Student Loans Petition

[munkee]

It's pretty ironic that you're getting up on your high horse having a go at everyone for not being pro active too, seeing as you're just having a moan more than anything. Can't really see any general progression evolving from your pissy attitude.

Why would i though? im against the petition if you take the time to read the thread. If you want to get pedantic about things then surely you are just moaning about me moaning or perhaps i should state that this is a forum and everyone is entitled to their own opinions. At no point did i get up on my high horse unless you feel intellectually challenged by the whole affair i dont see why anyone would see anything i have stated in this thread as being "high horse". At the end of the day lets face it, you'd rather try and make a personal attack on what i write instead of trying to actually present some factual information that would make me think twice about my own assumptions.

To be honest.. i dont doubt you have to do work in other courses but the degree you get out of it makes for a pile of shite options career wise and i wouldnt call english or sociology a real world "skill". Unlike engineering or art etc and more to the point anyone that goes to university, gets in debt, has a loan and ends up with a degree they can do nothing with really need to evaluate whether it was worth even bothering in the first place when an apprentaship would have been a better deal for them.

The "i have a degree i can get any job view" is a pile of shite and its something i beleive a lot of students are kidded in to thinking whilst applying to universities at 6th form.

[Prawny Baby's Baby]

I know for a fact english, psychology and media students have sweet f**k all lectures during the week. Infact i will go as far as saying you could get away with a full time job and have someone pick up notes for you to pass the degree. Its a complete joke that people even consider going to university to study such shite in my opinion.

That I agree with. You go to Uni to become a professional we do not need hundreds of Psychologists every year. However we are becoming desperately short of skilled workers, engineers for instance, and although we can get some from abroad there is not enough to fill our shortages. Also in the long term that just leads to unemployment in this country for those who were born and bred here.

We are not asking for the loan to be written off. It is a loan and we will pay it back.

We are not asking them to stop charging interest. It is fair enough to charge us for the service.

However it is not fair to charge interest on money you have already paid back.

[poopipe]

However it is not fair to charge interest on money you have already paid back.

they aren't. they're just keeping the money you pay back, making interest on it and then giving it to the people they borrowed it off. unethical possibly but that's how loan companies make their money.

i think spacemunkee's just saying it's no different from any other loan - which is true. The bad part is that they try to sell it as different to other types of loan - or at least when I got mine they did.

I'll explain...

I was there for the last year of the grants (i got a whole £75 for my first year - yay! ) and the first year of the new style loans, when I applied for the loan I was "reliably" informed that it was interest free til i graduated. That was an outright lie (it was in the small print as well) - what they did was not tell you about the interest till you graduated and add the three years worth on immediately.

To make life even more interesting, if you wanted to pay off a lump sum they'd add the interest they would have got if you hadn't paid the lump off.

The government stamped on that sort of behaviour pretty quickly once they realised what was happening but most of us who got the first batch of loans are probably still trying to pay them off.

ah well, at least our tuition fees were only £1000 a year

and anyway - students aren't supposed to work, they're supposed to sell drugs

[munkee]

That I agree with. You go to Uni to become a professional we do not need hundreds of Psychologists every year. However we are becoming desperately short of skilled workers, engineers for instance, and although we can get some from abroad there is not enough to fill our shortages. Also in the long term that just leads to unemployment in this country for those who were born and bred here.

Im not staying in this country and im doing a civil engineering degree which is in shortage. The reason being why should i graduate and earn £20,000 here and get taxed up my arse until i end up with about £11,000 of it actually being mine when i can move to america.. and be treated like im actually worth something.

For instance some of the reasons i have found from looking in to moving:

Firstly im visa eligable since i have a masters degree and i am apart of the institute of civil engineers. So i have no worrys about sorting all that out.

When i move the money i have will be doubled due to the exchange rate.

The size of the houses compared to the house i own now are twice as big at the same price. For instance im selling my house for £130k which equates to around $225k a tiny house in the middle of loughborough will then turn in to a 4 bedroom house, garage, 2 bathrooms, huge everything in a nice area.. for the same price.

Wages... i will start off on around £20k a year in the uk. However if i move to USA i will start off on $40k a year. But since you are in a common market thats a solid $40k which would be the same as if you were working in the uk for £40k a year since prices on everything but property is about the same. For instance my car in the uk £17k and in the usa $17k... crazy how that works out.

So all in all.. whats the point in a skilled worker staying in the UK? When you can move to a country where you get welcomed for having a skill, where you are rewarded with a decent house, wage and life style where you pay for what you use (Example: NHS in uk.. i never f**kin use.. but i pay for on top of BUPA). I know for a fact this country is going down the complete shitter.. the labour government have f**ked it up completely and when conservatives do get in.. tax rates will increase to try and increase the government cash flow so they can fix all the stuff thats f**ked. This will result in everyone going "wait were worse off with conservative than labour" and then labour will be back.. to f**k the country up even more.

Sorry for the tangent

Oh thought i would add.. USA has been used as the example simply because thats where i am going. There are also the choices of canada, australia and new zealand who are all fast tracking visa's etc for professionals to come in to their country to work.

Edited March 27, 2007 by Spacemunkee

[1a2bcio8]

I signed up my support

[plainlazy84]

There are also the choices of canada, australia and new zealand who are all fast tracking visa's etc for professionals to come in to their country to work.

Going off topic even more but just wanted to say that its anything but fast track for 99% of skilled workers looking to immigrate from the UK to Canada. I've researched into it quite a bit and if you apply via the skilled worker route the average waiting time to get all the appropriate visas/ clearence is something like 3 - 4 years and growing. This applys even if you have qualifications/ experience in an area that they have a particular demand for- there is just a huge backlog.

[munkee]

Going off topic even more but just wanted to say that its anything but fast track for 99% of skilled workers looking to immigrate from the UK to Canada. I've researched into it quite a bit and if you apply via the skilled worker route the average waiting time to get all the appropriate visas/ clearence is something like 3 - 4 years and growing. This applys even if you have qualifications/ experience in an area that they have a particular demand for- there is just a huge backlog.

Have to call up the daily mail and get them to correct that then

[poopipe]

Have to call up the daily mail and get them to correct that then

aha!

I knew our similar brands of neo middle-class fascism had to stem from the same source

[munkee]

To be fair, every other paper is a pile of bollocks. Ill be f**ked if im going to pay for stuff like the sun unless i want to laugh at the complete pile of shit that is printed on to the paper.