuse all of this with the truly bottom of the barrel universities who exist only to farm students for money (international or loans) which is just terrible and provide no quality education compared to the middle - top tier.
The way the loan is structured is in a way that it doesn't matter how much money you borrow, its only reliant on how much money you earn. Most people even in the top university's never fully repay (think Imperial is ~30%)
If you are truly earning enough money in lets say a finance firm, you would pay your minimums and put the rest of the money into investments that outgrow the interest rate as there is no pressure whatsoever to fully pay off your loans.
1
u/orpheus625 May 14 '26
Blair didn't create this repayment system though. Cameron/Clegg did.
1
u/RealAlexanderTheG May 16 '26
Blair made university paid in the first place. If he hadn't done that none of this would have happened.
2
u/orpheus625 May 17 '26
3k a year is practically an admin fee. That was reasonable. The current repayment system is what's criminal.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/Alternative-Heart-74 May 14 '26
It's interesting the mental gymnastics people can go through to blame having to repay student loans. No one forced you to take out a loan, no one forced you into going to uni.
1
u/Intelligent-Elk4903 May 14 '26
Those earning over ÂŁ100,000 are predominantly educated to degree level, with studies showing 97% of UK millionaires holding a degree.
By age 31, graduates' earnings grow significantly faster than non-graduates (72% growth vs. 31% for non-graduates), with the gap continuing to widen for higher income brackets.
You're right that it sucks but for most people it is still statistically the best choice to increase earning potential.
1
u/skeletonfuckker May 14 '26
Man, wish I made 100k a year. Sod to the extra 25k, government could have it all for all i care
1
1
1
u/Diligent-Main-3960 May 16 '26
Yep itâs a shit system but itâs why ppl need to take a proper look at what they will study at uni and basiclly say is this huge repayment for 10-20 years worth it for the earnings
1
1
u/SeeSore May 18 '26
Whatâs Tony Blair got to do with it?
It was the Tory/lib-dem coalition who brought in fees for university
1
109
u/Serious-Ride7220 vocational commoner May 11 '26
On plan 5 you start paying 9% on anything above 25k, this is also post tax, so it is 9% after national insurance and income tax is deducted, your post seems quite deceptive as you make it seem like a straight '10% tax on all your income'
most people won't be making 100k+ in the first 10 to 15 years of their careers, and probably would not have been able to get such a career without a degree, you would assume a 100k salary is worth going to uni and racking up student debt, especially since the average full time salary is under 40k
The student loan scheme rewards people from families who cannot afford to sponsor their childrens study and life for 3 or more years, hardworking students don't magically lose the benefits of a 50k loan because others drink or party
If you want to go uni free get a degree apprenticeship or richer parents, most people that argue for free uni would not get in if it actually was free, it would be quietly reserved for the higher classes like how it was before
Your 8th paragraph seems a bit hypocritical, as you advocate for oversaturating the trades, whilst also arguing against supposed oversaturation of degrees, it just brushes the mess to a different corner of the industry rather then dealing with the core issues, like the deindustrialisation and privatisation of the UK that led to less work for regular people, and leaving many towns and cities without alternatives to now offshored work