[Closed] I just finished paying my student loan

Congrats, can i have a lion bar instead please 🤔.

Congrats.

I remember the first few years where being just over the threshold (with a perfectly normal graduate job so probably a fairly typical experience) meant that you paid out every month but the debt didn't decrease.

can i have a lion bar instead please

It's yours.

I bagsy the Picnic bar. Or the Toffee Crisp if there isn't a Picnic.

I'm waiting for mine to be written off at aged 50.
Sadly only got about 18 months left.

Never actually earnt over the threshold which is good, but obviously bad... 😕

I remember the first few years where being just over the threshold (with a perfectly normal graduate job so probably a fairly typical experience) meant that you paid out every month but the debt didn’t decrease.

Yeah, very frustrating!

Sadly, for those (currently) under the age of about 30, this is quite likely to be the experience for most of their working life. Due to the inflation rate this year, anyone with the average student loan of £45,000 will need to earn somewhere in the region of £87,000 just to cover the interest 🙁

(That will probably ease off again next year tho)

So I can't really whinge too much!

Very similar to me Kayak23, ~20 months until written off, only very rarely after moderate overtime weeks have I paid any off.

Congratulations! It's a nice feeling isn't it?
I paid mine off two years ago, well worth it as the money i saved each month has been paying off my new bike ever since!

when I had mine, I'd not started to pay it off until probably about 2008. this was from my undergrad I finished in 1996. The threshold for payment increased annually, just above my pay.

Wasn't really much thankfully as back then we had grants and I'm not a drunken socialite.

Remember kids: don’t follow your dreams. Get a sensible job. The middle-aged you will thank you for it.

You won't even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days. It's not a good thing (in my opinion) but education is no longer about the requirements for work or life, but has become a a marker to separate you from others in the job market, usually for a job that is below what you think your education deserves.

I left school at 16, and now at 50 I don't have any serious option to leave the job I have, as there is absolutely no way I could get anything close to it because I don't have a degree.

I'd be happy with a penguin btw

You won’t even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days.

Not sure that is 100% true. I moved jobs in Oct (aged 47). I left school after A-levels and have no degree. The role specified a degree but speaking to the recruiter they said it really didn't matter when you have a 30year record and it was not mentioned in the interview. Sure if I was looking to start a new job in an area where I had no history I could understand a degree might be looked for but many employers are also looking for practical experience.

You won’t even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days

My lad's girlfriend is on a £25k pa apprenticeship with IBM while he's coming to the end of his first year at uni racking up debt. She gets a £5k payrise in September for finishing the first year.

I've told him she's a keeper.

Seriously, it was an issue. I did really well in the 90s with no degree but worked my way up to a decent management position by the time I was 30 - got made redundant after a takeover, relocated to follow the now MrsMC and couldn't get an interview for anything comparable as I hadn't got a degree, but kept being rejected for lower level roles as they told me they assumed I'd be looking to move on and up again.

So I did a part time degree while doing customer service jobs and it's been **** all use since, frankly.

I think for youngsters now, apprenticeships can offer a very valid alternative to degrees and not going to uni is less of a barrier than it was.

If you can cope with the bureaucracy, literally, the public sector isn't a bad place to work and develop without a degree, at any age.

Utter tosh! My fella worked for the AA for 12 years, when he decided he'd had enough of working all weathers and days of the year he binned it one day at 5pm and by lunch the next day he had a new job. Same happened again when we moved and he got sick of the commute and 50 hour weeks, half a day later he got a new job and is on a healthy £38k a year. It's the most infuriating thing ever but turns out some skills are much needed and sought after!

Hurrah!
I got a student loan the first year they came out. 4/500£. I went to Egypt for a month and Reading Festival.
Friends kids who didn't go to Uni and did modern apprenticeships are the ones buying houses, amongst my friends anyway.

We'll done!

I am not sure uni offers value anymore either unless you are going to be a doctor or similar. Even if you do a good degree at a good uni you still have to get a really good job and progress well for it to be worthwhile and then you are trapped in some corporate hell.

Sadly, for those (currently) under the age of about 30, this is quite likely to be the experience for most of their working life.

Repayments were all-or-nothing in my day, so once you were over the threshold that was it, you paid back. Now, the repayments are progressive, and if you just go over the threshold you only pay a small amount. It's a better system, tbh (although still utterly shit that we. have to pay at all) and it's not really onerous, in my view. Yes, it's debt, but debt is only bad when it's really difficult to pay back; and in this case it shouldn't be. It's only a number, really.

I think for youngsters now, apprenticeships can offer a very valid alternative to degrees and not going to uni is less of a barrier than it was.

I agree, they are pretty good and a better system than sending 50% of people to uni, I think.

I dunno, I imagine it's good if you want to be an engineer or accountant or something too. That stuff can't really be faked, and I doubt people learn how to engineer steel rope in their spare time, in the same way that they might learn to code.

But despite a *cough* prestigious degree in Music, Acoustics and Recording, I never started making enough to pay back my loan until I sacked it off and got a job in a completely unrelated field, for which my main qualification was that I wrote a tolerably popular blog. I'm not entirely sure what the lesson is here

I left school at 16, and now at 50 I don’t have any serious option to leave the job I have, as there is absolutely no way I could get anything close to it because I don’t have a degree.

Same as my wife but she's 54, seems to manage to get sensible jobs no problem & get reasonably well rewarded for them too.

It’s a better system, tbh (although still utterly shit that we. have to pay at all) and it’s not really onerous, in my view. Yes, it’s debt, but debt is only bad when it’s really difficult to pay back; and in this case it shouldn’t be. It’s only a number, really.

I do actually agree, and I think the current repayment threshold for Type 2 loans of around £27K is really quite reasonable. Although it must be fairly dispiriting to earn that much and see your loan balance increasing by £2000 a year.

I read that the fairest way to increase repayment amounts in a progressive way would be to dramatically increase both the loan amounts and the repayment threshold. So people on the average wage would pay nothing, higher earners would pay more. But the optics of gigantic student debts mean this is somewhat politically unpalatable.

Those who decided student loans were a good idea will be my age. I got a full grant and could claim housing benefit (I'd get back almost all my rent from the LA). I could also sign on over the summer holidays. I finished 3 years owing £100 (all beer based).

Drawbridge well and truly pulled up afterwards.

I got a student grant. If id had to take loans, i wouldnt have went to Uni.

People shouldn't be put off by the fact you have to borrow money. It's not like normal borrowing, so it's not really bad.

All my loans were written off last autumn, been 25 years since my final year.
I paid maybe 2 payments.

People shouldn’t be put off by the fact you have to borrow money. It’s not like normal borrowing, so it’s not really bad.

It's still an extra 9% tax though. Given that some people are upset enough about the 40% tax rate, you can see why they'd be put off by the prospect of 49%. Especially as (since 2012) just being a top rate taxpayer is not necessarily enough to repay the loan.

I got a student loan and hb, sandwich course so my work placements paid pretty well. No debt at end. Got a fab summer job at end and paid for a post grad year in London.

Not doable now, a year in London has to be 30k min, no way can a student summer job bring in 30k, legally.

You won’t even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days. It’s not a good thing (in my opinion) but education is no longer about the requirements for work or life, but has become a a marker to separate you from others in the job market, usually for a job that is below what you think your education deserves.

I left school at 16, and now at 50 I don’t have any serious option to leave the job I have, as there is absolutely no way I could get anything close to it because I don’t have a degree.

Interesting. I found the opposite. I've got a BSc in Physics and it's been of absolutely no value whatsoever at any stage in my career.

It’s still an extra 9% tax though.

Erm, no it's not. Unless you're earning an infinite salary at least....
At which point it's kinda moot 😁

Finished uni in 2006, did not graduate. Only took 2 years worth of loans though (with hindsight I would have been better taking 3 years loans and not had to work so hard to be able to afford to drink eat, then actually being able to pass said degree. Thanks for the tip, parents…)

Managed to get jobs since, one I was with so long I paid off my load in 2019, thanks to them making me redundant, but was a rather specific job that I’ve struggled to get into at other places, despite 12 years doing it, as no degree, but I’m still trying.

It’s still an extra 9% tax though.

Yes, and it's effectively a tax not a loan. You are not actually liable for the money you borrow, unlike other types of loan. They aren't going to come round and take your car and your TV if your income drops. It's not going to make you bankrupt.

Spinning through the comments I don't get how people have got away with not their student loan for so long? I started work a few months after uni and instantly started paying it off. I think it took me about 8-10years to pay it off.

Top humblebrag 😃

Mine was of the type once you started past the threshold it was a 5yr repayment plan. You got the chance to defer once a year if your income had dropped. Threshold was pretty low from memory. £16k a year maybe? 2000ish.

spent my first one on a muddy fox atb and a kayak.

Those who decided student loans were a good idea will be my age. I got a full grant and could claim housing benefit (I’d get back almost all my rent from the LA). I could also sign on over the summer holidays. I finished 3 years owing £100 (all beer based).

Drawbridge well and truly pulled up afterwards.

Quite the opposite actually. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, about 15% of young people went to uni - now it's 50%.

Mine was of the type once you started past the threshold it was a 5yr repayment plan. You got the chance to defer once a year if your income had dropped. Threshold was pretty low from memory. £16k a year maybe? 2000ish.

Huh, dunno what that was. I graduated in 2001 with what we now call a 'type 1 loan'. The repayment threshold at that time was £10K, and it's now around £19K.

But if you dropped below the threshold you stopped paying, it was and is all PAYE based.

I wonder... if one were to wait it out until it gets written off at the age of 50. Could you go back to Uni as a mature student and get another? Obviously to be written off at the age of 100.

I was on the old system so had to start paying from day 1 when I graduated and started work (2002). 5x student loans paid off in seven years. It was a big wack of my take home at the start, not as bad by year 7. And then done!

I must have had a type0 then. Graduated in 98. Pre tuition fees etc. was about £5k all in

Yes, and it’s effectively a tax not a loan.

People keep trotting that out as if it's a good thing, but I see it the other way - it means you can never get out from under it.

Quite the opposite actually. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, about 15% of young people went to uni – now it’s 50%.

I was referring to the grants rather than the access.

There is always the risk that a future government will do something crazy with the loans system because they failed to comprehend not enough people would be paying them off.

The numbers they are pushing through university are too high for individual capability though. The process convinces many people that they are something they are not capable of. Given the widespread lack of engagement I witnessed, for education to be transformative and fulfill the Education Act (if the candidate would benefit from HE, they should be given opportunity to do so) then the door swings both ways.

Ps. With the overall cost of university, and the minimal cost of essay writers (from essays to dissertations), it's obvious to see why there is widespread fraud nowadays. They've tuned it into a consumer product.

I count myself as extremely lucky - I graduated in 1999, so got a modest grant and didn’t have to pay tuition fees.

Having said that, I deliberately chose a uni where I wouldn’t be crippled by the cost of living, and I worked every hour I could in sainsburys during the holidays to try to earn enough to last me through the next term.

As a result, I only left with about 3k of debt.

I am under absolutely no illusion that, if I’d been faced with the prospect of going to Uni a few years later, the thought of leaving with 20k+ of debt probably would have prevented me from going.

In fact, not probably, it definitely would:
I got accepted onto a 2 year masters after Uni, which basically would have guaranteed me a job as an environmental health officer (I know, I was young and stupid… it sounded like a good idea to 21 year old me). I added up what it would have costed me: nearly 30k, and compared that to the starting salary and earning potential of the role, and it just didn’t make sense.

Best decision I ever made.

Agree about apprenticeships.
In the old job when talking to students about job/ uni options, I always told them get an apprenticeship and get paid to go to uni if you can.

Trouble with that is apprenticeship wages are terrible (if the employer sticks to the minimum) but if they can tough it out there is usually a good job and salary at the end.

I’ve got a BSc in Physics and it’s been of absolutely no value whatsoever at any stage in my career.

People see physics and realise immediately you are a total weirdo?

(manages 40 physicists and engineers and accepts this is only partly true 😉 )

The repayment conditions are about to get worse: lowering the income threshold, extending the time until it's written off, and increasing the interest rate.

The average graduate will pay back a huge amount more.

From memory, average debt is £45k and currently average total repaid is £48k. That's about to increase to £100k.

I’ve got a BSc in Physics and it’s been of absolutely no value whatsoever at any stage in my career.

Maybe you just don't realise the advantage it actually infers. With so many jobs now going through agency's and "sites" one of the first ways of dividing applications before a human even reads them is just to bin any where the applicant doesn't have a degree.

We have just replaced a guy in our team, same level as me, one of the requirements was a degree in a science or technology subject. That is now common, it clearly isn't really a requirement for the job on a practical level, but is just a way of separating CV's without having to read 100's and make human judgements.

Maybe you just don’t realise the advantage it actually infers. With so many jobs now going through agency’s and “sites” one of the first ways of dividing applications before a human even reads them is just to bin any where the applicant doesn’t have a degree.

That's just lazy hirers. Writing a person spec is a pain in the arse and in many cases the hirer doesn't have a clear scope for what's expected of the hirer due to abstract ways in which people are promoted to management. Rare(but not impossible) they have the soft skills and the technical ability to do both. So don't always know what the job they are hiring for is....I've seen people who are leaving being asked to write the person spec for the replacement. It's grim

I've just done an employment run and it was degree in X or 8years experiance in relevent field(engineering or maths/comp science) and I interviewed a number of non degree holders due to nature(operational) of the role experiance was king.

But agree with above if I was doing it again I'd go apprenticeship route...but **** me those are not 10 a penny these days - and have a high throughput we have 3 apprenticeship positions(a relatively new thing for the company) and rarely have the apprentices make it to the end before moving to higher paid jobs (and we don't pay the min) ..... We have one who's completed it. Gone on to get a job with us and we are paying for his degree now.

So if you stick it out they can be advantageous.

That’s just lazy hirers

Yes it is, but they often don't have much choice. People are (or were) receiving hundreds of applicants for jobs, in my industry anyway, and it'd take far too long to properly assess each of them.

Full disclosure: I got a third, which as any fule recruiter kno is as bad as basically no degree at all.

I got a Desmond. Not ashamed.

Yes it is, but they often don’t have much choice. People are (or were) receiving hundreds of applicants for jobs, in my industry anyway, and it’d take far too long to properly assess each of them

Yeah we do use a recruitment agent to get round that and in fairness they have been very good. I find the degree or X years sets the expectation of relevent experiance stops the new grads applying thinking having a degree means no experiance needed - that or because of it they don't get through the screening. (We also operate a graduate scheme to get the new grads into the system I'm not totally blinkered to the fact we have to bring them in and upskill them )

I was in the first batch of student loans 30 odd years ago. If I recall it was about £800 a year and I paid it back at £14 a month 😆

Fast forward 30 yrs and I went back into FT education (turns out it was not required due to another career shift), and I think I’ve correctly worked out with thresholds I’ve got to pay back over £100 a month until I’m well into care home territory. And that is with a modest amount - no where near £40k.

I got a third as well.
Doesn't seem to have done me any harm.

Most of the guys who have worked for me over the last 15 years have masters degrees and PhDs. And a lot more student debt than I had. (Many of them graduated before me, and technically have more experience.)

As for lazy hirers, my place decided to sack off the recruitment company they used for external hires in technical roles after a number of extremely well qualified and experienced candidates that were known to the hiring manager didn't even get through the first sort.
So now, part of the hiring process is an extra allocated budget and hours for the hiring manager and team to do the process themselves. (Anonymised CVs though)
Much cheaper and we get much better candidates too.

I got a Desmond. Not ashamed

Me too, a drinkers degree

Hasn’t held me back at all - I’m fact I don’t think I’ve ever been asked, and I work in a field directly related to my degree

I too got a Desmond/drinkers/sportsman's

If I hadn't been a borderline alcoholic mountain biker who almost failed his second year due to a bout of flu I'd have never have done the masters I did which led to the career I had now.

The EU EPSRC fully funded my masters fees as well, and gave me a spectacular cost of living grant that I spent a chunk of on a really nice bike.

Paid off my loan in 2018ish, spent the saving on new doors and windows on interest free credit. That's almost paid of now, so time to do the same for the rest of the house.

If I was going to uni now, I probably wouldn't, as the fees are insane.

Do we need 50% of children to to to univ?
In the 1960s when it was 10% we could design and build our own nuclear power, supersonic airliners etc.

But if we do and it benefits those who go then the cost being paid by the 50% who benefit seems fair enough.

The repayment conditions are about to get worse: lowering the income threshold, extending the time until it’s written off, and increasing the interest rate.

Worth unpicking into two separate sets of changes:

Plan 2 borrowers (entrants from 2012 up to next year) will see interest rates go up massively in September due to them tracking RPI, and the repayment threshold will be frozen at its current level of £27,295 up to April 2025. But the loan term will remain at 30 years until any unpaid debt is written off.

New borrowers from September 2023 onwards will have a repayment threshold of £25k, a loan term of 40 years, but their interest rates will be lower than Plan 2 ones:a steady RPI+0% instead of, for Plan 2, RPI+3% in-study and RPI+0-3% variable after study depending on salary.

David Willets really did invent the most complicated loan product in existence.

From memory, average debt is £45k and currently average total repaid is £48k. That’s about to increase to £100k.

Off on debt repaid (unless that £48k figure is maybe in cash rather than real terms? I know Money Week published some absolute garbage analysis of all this). The average forecast lifetime repayments across the total cohort of September 2023 entrants is £25,300 in current prices - see Table 22:

Whole Uni system is ****ing stupid.

Government should just give people their house deposit instead but make them build their own house after 1 yr of free training. People could then have a trade as a career after rather than a barista studies degree.

Easy to laugh but then think how many epic cottages in the country were built by peasants 100’s of years ago. Now compare that to what the talented so called architects are knocking together for affordable housing.

I too got a Desmond/drinkers/sportsman’s

If I hadn’t been a borderline alcoholic mountain biker who almost failed his second year due to a bout of flu I’d have never have done the masters I did which led to the career I had now.

Are you me?? (although it was Glandular Fever in my case). Desmond here, failing upward ever since 🙄

Celebrating paying off my loan this month, wife already planning a new extension 😖

Did you realise when you went to uni that you would have a job that pays below the threshold for repayment for the term of the loan?

If you did that is a very smart move.

Easy to laugh but then think how many epic cottages in the country were built by peasants 100’s of years ago.

Think of how many of them fell down 100s of years ago or were pulled down because they were shit. Oh wait, you don't know, cos they're not here any more, it's called selection bias. Don't get me started on this.. most of the stuff you see now probably wasn't the 'affordable' end of the market...

Also, they didn't just throw their own houses up, they got people who knew what they were doing to build them, so basically architects of old. Architects have been around since ancient Egypt.

I was in the first year to pay fees and get no grant, 1998. I think I borrowed £18k in total. I finally paid it back in 2018, about a decade after my friends. I have a job in academia but I wasted my BSc, and thus my money. My dad gave me the equivalent of the loan, and I worked, so I must have wasted a very get deal (getting wasted...). Oh, and I bought a paramotor.

Well, LittleMissMC - age 15, Year 9 - unexpectedly announced last night that Cern do degree apprenticeships for physics researchers and she's maybe going to look into that after A levels.

A student loan may be cheaper 🤣 Though she if she did it, she'd finally get one up on her big brother.

NPL have a good A level apprentice program if she was interested in quantum science or atomic clocks (and other things). Not exactly the same as CERN, but might be interesting for her?

People shouldn’t be put off by the fact you have to borrow money. It’s not like normal borrowing, so it’s not really bad.

many people will be and are MRsTJ would never have gone to university if it had been loan based

many people will be and are MRsTJ would never have gone to university if it had been loan based

I know. But it's a mistake, in my opinion, and it would be a shame not to go just to avoid the graduate tax. In fact, if they had simply called it that instead of 'student loan' it would be far less detrimental.

Mrs Grips deals with many people who are put off by that level of debt, but they have no idea how the repayment works and that it is nothing like other debts; and when it's explained they are relieved and much more positive about going to uni. Calling it a loan is also discriminatory against Muslims.

Don't get me wrong, I do not endorse the system and all education should be free as long as you want it, but it is not worth abandoning your education over.

NPL have a good A level apprentice program if she was interested in quantum science or atomic clocks (and other things). Not exactly the same as CERN, but might be interesting for her?

Thanks, we'll look into it.

Quite the opposite actually. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, about 15% of young people went to uni – now it’s 50%.

So?

I'm with the poster you were responding to - ladder pulled up.

Folk my age and above (late 50's) could also sign on during the summer 'holidays' once they'd hit 16, or work. It meant that we weren't dependent on our parents and gave us far more flexibility & freedom.

Nephew graduated in chemistry related degree then went home to the far east for holiday and got stuck there for 2 years. Now back in London searching for job. I think there are certain jobs that need a degree more than others ...

Calling it a loan is also discriminatory against Muslims.

Loan with no interest is fine but if the strict code of conduct is applied then I think the entire banking system might be haram too.

Folk my age and above (late 50’s) could also sign on during the summer ‘holidays’ once they’d hit 16, or work. It meant that we weren’t dependent on our parents and gave us far more flexibility & freedom.

This x100.
So much has changed for young people these days. Working at anything before 16 is almost impossible due to the regulations on when and how much under 16s can work (unless your family has a business where the rules are more relaxed...) Most places won't take on people this age due to all the restrictions (and those that will are often those who are willing to ignore the restrictions, plus other regulations like H&S etc).

Apprenticeships are great, but most of the ones advertised are not degree level. Those that are degree ones are very sought after and/or very career specific. Great if you want to be an engineer or police officer, less so if you don't know what your career path is yet. Also plenty of the so called training schemes that aren't actually apprenticeships are close to scams - they take you on, train you in some basic skills, and then hold you hostage for a year or two by threatening to reclaimt he inflated costs of the training if you leave. Also without parental support how are you suppoed to live on the apprentice minimum wage of £4.30?

That brings me to the (mistaken) view that the only worth of a degree is in earning lots of money. Plenty of careers are in my view valuable, but not high paying (I was fuming at the recent government advert that the ballerina needed to get a job in cyber, as if being an artist is not valuable). Degrees not only provide skills related to the subject, but many transferable ones too - writing, critical thinking, presentation etc. They also provide a space for young people to grow up and learn life skills likes how to budget etc.

The whole purpose of student loans was to get the costs of grants off the government books, and I suspect to reduce the numbers going to university, as better educated people tend to be more critical of government policy (and often not vote conservative - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-education-effect/)

But it’s a mistake, in my opinion, and it would be a shame not to go just to avoid the graduate tax.

Working class woman first of her family to go to university with a huge familial aversion to debt because of living thru hard times. Its perfectly understandable and the loans system makes it much harder for folk in her position to go to university

That brings me to the (mistaken) view that the only worth of a degree is in earning lots of money. Plenty of careers are in my view valuable,

Mrs TJ spent her working life working for CABs and the like including training folk. I don't think she ever reached average income despite her law degree

The whole purpose of student loans was to get the costs of grants off the government books,

and replaced by non-paid loans (at a far greater value no doubt, until they change the payment 'terms'...)

I understand that people are put off, that's a huge problem, but:

Its perfectly understandable and the loans system makes it much harder for folk in her position to go to university

Honest question - why so? Under the current system you are protected from having to make repayments if you don't earn enough.

Degrees not only provide skills related to the subject, but many transferable ones too – writing, critical thinking, presentation etc. They also provide a space for young people to grow up and learn life skills likes how to budget etc.

Fully agree. We should have a system for doing this that doesn't necessarily involve a degree. University is amazing, why is it only open to those with good academic skills?

Was "loan" the reason your parents hid behind the sofa when there was a knock on the door, or was it the reason they got a shiny new german car every 3 years?
Your parents economic status is going to affect how you see any sort of borrowing.

Honest question – why so?

Because if you come from a background where money is tight and debt is never taken on those things never leave you. Unless you have been there its hard to understand. I accepted this about her but with my background couldn't understand it. No debt was a fundamental part of who she was. She was far from alone in this. I know of others. To her taking on debt was putting you in a position that she was afraid she could never recover from financially.

Everyone is a product of their upbringing and to her loans were a way into poverty for ever

also there is nothing to say the terms will not be changed in future

So much has changed for young people these days. Working at anything before 16 is almost impossible due to the regulations on when and how much under 16s can work (unless your family has a business where the rules are more relaxed…) Most places won’t take on people this age due to all the restrictions (and those that will are often those who are willing to ignore the restrictions, plus other regulations like H&S etc).

Yes and no - eldest had a week day paper round from 14-18, paid around £20 a week, at 15 he got paid for an hour a week to help set up and pack away at the music centre he played at, at 16 he got his first paying gig as a pit musician for a local theatre company, about £50 a night. He's coming to the end of his first year at uni and looking at summer school jobs at uni or coming home and getting a local factory/warehouse job which a couple of his mates did last summer.

Daughter is 15, she now does the music centre job her brother did, she did her first paid gymnastic coaching in the last school holidays, a couple of her friends have already got jobs in local cafes.

There certainly seems to be less retail or labouring work compared to 35 years ago when I was their age, but there are jobs out there.

I agree with TJ though, to some people the idea of "debt" is total anathema.

Everyone is a product of their upbringing and to her loans were a way into poverty for ever

Precisely why calling it a loan is a bad idea.

(Slightly back to the OP)

I just finished paying mine off as well - sent my folks a text with a callback to a postcard that used to sit on a corkboard in our kitchen (pic below) saying "I no longer fear the burly men with jumpleads knocking on the door". Needless to say I got a very confused response from my mum and had to remind her what the hell I was going on about...

That is dark.

Precisely why calling it a loan is a bad idea.

Thats what it is tho. Its a debt that will hang over you for decades.