Very n/b rant

[TheBoatman]

Background.
Last daughter is heading for Uni this month. Circumstances dictate that she won’t get any help with fees apart from normal tuition fees, we pay the rest.
We, wife and I, have decided that we don’t want our daughter leaving Uni with huge dept hanging over her so we are going to finance her.
For the past 2 months almost every week she receives a “Support Request Form” with a covering letter saying that her request to take up a loan has not been received or that the form was filled in in-correctly. She became so concerned that she handed the problem over to me.

What Happened.

On the form there is a number for you to contact if you have any questions. This I did (or should I say tried too). I must have dialled the number a 100 times before I eventually got through to a recorded message saying all lines were busy and I was “in the queue”. When I finally got to speak to a human (some 11 mins 38 secs later) the conversation went something like this,
Me.
Hello I’m the father of Miss X and I have a question that needs answering.
Them.
Sorry sir we can’t talk to you, only your daughter.
Me.
Hold on a minute, she’s asked me to speak to you about these “support request forms” you keep sending.
Them.
OK but we can’t divulge any info about your daughter’s loan.
Me.
She hasn’t got a loan, in fact she doesn’t want one, I’m going to support her. Why do you keep sending these forms, have we missed something, do we need to fill it in for some other reason.
Them.
Oh sir these forms are generated automatically if a student doesn’t ask for a loan, the only way to stop them is for your daughter to apply for a “zero” loan.
Me.
Your joking me, you mean to say that the only way you will stop sending these forms is if my daughter applies for a zero loan.
Them.
Yes sir that should stop it.
Me.
Do you realise that my daughter is really wound up about these forms; she thought that she “had” to apply because of the content of your accompanying letter.
Them.
Sorry it’s a standard letter sent to every student.
Me.
OK, I’ll get her to apply for a zero loan. BYEEEEE.

Conclusion
If it is this government’s policy to send/bombard such letters/forms out encouraging all students to take out a loan, I for one am totally appalled that we should treat our youngsters this way. Why are they so intent on generating a young population that is starting their working lives with such a huge dept hanging over them?

I give up!




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[Benbow]

I may be wrong about this, but isn't the loan interest free ? In which case if you take it, stash it somewhere, and repay all at the end of the course, don't you win the interest ???




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[StugeronSteve]

We told our son to take out the loans and , provided he keeps himself free from overdraft and trouble, we will pay them off when he graduates. We have made sure that we have put the appropriate cash away in an ISA each year and, even with the recent pathetic interest rates, have so far been in profit.

It's cheap money ring them back and say that their persistence has persuaded you.

Steve.

<hr width=100% size=1>Think I'll draw some little rabbits on my head, from a distance they might be mistaken for hairs.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

H'mm, so I, a taxpayer, am funding repeated sending of a letter your daughter neither wants nor needs, but must return, saying "I don't want one".

Makes £20 for a radio license look like plain common sense.

<hr width=100% size=1>Two beers please, my friend is paying.

 

[Ohdrat]

Admittedly I went thro' Uni when grants were still to be had but I remember working my but off at nights in bars and restaurants and thro' much of the hols to stay solvent.. which contrasts with somebody from the previous generation who went travelling to far flung places on the "remains" of their grant.. we seem to have swung from one extreme to the other..

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[jhr]

You probably won't agree with me about this, but I think you should get her to apply for a loan. The Student Loan interest rates are extremely low - far lower than the rate you would get on a loan from your bank - and you might as well "borrow" the money via her, with you making the repayments, rather than either paying extortionate interest to your bank, or dipping into your hard earned savings.

I agree that it's wrong for the Government to encourage students to take out loans, and I think it is terrifying that the average Graduate comes out of university with debts of £12,000.00, but I still reckon that's what you should do - I'm afraid that I will, when the time comes for my 2 kids to go to Uni.

[Edit: beaten to it, by several others - which just goes to show that we're all correct!]

<hr width=100% size=1>Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jhr on 09/09/2004 14:31 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Sans Bateau]

This total waste of public money, that is the sending of the form only being stopped by a zero application, is not restricted to this (governmet dept?).

As a director of a company I still have to complete a self assesment tax return, every year I get a tax demand with envelope for payment and explanetary leaflet. How many directors in the country?

S'posse it keeps some government muppet in a job at our expense

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[snowleopard]

it's not the government that makes the system send out these letters but crap IT system designers. i guess the idiot generation who produced threats for non-payment of zero gas bills have been hounded out of the commercial sector and found sanctuary (asylum?) in the public sector.

the hectoring tone of the letters is down to civil servants who, as we all know, are neither civil nor servant.

blame the government for the whole loans policy. incidentally i hear that they are talking about raising the interest rate on loans, presumably to catch those who take the loan then re-invest at a profit.

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[tcm]

Re: yep

ING pays quite decent rate for taxxpayers so shd get 5% gross. I wd apply for £1million at least, sling it in the ING account, get £almost 40k a year which shd cover quite lot of books and beer. Bet yiou aren't allowed to apply for this much tho...

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[StugeronSteve]

Has Crapita got something to do with this I wonder.

<hr width=100% size=1>Think I'll draw some little rabbits on my head, from a distance they might be mistaken for hairs.

 

[dom]

Re: yep

I think the interest rate applicable to the loan is inflation currently about 3%. Additionally one is only allowed something like £5k a head per year so probably not worth the hassle.

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[tcm]

Re: ah but

is the loan repayable if the student graduates and gets a job overseas? In thiose circumstances the position is to increase the attraction of working overseas - encouraging a brain-drain, it seems.

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[Will]

The low level of interest charged does make a Student Loan very tempting, and I know that I couldn't have managed without one. It's rent that's the killer - in my case it was around £280 a month on average, and because of the demand for student housing, there was no choice other than being stuck in a 12 month contract. It's hard to find £60 a week from overdrafts!

Back to the point though, which is that the majority of students that I knew, on a variety of courses, could easily find time for part-time employment. Like a fool, I didn't bother in my first year, other than during the holidays, and took out a loan instead. I could so easily have worked - we're not talking a 40 hour week, but just to make enough to equal the value of the loan. I rectified this over the following years, and had a much better time because of it (largely because I could spend my earnings on booze without feeling guilty. Not that I actually ever remember feeling guilty about investing wisely in beer). And no, I don't think it is detrimental to the degree workload, at least not judging by the results of most of my friends. If anything, it makes you a bit more organised with your time.

It irritated me at the time, and it still irritates me now that there were copious numbers of the perhaps stereotypical student, who were quite content to sit on their arse all day, drink all evening, go to a lecture once in a blue moon, and yet summon uo incredible levels of energy to whine about lack of cash and accumulating debt. My advice, for what it's worth, would be to let your kids make their own way up the steep financial learning curve that University will present them with, but to keep an eye on the situation and if possible to bale them out yourself if necessary, rather than letting a credit card company do it instead.

I hope this doesn't seem like a rant, but I kind of wish that somebody had given me this advice when I was first at Uni. Whether I'd have taken any notice of course, is quite a different matter...



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[tcm]

This good stuff, will.

However, i say that the aim of university (originally) was somehting like the pursuit of excellence for it's own sake - not a growing-up or life experience for half the population. Managing yourself/time/money is all well and good, but not all courses wd allow time for working as well - i did mech eng and started with 30 hours of lectures so working during term time was impossible - tho i did work outside term time.

Intresting to hear that student acom. is "nailed down" these days with 12month contracts.

I do remember the occassional students that hardly ever did much work but v vocal regarding debt - i seem to remeber they were doing er politics...

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[Will]

Yes, but...

A truly vocational course will indeed have 30 hrs of lectures a week. I had around 24 on average, which is not a great deal, admittedly. However, I suspect that students with lectures, seminars etc adding up to 30 hrs are the exception. Certainly there is no shortage of those with 4-5 hours a week. It seemed to me that these were the guys who lazed around. A gross generalisation? Maybe, but perhaps a degree course of this nature is more common now than it was 20 years ago. I don't honestly know. But the reality is that at least half of the students at my university did seem to have plenty of time on their hands, despite keeping up with their work and attending all lectures. If they chose to do nothing with this time other than socialise, drink, smoke, sh*g or whatever, yet whine about a post-uni debt, then I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy.

Blimey, I only graduated a couple of years ago, and already an old git look. Soon as I say "bloody students," somebody please shoot me.

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[duncan]

if you let IT guys do the business requirements you are of course going to get these things happening !.../forums/images/icons/smile.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>madesco madidum ..../forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[flaming]

I graduated this year. In my opinion everyone sending their kids off to uni should seriously examine their (and their offspring's) motives for going. Most people will sight getting a degree as the reason that overides all others. And most people want a degree in order to get a better job.

It's perfectly possible to get a degree for absolute pennies if you have to. All the student has to do is not go out, not drink, not play any sport or do anything with societies, live in the worst housing in the UK, well, you get the picture.

However, with the number of graduates increasing year on year just having a degree is simply not enough. These days employers are looking for more than a bit of paper that says degree on it, they want a more well rounded person, not just a library dweller.
It is very safe to say that I did not get my current graduate job with my degree, I got it because of the experience all the opertunities I took whilst I was at uni gave me.


So my advice to all starting uni, and their parents, is to spend money, but spend it wisely. Don't just go out every night and come home in a shopping trolley, but spend money on the vast range of oppertunities presented to students at university. Don't worry about the debt. In my opinion it will more than pay for itself.



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[Benbow]

That is very true. The governments bizzare and irrational approach to geting more people into University has massively devalued a degree.

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[Sybarite]

" If you think education is expensive, try ignorance...." (President of Harvard)

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[sailorman]

if i sign-up for V.H.F. course can i get an interest free student loan????>

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