The Student Loan Injustice & When Higher Education Isn’t Higher!

We challenge the UK student loan model, from £66k thresholds to RPI-linked interest, and ask whether mass university still delivers value. We compare degrees to trades, examine apprenticeships and graduate schemes, and explore fixes that align education with real jobs.

• Plan 2 loans, thresholds, and interest mechanics
• Uneven outcomes between elite degrees and low-return courses
• Mortgage, income, and mental strain from long-term debt
• Retroactive loan changes and claims of misselling
• Trades and apprenticeships as high-return alternatives
• Graduate schemes demanding experience and blocked entry routes
• Funding STEM, nursing, and critical roles differently

We also reflect on wider community concerns across Sussex & Surrey for future episodes: net zero, roads, bins, homelessness, mental health...

Many thanks to the Wildwood Restaurant, Crawley for their amazing space and hospitality. 

Roundtable Featuring: Georgie Lucas, Jacq Inwood, James Tidy, Micaela Leal & Maureen Jones. Host: Clive Hilton. 

Please click on 'Send a text' above & join our Facebook group to share your perspective and suggestions for future topics - Thank you for your interest! Clive.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Student Debt Row

SPEAKER_07 0:00

Welcome to the Cisnox and Surrey Smokebooks. Real opinion points, real opinions, and this conversation on the community issues.

SPEAKER_08 0:10

Susanics and summaries smoke books, and we're getting into the very contentious topic of student loans, especially if you've got children that are at university who will be suffering from this. And today, as we record this.

PMQs And Tuition Fee Pledges

SPEAKER_06 0:30

We've already introduced maintenance problems to improve the situation with the maintenance problem. And we will look at ways to make it fairer. And we will do other things within the economy to help students.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

The Prime Minister and the Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenock went back and forth on the issue during PMQs. Badenock questions Take Starmer's 2020 Labour leadership campaign pledge to abolish tuition fees.

SPEAKER_08 0:56

Student loans, Georgie, you brought this up. It is painful, and there we go, it's recognised, it's broken.

Plan 2 Loans And The £66k Threshold

Who Wins And Who Loses

SPEAKER_04 1:01

Yes, I think it's I think it's totally unfair. I have a daughter who has a plan two student loan. Now, the the bare facts of the matter are that, you know, 50% of students were encouraged to go to university by Tony Blair's government, I understand. And so there are so many people coming out of school now, going to university, thinking that they have to go to university. They're taking out a student loan because obviously they need to have it funded in some way. But the way it works now is you have to actually, with a plan two loan, you have to earn over£66,000 a year to actually make a dent in that loan. The rest of it is just interest that accrues. So if you are a middle earner, such as a nurse or a teacher, your loan just accrues throughout your whole working life. So you never ever get to pay it back. Now, after 30 years it does get wiped, that is a fact. But you've got that payment every month for the rest of your working life until you're 50. Now that's going to stop you getting I mean, it doesn't stop you getting a mortgage, but it does stop you having uh the such a a big disposable income. So that does get looked at by the lending companies uh and the banks. But the worry for me is uh the people that come out of university, some of them come out of great universities, they get great jobs, and they can pay their university fees off much sooner. They're they're gonna be fine, that's not the problem. It's the middle earners and the people who've got not such great degrees from from universities that used to be what we called polytechnics. So somebody who's done a sort of like low-level degree uh from a low-level university is not gonna maybe get a huge uh income. And then they've got this debt around their necks for the rest of their, as I said, until they're 50. And I just think that's appalling. I think there's got to be something done about it. I think it's also from a from your and I hate to say the word mental health, but from your mental health point of view, if you've got that debt before you start your life, before you've even thought about buying a house or moving out from your home, you put your family home, I think it's just I think it's just terrible. I think it's gonna affect people so badly. And I think it's gonna stop people having children and moving out of home and having children, having their own families. We're not, you know, we're just we're just doing everything that we can to to um to thwart the young generation.

SPEAKER_08 3:20

That's gonna really affect your ability to get on that housing ladder, as you were saying.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

And nurses and teachers, I don't think, are paid enough anyway. So they've had to get a degree to do what they're doing, and then they're having to pay, you know, and and I it was interesting because I saw something this week on Facebook and there was uh you know, keyboard warrior um saying, Well, you know, if you've got the d if you've got the education, then you have to pay for it. Absolutely. And they signed up to something that has now been changed. So when my daughter took her loan, she signed up to something and they've moved the boundaries. And I think that that actually has been proven this week to be illegal.

SPEAKER_08 3:57

So the actual terms of that rather than a variable interest rate, the actual terms that have been agreed.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Santander couldn't change it if I'd change if I'd signed up for a mortgage. Nat West couldn't change it, but somehow the terms of this loan have changed, and it's now, you know, it's it's it's um it's made it a really sorry state of affairs.

Fairness, Retroactive Changes, Legality

Access Expanded, Outcomes Uneven

SPEAKER_00 4:16

No, you're 100% right. Um so yeah, the 50% of people going to university has been as we've seen now was not a good thing to do. Because people were getting degrees that weren't benefiting them, and and as you pointed out, it was originally said that if you were earning an above average income through your degree, you pay it back, which seemed like a fair thing to do because you're the people who you're paying back a degree because you're earning more money. People who are earning less money shouldn't be paying taxes towards towards paying off your degree. Um, but no, they've completely changed the terms, it makes no sense. When the fees were increased, they did see an 80% increase from people from lower income backgrounds going to university because it there were far more university spaces open. And what happened previously was people who are from families who had previously gone to university knew the system and knew how to get in. Now we've seen that change through lots of people going to university. But what's happening is those people who previously have come from a good background where they understand the system to go to university and get a good job, they're still the ones going to universities and getting good jobs, but then they're not necessarily the the rest of the people will still go to university, but that's not meaning they'll get a good job. The reform UK policy is 50% of people will go into trades or apprenticeships, which is where the money is. Quite literally every time I meet somebody who has done well and has made a significant amount of money, they haven't got a degree. It seems to be a a path to being middle class, a university degree almost. It is in no way a qualifier for success. And so we need to a complete rethink where we have these Mickey Mouse degrees from perhaps universities that aren't really universities, as you said, and actually focus on training people in useful skills. Uh you speak to a plum or electrician, a well-run electrician business will make a lot of money and be very successful and quite flexible for for the business owner. A university degree from a polytechnic, I won't name specific ones, isn't isn't going to translate into a high income.

Degrees Versus Trades And Earnings

SPEAKER_03 6:08

I do believe that the biggest problem is not the loans but the jobs. So if there is no jobs after you finish your student, what was the point of spending years and having a big death on your shoulders? I have done jobs as delivery driver when I was uh during COVID time. And I had guys that studying in uni for uh lawyers, for politicians, and they had no opportunities because they have no experience. How do you expect people to have experience if you don't give them an opportunity to have a job?

SPEAKER_04 6:39

Exactly. Um a few of my friends' children that have just sort of come out of university, they're going for graduate schemes and they're getting turned down from graduate schemes because they've not got any experience. Now, surely the point of a graduate scheme is you get paid a pittance because you are being trained, they're teaching you something that hopefully after the years up, they'll think actually, you know, you've got potential and you've really done you know you've really done well on our graduate scheme, so we're gonna offer you a job and we're gonna pay you properly. But now you need experience to be on a graduate scheme, and that to me is just insane.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Ridiculous. And that that is not the only thing. Um, I'm an immigrant, and probably this is not gonna be very well seen by my friends, but I did met about eight to ten people on my first couple of years here that came to the UK to study in unit, they got a loan, and then they leave the country because back home we don't will never earn above twenty-five thousand. And if you don't, if you do you pay nine percent over the year, but if you don't, you don't have to pay, and after 40 years your debt gets uh taken.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

So your degree uh um payment and loan system is the same as in the UK, is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 7:45

No, ours is really bad. So you d you don't get opportunities for loans unless your average on the exams is extremely good. So you you have to be an 18 out of 20 on all the exams to be able to get a free loan or a loan. Uh but this is in Portugal. This is in Portugal, but in here everyone gets the opportunity. You don't even have an exams to actually pass to have the low one. You just need to apply for it.

The Real Problem: Jobs And Experience

SPEAKER_00 8:13

That that's that's the point, is the universities is just an expectation. It's not a it's not a sign of success. If you go back to the 80s, it was oh you're very intelligent, you go to university. Now it's an expectation, you know, you're mediocre, that's university for you, not you are intelligent. So you we've just we've just inflated it, and so there's nobody, there's no way of saying people with degrees are more intelligent because we we clearly know that's not the case. If we go back to a few people going to going to universities, then you will regain that uh prestige.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

People with degrees from certain universities are probably brighter.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah, absolutely. No, I'm not saying everyone from a uh university. I I'm just saying that the term university, if you're an average student, you go to university. Well, the old days, if you're intelligent students. So so intelligent students still go to these universities, but we've just called everything a university. And so people who've gone to a polytechnic, as you said, are going to what is called a university, the same way Oxford, UCL, Bristol, Cambridge, and they all cost the same amount.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

They they all the tuition fees are the same whether you go to something that's right at the bottom of the league tables to something that's right at the top of the league tables.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Absolutely.

International Angles And Loan Systems

SPEAKER_02 9:21

I'm glad that James referenced the 1980s because I went to university in the 1980s, and it used to be the case that the first week you would queue up in this great hall, and some lady with a card indexing system would go through until she found your surname with an envelope, and she'd give you the envelope and it'd be a check from your local authority to pay for your accommodation. So all the fees were paid for by the local authority. You got the cheque to cover your living expenses. Um you lived in digs or in halls that were pretty, pretty poor, pretty substandard, and then you worked really hard to get the degree, but not very many people uh went to university then. Um what I would say was that uh I I went on to get a great job, went into insurance, had a fantastic career, blah blah. But I paid back um in tax fairly early on um what the local authority had invested in me because I did a numerate degree, and this is really following on from what Michaela was saying and and what's been alluded to round the table. Um universities then were centres of excellence and centres of learning, and uh the whole business is become a business. Everything has become about follow the money, everyone's been sold to dream they can go to university, but exactly as Michaela says, the jobs aren't there at the end of it. So it's all a house of cards and it's all starting to implode. You don't need to go to university now. Um I was listening to a very interesting lady talking the other day. You can become a doctor or a lawyer by working and being paid to learn whilst you study. And some of the magic circle firms are doing this now. So I think sadly, for the universities who invested all this money in these skyscrapers going up around Kingston, which was a great polytechnic, it's now some sort of university, allegedly. Um, but it's all about follow the money. People got in, they bundled in thinking we can make money out of this, and the people that are paying the price are young people. My my my son has a student loan, but do you know what? I will probably pay it off for him. All the advice was to take out a student loan, and the people that it's meant to help, which is the poorer people in society, was meant to be meritocracy, everyone has a level playing field, it's rubbish because they will be saddled with debt, and yes, as you say, maybe in 30 years' time it'll be written off, but they probably won't own their own home, they probably couldn't have had kids. So the whole thing was a social experiment that just haven't hasn't worked. I think it should be it should be wiped off. But going forward, we should look at the skills that this country needs and say, if you want to do X, Y, and Z back to the old system, it will be paid for by the government or be subsidised by the government. And people like a lovely young lady that I employed when I had a business as a weekend assistant, straight A student. She was going, I think, to Bournemouth to read photography, and it breaks my heart because uh she'll come out with a huge debt and she'll never be able to pay, be hanging like an albatross round her neck. And we have sold young people short.

Prestige, Inflation Of “University”

SPEAKER_08 12:03

And and and you went to university in the 80s, I went in the 90s, and I didn't pay, you know, I got my my education. It was all the hall fees, the living expenses, they were, and and they were quite expensive in themselves. And I used to do student jobs around that. Uh luckily I didn't leave with a loan to repay back. But this was back in the day when you had universities and polytechnics, and it was a little bit special to be going to university nowadays. It seems to be quite normalized. There's a volume of people, all things are universities, which is what I'm picking up on. Um, do we believe Keir Starmer's going to fix it? No.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Not James, I know you're so quick. Whatever he says, he'll he'll there'll be another U-turn now, okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

I think it's interesting that he's he's mentioned something today about it, and I'd be very interested to know how he and Rachel Reeves plan to attack it. But I think that fundamentally what they've done is uh, you know, I can only speak on behalf of my family and how how we see it. My daughter was at um doing her A levels, she was told when she was doing her A levels that to take a student loan was perfectly normal, everybody did it, um, it's nothing to worry about, it's very easy to pay it back, it all gets done for you at source. Don't worry about it, just do it, it's fine, you can pay it back over the next so many years, and blah blah blah blah. But they've changed the ground rules, they've moved the boundaries, and now it's actually not what she was sold. And I think that it's like it's like the the you know the claims that you can make on getting missold finance or missold this or whatever, they've been missold, yeah, and they should get some sort of recompense. It should be coherent.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah. No, that's that's exactly the point, is they have been missold. And you know, for for a lot of students, they're paying money and it's coming out that they haven't got enough money to get by, they're paying for their student loans, and they go, How much have I paid off? They check and they actually owe more than when they graduated.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

That's exactly that's exactly what my my daughter said to me about a month ago, Mum, I've just checked out my student loan, I've been paying it back a year and I owe more. But the the the How demoralising is that when you're looking at it. But also, Clive, the interest uh starts to accrue from the day you take it out, not from the day you graduate, from the day you take it out.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

So it's RPI plus 3%, I think.

SPEAKER_04 14:15

It's about 9% at the moment. That's a con. Yeah. Absolute nonsense. So you've got to earn 66 grand. I checked that today. 66,000 pounds.

SPEAKER_08 14:22

Before the tipping?

SPEAKER_04 14:23

Before you tip over to actually start paying down the debt rather than just the accrued um interest.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

And just put that in context, 90% of workers don't earn 66,000 pounds. It's it's fewer than 10% of people less than 10% of people will earn that amount. So it's it's an impossible situation for everybody involved.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

Even if there was an increase, shouldn't be from the people that are taking from now on. So they take a dis they make a decision, they make an increase, and the people that took it before, like your daughter, and is been told there was gonna be a certain percentage, that shouldn't be changed. It should be from the people that from now on.

SPEAKER_08 14:55

It shouldn't be retrospectively. And this is your point, Georgia.

Then And Now: How Funding Changed

SPEAKER_04 14:58

They can't apparently the next the next plan that they have is even worse. Now I haven't looked at that because it doesn't that doesn't uh you know come into my sphere of it's gonna upset you more, yeah. Yeah. Um but but you know there's something that seriously needs to be done because nobody's gonna want to go to to to do any more studies, you know? And that's the bottom line, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Yeah, that's why I never wanted to take the loan because I I'm I'm very organized and I like to know what I'm gonna earn, what I'm gonna spend, yeah, and I'm like that. I'm very OCD with those things. And I always thought I cannot carry adept on my shoulders for all my life before I even start making plans for my life. Yeah, and that is exactly the reason why when I came to the UK I decided to just go straight to work and never go to the university.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Probably very wise now.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Yeah, I'm very glad of my decision to be honest.

SPEAKER_08 15:47

Now, Georgie, you did reach out to an MP. Tell us, tell us what response you got.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

Um, well, I I saw um something on Facebook actually this week. Um, a lady called Kate. I won't give us her name just in case I can't. Um, and she was uh she's a Labour MP and she said something needs to be done about student loans. So I thought, right, I'm going to contact her. So I did. Um and her office came back to me and said sadly she was unavailable, even though I had offered her just a quick phone call uh link up to this conversation.

SPEAKER_08 16:15

Maybe your email triggered it. Maybe it rolled to the pick and then it went to Kirstov. But there we go, we'd love to think it did.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

It just ticked over the 10,000 emails that week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 16:26

I'll tell you what, when we were in Godston, we were signing a little spotlight on that massive sinkhole there. And and a few members of the public uh spoke about education finance, and here's here's the ideas that they had.

SPEAKER_05 16:37

Someone said something to me very interesting last week. We should all as parents maybe look at alternative ways to fund education. If I could lend my son or daughter money at a cheaper rate, maybe that's the way to go.

SPEAKER_08 16:51

So take it from the mortgage, perhaps, or some other cheaper mechanism.

SPEAKER_05 16:55

Yes, because it would also give you a little bit more flexibility in that it would appear, and I don't not an expert on this, it's so complex that they can end up paying money and still owing more.

Misselling, Interest, And Demoralisation

SPEAKER_00 17:06

I th I think you that's not the best idea because then only people with I mean, if you've got the option, go for it, but if you're relying on parents with enough money to fund a a university education and maintenance up front, and they can go and fund living in London or wherever it is they want to study up front, I think that's it's nice if you can do it, but people with money are already funding their children's degrees. But as a method for moving forward, that's just you'll just could create an increasingly elitist society.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

I think you should go back to being the three percent of the absolute cream that go to university, and I think that we should then pay for them to do it because it's that's our future, that's our doctors, that's our lawyers, that's our that's our scientists that we're gonna need in the future when we're all old and need hip replacements and all that.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

I think STEM subjects certainly should be covered. I think if you want to go and study media studies, great, pay for it yourself because the country can probably survive without more people studying media studies. But people who are studying STEM subjects who are gonna go on to build Britain in the future, quite um, we need to be a country that prioritises them.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

Yeah. And I don't want I don't want my nurse that's that's helping me in hospital having to have crippling fees that she's still got to pay because she's had to do a nursing degree. Forty years ago, nurses didn't need to go to university, they learnt in the hospital, and from what I gather, it was a whole better system then.

SPEAKER_08 18:22

And healthcare is definitely on its knees, um, and we're gonna get to that topic in coming weeks. Just just thinking about apprenticeships, you know, we're talking about student loans, apprenticeships, James, you mentioned. Those same people in Godstone had some thoughts on that as well.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

I hear repeatedly, there's going to be loads of apprenticeships, there's going to be this, there's going to be that. But the reality is there's almost a million youngsters, neither in education nor in employment. We have to do something instead of talking about it. I think apprenticeships should be more widely available and it should be a more coordinated process. I read that you've got a youngster that's got employment but can't find a course, a youngster who's on a course but can't find employment. Where is the joined up thinking? They're our future generations.

SPEAKER_08 19:08

There we go, food for thought for future episodes. Any other topics that we've seen on Facebook, other socials, and what we're hearing on the street that we haven't yet covered?

Who Should Pay And What To Fund

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Uh net zero. Certainly I'm hearing a lot of people who are struggling to pay their bills and can't quite work out where the government keep telling them the bills are going to go down, but they keep going up and up, and now the uh people can't afford to heat their homes.

SPEAKER_08 19:28

I think potholes is gonna get a revisitation. Also, speeding, driving, uh not being able to go above 20, that's another one. Any other topics from around the table before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_04 19:38

Mental health.

SPEAKER_08 19:39

Mental health.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 19:40

Homelessness is another one we're gonna do a special on shortly. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 19:43

Child poverty.

SPEAKER_08 19:44

Child poverty, yep.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Litter's driving me nuts. Fly tipping is an enormous problem around where I live. And um I think it's because they're restricting how often you can take things to the dump and whether you've got, you know, whether you've got a large car or a small car or they they charge people to take stuff to the dump.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

If we paid people to take rubbish to the dump, people would be queuing up to get paid with rubbish. They'd be scouring the streets looking for stuff they can take to the tip.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

The the issue with fire tipping is more commercial waste, it's very expensive because they they have you have to go through all this insane recycling things and pay for it when it usually doesn't get recycled. Um so it's it's more people who are doing waste removal. But there is there's there is a degree with bins and people just dumping things because they are restricting things. But the councils keep making our bins smaller and smaller, and then going, well, why is there waste on the street?

SPEAKER_08 20:30

And every three weeks, every three weeks they're collecting some bins.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

If if if you have a bigger bin, you can fit more rubbish in and you don't have to leave rubbish on the street, which rats and seagulls are going to get into and the wind will blow it all over the street. It's very simple, but to try and save a little bit of money uh short term, they they make our bins smaller and smaller, which is just causing more and more issues.

Apprenticeships And NEET Realities

SPEAKER_08 20:50

Don't get me started about the bins, right? Uh yeah, certain days, different coloured bins, and then you have to book your time to go to the anyway. Let's do bins another time, because otherwise we'll be here all night. Uh a big thank you to the Whirlwood on High Street Crawley for all the hospitality. Fantastic round table. Georgie, Maureen, Jack, Michaela, and James, thank you very much. And if you're listening at home and you're listening on Spotify, do send us a text. Maybe you're shouting at the speaker get to this topic, or maybe you disagree with us, do let us know at Sussex and Surrey Soapbox. Have a good week.