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student debt


Portlett

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Just had a letter from the student loans company who tell me I now have £15,000 debt which alot has been made up of due to interest recently. Is anyone else in the same boat, ive got my graduation next week and im starting to think was it all worth it?

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Just had a letter from the student loans company who tell me I now have £15,000 debt which alot has been made up of due to interest recently. Is anyone else in the same boat, ive got my graduation next week and im starting to think was it all worth it?

 

I also got a letter saying I owe them £15,000 but for my first two years. Will be around £22,000 by the time I finish. Funsies!

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Yikes! Unlucky guys. It's an all to common feature now for students going to and leaving University. Luckily, I've been able to get my first year fees paid by my parents and will get the further 3 years funded by the Scottish Government under SAAS. I can see why they don't have an equivalent in england because of the number of students, but really the government should step in and help give students something towards their fees/etc. so that their debts aren't that bad. Sorry to hear though about the debts.

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Luckily, I've been able to get my first year fees paid by my parents and will get the further 3 years funded by the Scottish Government under SAAS.

 

Why are your parents paying for it when SAAS would just as happily give you the money for it?

 

I'm probably going to come out of uni with about £9000 in debt, hopefully less. It will be worth it in the end though.

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Well I managed to make it through my 3 years at uni with 0 debt. But looking back life would have been a lot easier if I had taken the student loan, as I was working a lot to fund my way. And this was the year before the top up fees so I kinda got lucky. I doubt it would be possible these days.

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@ Charlie - They won't give me funding for the first year because apparently they count doing a HND course as the first year of a University degree course, even though my HND was completely different to what I'm studying now.

 

that's what no interest means, in real world ness.

 

basically, if you buy £100 of food during uni, then pay the money back + inflation say 3 years later, whatever you pay back would buy you the same items of food £100 did in the first place.

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I think I'll be in debt roughly to the tune of around £20k when I'm done -- jack it up to £24k for a masters. WOOOOOOOOOOoooo... a life of desolation, here I come.
Thought you couldn't get a student loan for a MA degree?

 

I'm gonna be looking at a fair bit over £15k I think. But since it's taken as a percentage of wages... and whenever I feel like it I can just pay off a chunk by selling stuff or doing extra work, I don't think it will be that much weight to shift.

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Sigh, ok so I'm going to sound snobby (again) but my parents are helping with tution fees and with maintence loan (I get 1800 of my loan rather than 3grand).

 

Its snobby when you boast. Fair enough, if your parents can help then all for it.

 

Thought you couldn't get a student loan for a MA degree?

 

I'm gonna be looking at a fair bit over £15k I think. But since it's taken as a percentage of wages... and whenever I feel like it I can just pay off a chunk by selling stuff or doing extra work, I don't think it will be that much weight to shift.

 

You can get other forms of loans.

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I finished in May 2007 and to be completely honest I have absolutely no idea how much I owe from my uni days. As the repayments come out of salary as if they were a tax I just don't even consider it, just let it get on with itself. At some point in the future the payments will stop and that will be a nice few hundred pounds extra a month to spend.

 

To me the student loan is the one peice of debt that noone should worry about, you only pay it off when its affordable and its cheap as chips.

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http://www.listentotaxman.com

 

This will tell you how much you'd pay back to your student loan if you were earning whatever amount of money you input. I was about 11 grand in debt and the interest worked its way up to about 11 and a half grand while I was doing a masters for a couple of years. Now it's heading down.

 

It comes out of my wage so I don't like it for that, but being a student was such a nice time of life and it wouldn't have been so nice if I'd worried about money. Right now I'm paying for all those clothes I bought six years ago, and all the trips to the cinema and all the takeaways and all the nights out. Overall I'm alright with it.

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I graduated in 2001 and I've still got about £5,800 to pay off. I wouldn't worry about it too much, when I was skint and working in bars I didn't pay it because obviously I was below the earning threshold. Now I'm earning a decent wage it's just another in the long list of deductions (tax, national insurance, union fees, pension) that come off your wage before it even gets to your bank account so you don't really miss it.

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Its snobby when you boast. Fair enough, if your parents can help then all for it.

 

 

 

You can get other forms of loans.

Yeah? I'm going to be lazy and ask you for more info :P I should have a job of sorts, but will have to borrow to pay up-front regardless I guess.

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I thankfully only took one loan in my 3rd year, think it was 3k, a grand each term, but it still pisses me off when it shows up on my pay slip.

 

I have two maxed-out credit cards that i cant pay off though, and a 2.5k overdraft that i struggle with. So, i guess i'm about 6.5k in debt in total :(

 

Never borrow money. You always regret it.

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