Students react to proposed tuition fee hike 

The fact that it's not interest-free is a lifetime of debt. You'll never be able to pay it off as the monthly interest will be more than the monthly payment towards it.

it's sad that these bright young minds won't be given the same opportunities as older generations, simply because the older generations chose brexit and are determined to protect their wealth. the taxpayer cannot support HE entirely - there must be a serious look at how to protect the educational institutions by balancing the tax burden.

An absolute disgrace. As a minimum it should be interest free. These loans won’t ever be paid off

The people at the top of society complain that the economy is not growing and that productivity is problem. Then you shackle our young people with huge debts before they even start full time employment, rather than investing in them. Meanwhile the wealth of the rich continues to grow. Seems as though the change in government has achieved very little real change for the people in society that need it. Why aren’t they going for the mega wealthy tax dodging lot?

My God these two parties are laughing at the people. It's just like Democrats and Republicans here in America

Before universities were a cash cow they didn't have this issue.

All that to work in a Call Centre

And the 2 year student visa doesn’t count towards your 5 years to get citizenship and they increased the work visa sponsorship salary threshold from 27k to 38.7k. Companies won’t offer students nearly 40k for entry level jobs. So why would you bother studying here

You know what universities could start selling the property they own, stop building vanity projects, reduce non-teaching staff, and 100 other things before they ask for more money from students. The universities seems to think they are already making tough choices they haven't even really started.

I would solve this problem by just moving away and never coming back here.

So I studied a degree from 2005 - 2008. Fees were only 1,200 a year and my loan was only 2,500. Even with that I have only paid off my fees in 2023 having worked in jobs paying above the national average salary for over a decade. Increasing to 15k is a joke and I simply could not considered University at that cost.

I agree that students should pay their own fees, but i 100% disagree that interest should be chargeable on such loans. It should be interest free.

In addition to the crazy prices, the salaries the jobs you could even get off the back of them won't help to pay them off. Fees up + salaries frozen = great job!

There’s too many Universities offering too many subjects. The emphasis on tertiary education is clearly to keep lower performing universities afloat.

That body represents Vice Chancellors. Who could not be more out of touch… lecturers and support staff are not to blame for this, but they will suffer because angry students will blame them.

Considering the quality of the education you receive, this price is a total joke.

I went to uni and day one the tutors told us around 70-80% of our fees were going to pay for other peoples courses, and for what we got we could believe it. Is it too soon to put a bet on Labour being a one term parliament?

My girlfriend is a pharmacist, over £70,000 of student debt and rising.. we recently decided to salary sacrifice her wage down to the loan repayment threshold, and pay it into her pension. She doesnt pay any student loan now. Fuck 'em.

Studying in Germany cost me about 600€ a year to the university (which included free public transport across the entire state), so hearing these numbers is crazy. Makes you wonder where that difference goes.

Sheffield, Nottingham Bristol each have two universities. Each should be forced to combine honestly. Should make it so 65% of students are from the UK and Northern Ireland also.

I have a friend who has a very high 5 figure income and they are still seeing their owed amount increasing

As a course leader in a London University, I think Student loans should be interest free and the government should make up the difference to a realistic cost per student to university. So 9k loan plus 6k top up from govt.

If the political will was there there would not be a tuition fee and students would be given a grant. Once upon a time, many decades ago the student grant was enough to cover fees, accommodation, travel, books, equipment, food and beer.

Why bother going to uni? Why saddle yourself with a lifetime of debt that the govt has sold off to private finance, and that the interest just accrues year after year. Sad.

This is disgusting. The universities have to understand that they deter people from studying with them and their income will fall even lower. The university near me has spent money over the years on new buildings that they are now considering closing. And why are Chancellors and management paid so much when those at the bottom are paid minimum wage and are usually the ones to lose their jobs when cuts happen? I know a Graduate tax has been mentioned in the past and that would be much lower than these student loans. **Nurses and Doctors have to pay tuition fees as well. These are no longer paid by the NHS.

Luckily my 2 kids have an EU passport through their mum and will therefore go to university for free in Vienna !

Labour should be pushing for more graduates. The more educated you are the more likely you are not to vote tory...

I hope that people start to leave to go to other countries more, in Germany university is basically free for everyone, in Sweden its free after a year of residence. If Britain is going to treat people so badly I hope they leave and find a better life in other countries

If Labour does that, they'll guarantee being a one-term party in government.

They keep getting massive above-inflation increases, but it just ends up wasted on underutilised construction projects and upper management pay increases. If they'd increased the £3000 from 2004 in line with inflation, it would cost £5262 now. Even the £9000 from 2012 in line with inflation would only come to £12579. They have near enough doubled the cost from 2004 to 2024, even with inflation accounted for, yet they still want more money.

I finished the last year it was £3000 per year in 2009, yep interest free at the time but interest got magically added still paying it off. Christ knows how much people have been paying at £9000 a year and now this. Terrible. Yeah let’s rob people of the chance to get knowledge.

What's the point of raising the fee? Really? No one is going to pay off their student loans and then after 30 years, the debt gets wiped off. Is government just delaying the problem for 30 years down the line?

The loans actually punnish middle class people the most, if you are from a wealthy background and likely to pay of the debt you can pay it before the intrest accumilates and compounds, if you are on a low income you will likely never even dent it but if you are from a middle income background you wont have enough to pay it off before the compound intrest does its work but will have enough to be over the repayment threshold so that a substantial amount will be payed back.

And guess who dropped his pledge on university tuition fee? Hint: It rhymes with "Starver."

We already means test maintenance loans, why not means test tuition fees? Incentivize working class students, subsidise with international and well-off home students paying more

The state, It's agencies and universities have forgotten the utility of education can do for the nation

Very smart move since they are not longer receiving more foreigners students as they used to be it makes sense to increase the price for local students

A government is suppose to make people’s lives better! We live in barbaric times!

I think they introduced fees a couple of years before I went to uni. It was FREE! so it went from free to £3000 a year, then went to £9000 a year and now they want £15000 a year?!?! When it was FREE for decades. This country has fucked me and younger generations over since 2008 and I'm sick of it.

Wouldn't it make sense to make employers pay a percentage of income for all jobs that require a degree to fund universities similar to national insurance? The other way I could see it working is to swap the debt to a graduate tax that each UK citizen agree's to pay on all income, even if they leave the UK. The interest is so high on student debt because of how few will pay it off and the financialization of it. The UKs universities are one of our few remaining comparative advantages as a country and their mismanagement is shambolic.

If you study in Scotland it is free, if you live in Scotland three years before your course starts.

Brexit and the Tory parties immigration policy is what has caused this 🙄

In recent years the number of lecturers has increased by 50%, students by a similar amount, but administrative staff have increased 200%. Pretty clear how we can avoid needing this

This is the fee the universities are calling for. They don’t want UK students.

That is why the Open University was first designed by the Labour Party as Uni was too elitist.

The irony of being interviewed by St Andrews alumni for this topic

Given that many junior lecturers are on zero hour contracts and that a lot of classes are done by them and not senior professors. The question is where is the money being spent in Universities in the UK. I think there's a lot of administrative and management responsibilities on the higher cost burden.

I was the last year to get my fees paid for me. 1997-2001 back then, it was three thousand pounds a year. I did an MA, paying for it myself. If the fees were as high as they are now, I'd have a great deal of hesitation about doing a degree. It's worth remembering that now a lot of jobs require a degree that didn't back when I graduated in 2001. We also need a lot of people qualified to graduate level this is not the way to get them.

Person who is educated is a person who is free!

To the people saying that these loans will never be repaid, I don’t think the point is for it to be repaid (since plan 2 most will never be repaid). This is so the government can say it’s reducing costs (whilst also paying more in the long run) let’s not forget this is the party of PFI where we got £12bn and will end up paying £82bn back all so that years national accounts would look better…

Enoch Powell the second will be PM or DPM on this country. Shame!

Keep the commoners in the factories where they belong! Kieth Starver is not for the working class.

Schools with class sizes of 30 cost the state £5.8k per pupil. So it could be feasible to have teaching only universities with large class sizes which are chraper. But then we are back to a two tier system like the old polys.

It's also 7% interest so the interest will out strip any repayments you make.

Well, that's Tory Starmer for you.

The tax burden in high for lower earning people, very rich people pay basically no tax

The student loan book was sold off to a private company. That should never ever have been allowed. The fact that it starts to be paid off when earnings are £26,000 is a disgrace. Why do employers treat graduates as if they are school leavers. It’s a pittance. Who can even buy a property on a salary that low?

You don't pay a penny back til you start earning above the threshold! I went in 2011 and barely pay the interest, it's just an extra bit of tax that's taken off your income after uni. If uni will help you, don't let the fees stop you. But absolutely investigate other options that might help you more. 😊

Why tax our childred .

It’s definitely a deterrent

as much as it is bad to hike fees, this country needs to decide which degrees and unis are actually worth going to as most are useless, people forget that german unis are free but lots of people go into trade in their school system there as opposed to the uk

Like it used to be The government should put more money into real apprenticeships

Be like Scotland, strike on campus for free tuition.

Spend money on education, or having your arm tattooed? It's a difficult decision for a mental health student!

University SHOULD be for the most academically gifted, it should be free for poorer students, ranging to bloody expensive for wealthy people, quite a few low grade universities would either close or be repurposed. It should guarantee you, within reason, access to the upper echelons of professional life. However, university level education should be available via apprenticeship style programs, these of course would for subjects with practical applications, there should be clear and easy path from learning basic trades to advanced apprenticeships, for those that discover a good aptitude to learning Online education to diploma level should be either free or very cheap, for people wishing to change careers, or just for continuing education purposes.

does no one here understand that it's the universities and not the government that are proposing it?

Most students with 9k fees won’t pay it off anyway let alone 15k

All that debt to be a Starbucks barista or an activist....

Wont this just encourage UK students to go study in europe, making the unis even worse off?

It's not really a loan though, it's more of a graduate tax that you accept for getting financial support for your education. If I never pay off the loan before it's wiped, it wouldn't matter if I had £9, £9,000, or £90,000 debt left. It would only affect the most successful students.

Unpopular opinion: Just dont go to university. I know so many people with degrees they're not using its actually insane. I got an apprenticeship after high school and im years ahead of my sister who went to university despite being two years younger than her

I had mine up from £3k to £9k.

I only watched the start of the video, but i dont think this has any effect on most uni students. We're not going to pay off the loans as it is already, so increasing tuition fees will only act to increase the governments spending when handing out the loans. I believe the recent changes to the structure of repayments (40 years repayment, lower starting band) could have been put in place in order to afford the increased cost to the government.

lol international students might want a word...

But do we need so many students?

Go to uni to more than likely work in a supermarket or a building site

Sunlit uplands of Brexit Britain, where the streets are paved with gold, and there is a unicorn on every driveway.

It’s easy. Downgrade the polytechnics and FE colleges back to what they were and engage with big business to give them a real say in vocational courses so students come out with usable skills. Make the old universities funded by central government and limit the numbers so university education is a reward for academic excellence rather than a trade off for a lifetime of debt. It’s called investing in the future of the country. I’ve taught at university. They are under real pressure to accept absolutely anyone because they need the money. They then give almost anyone a degree because the quality of a university beyond the top 10-15 is measured by league tables and they need to show a high percentage of successful students in order to attract more students . I have friends who will only hire from a handful of universities because the majority produce dross and even the good ones require retraining, even the PhDs.

A lot of white collar jobs used to be available to A-level students. I think thats the direction we should go towards. Govenrment should incentivize companeis ro hire people st age of 18. Then you are earning and not piling up the debt

So glad i did a degree apprenticeship and got a free degree, bwat way to go these days.

Or you could pop over to Finland an not worry about it , in some cases they'll help with support , don't go to the US unless you want to triple your debt

The only way out is letting the market decide and having many unis just go bankrupt or merge so that then the gov has a viable reason to make it free and the gov will have the funding at least for then

Oh dear, how will Tabitha be able to have her uni 'life experience' and subsequent year out to tour the world?

at this point... will it make any difference? since it's impossible to pay off anyway for most people (mine is at 70k rn, not paid back a penny). they'll probably only get the extra money from rich kids whose parents pay upfront to avoid the interest so one could argue it's ironically a bit means tested

I make a top 20% salary and with the 7.3% (!) Interest on my (currently) 60k+ the mandatpry payments don't even cover half of interest So I guess graduate tax it is

Do students actually pay off all the debts or just a fraction of it 🤔 from what I've seen ie from The Russell Group lots of shinny new buildings, Nottingham is like studentsville so many new developments for student accommodation it's obviously where they are spending the money 💰 and VC salaries. I wouldn't be very happy if I am asked to pay more tax to bail out any university.

Disgraceful

whats david raya doing in this vid?

Proportional Fee Paying Systems NOW!

Dumb priveleged rich people pay for education .. Smart underprivileged poor people do not need to pay for 'Tickets' to be respected .. Life is Simply Nouse and Applying what you love about Yourself, your Heart or your gifted Brain to rise above money and addiction..

End of the freebie and bank of mum and dad. Smart money has shares in Andrex in the city of London 😊 cold firehose works wonders

Labour introduced Tuition Fees. This is what we have to do if university is to be for half the population. The solution is to scrap all the funding for joke postmodernist courses and critical theory etc, cancel loans to anybody earning a First in engineering etc. make university exclusive for smart people, Merit, Excellence and Intelligence instead of DEI ane Gender Studies

meh, once your not paying it back over your life of work what does it matter if its more expensive?

Isn’t capitalism great 👍🏻