There needs to be a middle somewhere, this is to much to fast.

Gregs point is fine, it's jamsie's i find insulting. Keep the rich rich and the poor poor by making university a place for people from rich, privileged backgrounds. Bluuurrrgh. Anyone should be able to go to university, even if the red bricks think it's a 'sh*t' degree in a 'sh*t' university.

True but the same valid arguement your presenting to get rid of the pension program to force feeble 65 + back into the work force, those feeble souils are presenting similar valid arguments why you should pay fees

the gov. needs money , do both bring in fees, bring up age of retirement.
sorted!

Yeah, apologies if it came across a bit offensive on you, to be fair i agree with what you're saying, and you were just addressing the point above. Just trying to point out that the facts are being twisted quite a bit in this case in that i think the government is still doing a fair bit to make sure that education is available to everyone - and our fees system is set up in that way too (and that hasn't changed with these increases)

No problem at all. Interesting to get to know the world outside your own country a bit for me. I saw about the riots on the news over here earlier and wondered what it was all about.

gargamel how come you speak, and more impressivly write such perfect english?

First of all, thanks 🙂

Hmm, we start studying it here at the age of 10 or so and I lived in Brighton for half a year when I was 20. Guess it also came natural to me.

I still miss the things people imply all the time, I guess you can never really learn to understand the small things as a foreigner. I've felt like an idiot on here more than once.

it's impressive. it's one thing undertsanding and speaking a language well but writing in that language so flawlessly from just learning it in school is impressive.

Thank you 🙂

me too, found that bit cocoon was saying interesting tho

im irish, would support the introduction of fees here

ya but so has fees been up till now, but clearly they cant afford it all so something had to give

(and no need to get into this know, but i would personally be against a welfare economy so id get rid of most of those things, but then thats just me!)

haha yeah, straying quite far into politics with that discussion i guess!

But yeah, i can see why they have made the increases, and i think the effect of these increases is largely being blown out of proportion.

Or worse West Ham United.

Oh wait, I have that burden. I think I may just go jump of a cliff.

Night Atilla.

ha ha

Yes, but it is also a bad thing, like other things, I don't know the full benefits of having a high level of Technology in the Economy, and to be fair to myself, I think I have a decent enough knowledge of the Government for my age.

The challenge is there for us to make good use of technology and find other ways to employ people.

We wouldn't want to the world to regress, would we.

Basically, how it is at the moment, you get a tuition fees loan and a maintenance loan.

Tuition fees loan obviously covers the fees and goes straight to the uni (at the moment is about 3k - and this is what they're increasing.)

You maintence loan is means tested, so everyone is entitled to something like 4k a year, but it can be more than that depending on your family's earnings.

So the fees increases will only affect what people pay back after graduating. At the moment people doing 3 year courses are coming out with about 21k to pay off, so this will probably rise to about 39k.

The way you pay it back is set to change too though, like at the moment you only start paying back your student loan once you're earning over 15k a year, and even on that the amount you pay is like £5 a month or something, and that increases as you earn more. With the new fees i think you only start paying back once you are earning more than 21k a year - and again what you pay back is basically nothing compared to what you're earning, so it's not like it makes much of a difference to most people really - everyone i know paying back loans say they barely notice it at all!

I see. Makes sense. Very interesting read.

Shouldn't really be that much of a problem then if you don't have to start repaying until you have a job that will let you. In Sweden we have to start repaying almost immediately after our studies are finished. Although if you can't you can't obviously.

I'll have about 25K to pay back when my ~4 year studies are over, but I'm not worried so I don't thing young Gregory needs to be either then.