I think these fees are a joke. In short, the coalition has gifted students billions of pounds and are getting stick for it. Mr General Taxpayer is going to cop for it all. Rather than rewriting my argument again, I’ll include a correspondance I had with an old teacher of mine about the fees issue and the letter I wrote to my MP.
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Hi John
Here is my letter to my MP that I wrote. I double checked the facts about the tax relief and I am wrong about that but still, these loans are a gift. You really should telling your students that might be considering not going to university because of the costs that its all media hype. No student pays up front fees and only people on more than £21K will ever have to pay a penny back. Its a one way bet paid for by the taxpayer.
regards
Ben
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Friday 10 December 2010
Dear Paul Blomfield,
I am writing to you about my disgust about the new tuition and loan
arrangements that have been passed recently. I commend you and your
colleagues that voted against the bill.I fear that the new regime will lumber the tax payer with another
liability that we cannot afford. I am thinking that most students will
never pay the loan off. In Sheffield, £21K a year a decent salary.
Even someone earning £30K, will only pay off £810 a year. Over 30
years that’s still only £24300 paid back. The tax payer will have to
absorb the loss. £30K a year is great salary and so I can see most
people never paying back the loan. A loan that you never pay is a
grant in my eyes.My nephew is probably going to university in a couple of years. He’s
actually going to be better off under these higher fees than under the
current system. I have to pay back my loan at a salary of over £15K
not index linked. Paying back 9% on, say, a salary of £20K is painful
but under the new system he wouldn’t have to pay anything back at all.
The only way he’s going to be worse off is if he ends up making a mint.They should change the name of the student loan to student gift. Its
nothing like a loan. With normal bank loans you have pay back after
tax. Eg, if I was going to borrow a £1000, to pay it back I’d need to
earn about £1300 because of tax and NI. These student loans aren’t
taxed. To pay back a £1000 on a student loan the government just takes
£1000 from my gross salary. Then after 30 years it gets written off.
Its not a loan, its a gift. At best its a graduate tax set at 9% for
30 years capped at the amount borrowed but because the payback
threshold is so low its not going generate the revenue required.
Reminds me a bit of PFIs. Burden future generations with higher taxes
in order to keep taxes lower today. It’s not the students that are
going to pay for their education, its going to be the general tax payer
of tomorrow.Personally, I think there should be less students. I don’t see the
point in this target of 50% of people experiencing higher education.
Better having an academic elite well funded than the masses poorly
funded.I do hope that you can get this bill stopped some how. I understand
there are still many points of negotiation and still has to go through
the Lords. In this age of austerity, we shouldn’t be gifting students
these huge concessions. Its just not fair to the general tax payer.Yours sincerely,
Ben
aa8a6cb175c45c48aa97/1adcb37ddb2d34f7d28e
(Signed with an electronic signature in accordance with subsection 7(3)
of the Electronic Communications Act 2000.)
