£9,000 a year !!!!!

How on earth will parents be able to afford £9,000 per year tuition fees alone for university fees?

Parents don't pay it, as far as I'm aware it takes the form of a loan in the name of the student.
The government will lend students the money for fees, which will be paid back when they graduate and begin working. The fees will not have to be paid up-front.
The threshold at which graduates have to start paying their loans back will rise from £15,000 to £21,000. This will rise annually with inflation.
Each month graduates will pay back 9% of their income above that threshold.
The subsidised interest rate at which the repayments are made - currently 1.5% - will be raised. Under a "progressive tapering" system, the interest rate will rise from 0 for incomes of £21,000, to 3% plus inflation (RPI) for incomes above £41,000.
If the debt is not cleared 30 years after graduation, it will be wiped out.

basically echoing what troubles just said. i mean i can understand why students are disgruntled about the rise. i mean, nobody likes having debt looming over their heads and the fact that the generations before had free tuition. but what i haven't been able to get are the people who have said "they cant afford it" because as it has already been said, the students aren't expected to pay upfront. the system that there is currently remains exactly the same next year, its just that there will be more to pay off, but this doesn't need to be done until your earning more.

Yes, and as you and Trouble have said there has been a huge amount of mis information and media hype around these fees.

OK so there's so resentment that previous gennerations went to university for free BUT that was only a tiny minority of school leavers and only the very brightest and those for whom a unniversity place was likely to benefit the student.

Now we have a situation where all sorts of educational establishments have 'morphed' into unniversities and school leavers more or less 'expect' to get a place at 'unni'

Personally I'm hoping that there will be fewer school leavers going to unniversity and far more opting for apprenticeships and other types of 'on the job' trainning.

It's true that this requires employers to be more responsible and take in more apprentices which in recent times they have been reluctant to do, but in my view 'going to unniversity' is not the way for millions of just 'normal' kids to make their way in life, it should be only for the elite (and I'm using that word not in the snobbish way but meaning the top intellectual school leavers)

Yes, if you aspire to be a lawyer, barrister, scientist, you need to go to unniversity, doctors need to go to medical college, but if you're ambitions are in media, politics, business, agriculture, engineering, art, theatre, or virtually anything, why go to unniversity You'll have to work, you'll be tired at the end of the day, you'll need to get up early the next day (so no socialising in the student bar discussing how you're going to make the world better when you graduate ) and you might even have to study in your free time (i.e. the evenings) and pay tuition fees in advance But, you'll end up a million times better off than your school chums who opted for the easy route in unniversity and know nothing other than what their lecturers have taught them.

My experience in the last twenty or so years is that unniversity graduates that have come into departments I've been working in are very blinkered, they have no concept of the overall business, they may know about one aspect of engineering e.g. software, but have no knowledge of the equipment that the software runs on, they often have poor communication skills, and their English Language skills are terrible.

So, as I've said above, I'm hoping that there will be fewer school leavers applying for unniversity and more taking up an all round trainning with 'hands on' experience.

Its tripled what it used to be. This is before books, food, accommodation, cost of living etc. Its a horrendous amount of money to get in debt for. Its alnost telling youngsters its ok to live in debt

My elder brother had to delay early retirement until his children were through university & the fees were a lot less then

My OH's son dropped out of two different uni courses at different times and has the debt but no degree, the amount he pays back each month is minimal.
My youngest son's girlfriend finished uni in June, lived away from home so had to pay for food and accomodation etc., worked part time for the duration of the course and full time during the holidays, went on course related holidays which she had to pay for, has just come back from two weeks in Sri Lanka and has very little debt at all. Has worked in retail since finishing uni while applying for a multitude of jobs and has just been told her last interview was successful and is now waiting for a start date.

Because plenty of jobs within the arts and media industries will not take you on unless you have a degree or plenty of hands on experience. Then you can't get the experience because arts apprenticeships are few and far between.

It's all well and good saying that those interested in these fields should learn on the job and get apprenticeships instead of going to uni but the reality is that those apprenticeships just don't exist, at least not in the numbers needed. So then you're left with the issue of trying to get the job you want without a degree or any experience, competing against those who left uni two or three years ago who already have their degree and the information they learned on the degree. So not only are they better qualified but the employers then don't have to teach them all the basic info because they learned it while at uni. Whereas a school leaver has a lesser level of knowledge.

I'm an art student, starting at uni in September and believe me, I would much prefer to have an apprenticeship and to be gaining practical experience but the sad fact is that we have sent SO many students to university that now a degree is the norm and if you don't have one you're at a disadvantage. We can't combat that sort of issue within a year by just suddenly hiking up tuition fees, there has to be a realistic and well thought out structure in place to actually help those who don't go to uni so that they can get the experience they need to the career they want despite not having a degree.

In answer to the original thread, I agree that it is ridiculous that students will have to put themselves into so much debt to get into university but I do think there is a lot of scaremongering about. It won't really effect the family, just the student because the debt and the loans are in their name.

Surely this backs up my point, since he dropped out of not one but two uni courses surely there was something wrong with the admission process, there was a time when he would not have been able to get a unniversity place and don't you think he would have been better off if he hadn't gone gone to uni

At my school the teachers were not motivated by government inspired ratings systems to get every possible student a place at uni, they were more interested in being sure the student would complete the course and that it would be of benefit to him, so most of the boys in my year didn't go to uni but some of them have done exceeding well in life, one is now CEO of a multi national company.

My boyfriend had to pay £8k alone for just accomodation, and on top of that his student fees were £7-8k per year! That was BEFORE they put up the prices. This wasn't even a top rate uni like Oxford/Cambs/Imperial he went too either...

He is classed as an international student as he is from Channel Islands, and goverment doesn't give out student loans. Many people from there sadly can't afford to go to uni and therefor miss out, but the other half of the Islands are of wealthy people who can afford the cost of sending their kids to uni. Thankfully his parents were able to fund the course his BSc. He is now doing a masters which is around £12-15K for a year, but thankfully was able to get a bursary to cover most of this cost.

their are too many mickey mouse degrees

we need less people going to uni and more doing apprentices etc