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Inequality between generations
- Thread starter Bletchleyite
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This of course being a pipe dream for many under the age of about 40. Not all, of course not all home ownership has fallen but it hasn't totally collapsed, but we're going to have to get to grips with the idea of a lot more pensioners living in rented accommodation.
That being said pensioners can still access support to help with their rental costs currently though Housing Benefit. If their only income was their State Pension they'd be able to access considerable support. For instance a pensioner living in a Housing Association property with a rent of £120 per week would be able to get support of £117.96 per week towards their rent. It can be stickier for pensioners in private rented accommodation as the maximum support is based on the number of bedrooms they are entitled to and is capped by the Local Housing Allowance (which is based on 30th percentile market rent in a broad area and hasn't been increased since April 2024 so is no doubt now actually less than the 30th percentile). Our same pensioner if they say lived in Birmingham and were entitled to One Bedroom (they live alone or perhaps with just a partner) would be able to get £157.91 per week which considering the average rent is apparently £250.15 per week (according to ONS figures) could make life tricky.
If only we had a good stock of social housing in this country and hadn't sold a great amount of it off in the 1980s and 1990s without replacement to some lucky older generations...
There is no guarantee that such schemes will be around 30/40 years from now, so I wouldn't recommend that someone in their 30s today plans their future based on getting such support from the state when they retire. I'm planning my retirement based on there not even being a state pension anymore at that point! People do sometimes forget it's a housing ladder, you're supposed to work up it. They set their sights on a four bedroom detached house in the nicest part of town and then get upset when they can't afford it as their first home straight out of school. The point is to work up to it. I spent three years renting a one room bedsit above a pub in the grottiest part of town. After those three years I had enough saved up enough to put a deposit down on buying a one bedroom flat in a slightly less dingy part of town. Four years there and then I bought a two bedroom flat in a much nicer part of town, transferring the mortgage over. But I wouldn't have been able to afford this if I hadn't worked up to it slowly.
One change has been the nature of the Joneses that you’re trying to keep up with. Once upon a time they would have lived in your street /village suburb and you had a much higher chance of picking up the aspects of their lives they didn’t want you to see. As communities have become less close-knit (a process that has been going on for centuries) so have the occasions where they bring you down to earth with a bump.
Student loans aren’t “real” debt. They don’t affect your credit rating etc. They get cancelled after 30/40 years regardless of how much has been paid.
They also, especially "Plan 2" impose a material cost on graduates that affects them over many years.
In which case we better get ready for homelessness rates to soar! There's a lot of people (working and pension age alike) who would be street homeless if we don't provide some manner of housing assistance.
I'm not sure that anyone other than the most blinkered expects to be able to afford a 4-bed detached house as their first home? The issue of course being that, depending on exactly where you are in the country, even starter homes can require enormous deposits to secure. Even as at the same time as rents are sky rocketing meaning that it's getting harder to actually manage to save up for that deposit.
No doubt there are some that are frustrated that they cannot immediately buy their dream home (though surely there's always been those who are naïve in that way?) but I don't see any real indication that that is a widespread issue and a serious cause for dissatisfaction with the housing market?
Indeed. Thankfully I'm on a "Plan 1" loan so got off comparatively easy (and indeed I could see a way to repaying it if I wasn't, through mostly my own choices and failures, in comparatively low paid work) but those on "Plan 2" or later really have been stitched up to a great degree. Especially as we've managed to create a system which means that those who earn the most are likely to pay back their loans freeing up extra money whilst those who earn lower amounts are likely to be lumbered with the payments for the life of their loan with no hope of ever repaying it. And "lower amounts" aren't that low either. Whilst it obviously depends somewhat on what your total loan was originally at the moment in order to just keep your loan balance steady you can easily be needing an income of over £60,000 per year. To actually make a dent in the total loan balance needs even more.
No they don't. Who is doing this?
My parents bought their house (SW18) for £13k in 1975, on a policeman's salary. The house next door recently sold for £1.5m. That's all about the area it's in, but the effect of price changes like that is to make life really difficult for people trying to start out as they have to either travel further or pay through the nose - if they can begin to afford it. The frustration is in people who can't start.
Precisely. My son's on "Plan 3", but considering postgraduate study in a field where earnings often aren't high. That means he can expect to be paying a premium for pretty well the whole of his working life, when wealthier peers either don't have loans or have cleared them early and have more flexible income.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
You are still liable for student loan repayments if you are based overseas.
I don't think that's true at all.
The problem is that even starter homes are completely outside of people's reach, especially in the south east of England. Hence the need for things like shared ownership schemes which have, regrettably, left a lot of people trapped in these starter homes.
Gentrification in London is the perfect example of what's happening. Places like Walthamstow were never desirable but younger people moved there because it was cheap, which means the bars and cafes then had custom, which made it more desirable, which means it is now expensive. So people move further out ahain, and now you're in the situation where a 2-bed flat even in somewhere like Edmonton Green will cost you north of £250K.
I was on a Plan 1 loan too. I repaid it four years ago, having graduated in the early 2000s. I was only able to repay it because of a worker retention scheme run in the Isle of Man, where if you move to the IOM for a full time job and stay then you get your first year's NI contributions refunded. That windfall went to clearing the last bit of debt.
It's a scandal that it took me twenty years to repay £10,000, and that the total repayments were far more than £10,000, but hey ho.
GusB
Established Member
Sorry, but I completely disagree with this. Who decides which subjects are valuable and therefore free, and which aren't? You mention the sciences as a starting point, but not everyone will be scientifically or technically minded and won't necessarily wish to pursue such a career path.
I'd rather see young people being encouraged to take up a subject that they're passionate about rather than one that's deemed to be more valuable to society. Besides, if you end up charging fees for non-STEM subjects, you end up with a two-tier system where only wealthy students will be able to afford to study those subjects and that simply isn't fair.
I agree.
People need to study subjects that motivate them for three years, not those they think will get them the best jobs.
I went to university to study mathematics, which I’d been really good at at school, but turned out not to be my thing at university. I was lucky to be able to change course at a time before student loans. So my mistake would cost me more today. But still the right thing to do.
Completing a degree in any subject also says a lot about you. I had a friend who worked really hard to take a first in Music at university, but decided to become an accountant. I thought a lot of him for both things.
I happen to be a scientist, but that’s been what floats my boat.
People need to study subjects that motivate them for three years, not those they think will get them the best jobs.
I went to university to study mathematics, which I’d been really good at at school, but turned out not to be my thing at university. I was lucky to be able to change course at a time before student loans. So my mistake would cost me more today. But still the right thing to do.
Completing a degree in any subject also says a lot about you. I had a friend who worked really hard to take a first in Music at university, but decided to become an accountant. I thought a lot of him for both things.
I happen to be a scientist, but that’s been what floats my boat.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
I think some courses are so obvious that they should be free of charge. Nursing is the one that immediately spring to mind for me. Given how much time student nurses have to spend working in hospitals, it is shameful that these courses are not free. At least some of the NHS bursaries have been reinstated, but there are some students in the late 2010s period who were properly shafted here.
But, in general, I agree. Why is STEM always seen as more important? Most people with STEM degrees won't stay working in the STEM sector. And why are the arts always seen as inferior? And that's before you get into the weeds of which science degrees are sufficiently sciency: psychology is a science but there's a lot of disdain about the numbers of people studying psychology.
I think this hits the boundary between what are really apprenticeships, and what are independent degree subjects. We "need" people with STEM skills, yet in most places, it's the aptitude rather than the experience that will count - training is still required.
This former arts student frequently prefers working with other former arts students, because they are often the ones who actually think about problems, rather than treating them as just a matter of engineering
Nursing, midwifery, and physiotherapy students are also more likely to come from lower socio-economic backgrounds and more likely to be mature students and also more likely to study part-time than the vast majority of HE courses. When the £9k fees were introduced, this hit these courses hard, as at least the perception of the student loan debt was enough to put a lot of these demographics off. To then spend years of your career earning below the median national salary. I understand it's a passion career for many, but we also can't rely solely on that.
Yeah, I was once asked to approve an entry level job advert. "Must have a degree in a mathematical subject". Aside from one Engineering graduate, NONE of the senior people in the team had such a background....
No you are right, not everyone is going to be of the ability to take on the top level degree courses. And that was the point of higher education, to create an environment to nurture the best of the best, a two tier system but one for a good reason.
Like I've said, just in my narrow field I've seen some anecdotal evidence on quality that some universities spit out, there are plenty people who should be able to take on the roles they apply based on their degree levels for but frankly often simply lack the skills. It's baffling, but I'm sure, nay certain we are far from alone in this experience. Universities should be about building for careers at the cutting edge, about learning specialist skills that are going to take people forward into specialist and complex roles, helping to grow the economy and knowledge. There is data out there that suggests that only half or even less of graduates go into employment related to their degrees, that's simply inefficient. So point out that as much as three quarters of graduates feel university do feel it helps them in their career, but that's purely anecdotal and the same experience and skills could potentially be gained from simply entering the jobs market earlier. This is where a problem lies, employers do often want new employees to be graduates, often for roles that don't specifically need them, and this I believe is just a symptom of over-bombing the importance of higher education for everyone. The employment market is flooded with graduates, but with nowhere near enough graduate level jobs to make all that extra investment worthwhile.
If all of this seems unfair, unequal, well it is. That's how the real world works, it isn't equal or fair. It never has been, and never will be. Universities have always been there for the best and brightest of minds, there to forward human understanding in the world and universe around us. To help humanity develop the skills to progress, and make a better world for us all. But they shouldn't be for everyone, a bit like sports academies sooner or later they have to choose who are the best, otherwise they flood the team with mediocracy which brings everyone down.
You are. But will the student loan company chase you? Will it come out of your pay automatically as in the UK?
It always struck me as barmy that we expect people going into the medical professions to drown in debt when, famously, the NHS isn't exactly swamped with doctors and nurses (or other medical roles) and we have to import many from other countries to make up for the homegrown shortfalls*. I believe doctors are currently graduating with around £100,000 of student debt whilst nurses are in the region of £60,000. I wonder how many of both earn enough to actually make a dent in repaying those loans rather than losing a portion of their wages for the next 30/40 years?
*Not that I have a particular issue with that, I've been treated by British doctors, Portuguese doctors, Nigerian doctors, and probably others besides and they've all been excellent. But it does seem a little barmy to make it harder to train up homegrown medical talent whilst also draining it away from countries which I'm sure themselves would benefit from keeping those medical professionals local!
Doctors - probably most. Nurses - probably very few. But that also points to other questions
And those Doctors-to-be are investing a much longer period of study than other graduates - which means higher debt and a later start-to-earn point.
As someone whose arts degree is not remotely "useful" but has neverthless had a decent career in management consulting, I'm a little wary of arguments that the government should target funding on "relevent" subjects. However, it seems barmy that we as a society don't do more for trainee medics!
As someone whose arts degree is not remotely "useful" but has neverthless had a decent career in management consulting, I'm a little wary of arguments that the government should target funding on "relevent" subjects. However, it seems barmy that we as a society don't do more for trainee medics!
I think we confuse what we do as a society for students, and what the NHS does for it's future employees as an incentive. If society expects students to self-fund, then I see no issue with medical students (or any others) doing likewise. If the NHS wants to recruit those students, then it should be offering bursaries and sponsorships to secure their interest, and mitigate their position.
Instead, the NHS treats those would-be medics like a commodity workforce, moving them round the country and specialisms like they've no personal lives, and then does nothing to help them. And we, as an electorate, are complicit in that by admiring attempts to keep costs down, without understanding the impact of these decisions - but also moaning when those selfsame medics decamp abroad because they rightly find the NHS an unreasonable employer.
Yes the loan company will chase you. It isn't automatically deducted, you have to arrange payment. Of course, if you never intend to return to the UK you could ignore the loan company and not provide them with any details. I don't advocate doing this.
It is indeed a barmy system. The number of medical students is capped, so there may well be enough potential UK talent, but they never get the opportunity. Then once they do get out of University, there's more limits on training places so you lose some of those expensively trained graduates.
It's an overly centralised system trying to make predictions which just doesn't really work.
TravelDream
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You are definitely supposed to pay.
I previously lived overseas and, naughtily, didn't contact/ pay the Student Loan Company despite earning above the threshold (there are different bands so some countries start paying at a lower salary than the UK).
They sent letters to my parents' address (also my last one known to them).
There were no consequences and I started paying as normal when I started working in the UK.
So this is sort of what I meant. You are meant to pay but in reality very little will come of not doing.
I think a lot of infrastructure is on the verge of collapse. Broken roads and blocked drains are easily visible examples, but what about things like water supplies? I'm guessing that most pipes are the originals, and they seem to be failing frequently. I had no water for 24 hours last summer, and I've seen plenty of reports of other serious leaks nearby.
The main issue is that if you haven't updated your details at the time your loan is meant to be wiped, it supposedly won't get wiped.
However currently very few people have reached the date where their loan will get wiped so it's unknown what would actually happen.
I think we’re about 5 years off the first mass write-off. Plan 1 (1998-2011) are written off after age 65, or 25 years after graduation (post 2006).
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