A student at the University owes an astronomical £54,000 to the Student Loans Company, making them the 12th highest debtor in the country, Vision has learnt.
The revelation comes to the fore in Vision’s last edition before the University’s fees announcement due on the 24th June. YUSU President Tim Ngwena confirmed last weekend that discussions in Heslington Hall about the final top-band figure to be set had essentially come to their conclusion.
The £54,000 debtor is the only student based at an institution outside London in the top 20 debtors list for the entire country.
In the last few days, Labour MP for York Central, Hugh Bayley, and NUS President Aaron Porter both reacted to the findings in reference to York’s future students who can only expect to be overwhelmed by even higher levels of debt in the future.
The series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted also showed that the collective student debt owed by the top 20 debtors attached to York totals over £650,000.
In response to the findings, Bayley, a former post-graduate student and research fellow at York, told Vision, “universities like York need more money if they want to stay at the top of the UK league table and among the best in the world. The problem with the Government’s policy is that they are putting all the cost on students and greatly reducing the contribution from general taxation.”
He continued, “I was a postgraduate student at York in the 1970s and an academic in the 1980s and early 1990s… York has made large strides forward since then and I don’t want those gains to be lost, and I don’t want students from poorer backgrounds to be priced out of higher education by the cost.”
Aaron Porter, NUS President, told Vision, “whilst it must be said that these levels of student debt are at the moment largely atypical, it seems clear that with fees in future set at close to £9000 a year such astronomically high levels of debt will without question become increasingly common-place.
“I fundamentally fail to see how this can be a good approach to funding higher education – graduating with anything close to these levels of debt will be of great concern for many people; I continue to worry that some applicants may be put off entirely, or feel forced to choose an institution or course which is cheaper, rather than the one that is best for them.”
The Student Loans Company’s response to Vision’s FOI identified the students plagued by such high levels of debt:
“The top 20 debtors have received student support for an average of 8 years. 90% of the above students have gone on to study Medicine after completing their first undergraduate degree.”
Second Year Politics student Rebecca Kelly is one of many in the precarious position of wanting to do a completely different degree, but stuck studying and paying for a decision she now, in hindsight, feels she was not ready for at seventeen.
She told Vision, “I want to do an NHS-funded public service degree. With the levels of debt I would have if I was one of the next generation of students, I would be in major trouble considering these ambitions.”
She is intent on reapplying next year and completing Politics due to having already sorted out housing arrangements for next year. “I am willing to take the bullet of Arts degree debt and eventually fulfill my ambitions in public service,” she explained.
Julian Sturdy, Conservative MP for York Outer and the University’s representative in Parliament did not wish to comment on the issue.
Sturdy reneged on a promise made to students at a New Generation Society debate to sign an NUS Pledge Against the Fee Raise, last year before the general election. He went on to vote in favour of the £9000 cap, when elected.
YUSU President Tim Ngwena revealed that although he was aware that discussions had at one stage considered setting fees at £8,500, the University would probably set the maximum figure.
The University of York looks set to have its current teaching grant of £28.8 million slashed by a staggering £18 million, fuelling the desire for the University to charge high rates.
Vision asked Jane Grenville, Pro-Vice Chancellor for students, for her take on the story. She responded, “While we would not wish to coment on individual financial decisions made by postgraduate students, as a University we are concerned to maximise the financial support we provide through scholarships (both university and externally-funded), bursaries and hardship funds.
We also encourage all students to plan their personal finances carefully before enrolling, and to take account of all the costs of studying for a degree. In this regard, we are working to improve significantly the information we provide via the web to prospective students.”
University is an investment in your future, why do people feel they are entitled to it for free? If you can’t accept the debt (which in reality isn’t as bad as this article makes out as you pay it back in such tiny amounts) then don’t go to university. The experiences I have had and the qualification gained worth the 30K I will owe student finance definetly. Would I go to uni if I was going to be under the new system… yes without a doubt. The level of support the government were offering students, subsidising each student at uni each year by about 18K was not sustainable with the influx in students. Something had to give, so the amount students have to pay back has gone up… But only if you earn well above the average wage in this country.
I think people have clearly not actually understood what the restructure in student finance means for them. When the new fee rates come in if you earn an average of 27k a year post graduation then you will pay back less under the legislation then you would under the system I currently get my finance through.
The debt you have upon leaving uni won’t “cripple” you, unless you’re silly with your money and have 10 credit cards.
Just once again goes to show why universities are only for the rich! When will people learn this?!
Unless daddy can pay, go get an apprenticeship or something… not bloody moaning about your interest free education!
If this article has a point, surely it is that we should be embracing those businesses which might set up private institutions?
Going to the only private University in the UK will cost you less than £9000 a year and they offer cutting-edge two year degree programmes.
@Roger: I’m going to assume this is tongue in cheek as going to university has nothing to do with being rich any more. That is the beauty of our system. Anyone can get the funding to go to university and as I mentioned previously it is not real debt considering the low rate it is paid back at and the benefits you get from going through university.
Well regardless of how good an investment university is in people’s futures that isn’t the end of the story. There is clearly a role that the government has to play to create the right incentive structures to go to university across all backgrounds. In the past when fees were free, people were able to break down class barriers and take advantage of higher education because there is a better financial argument for doing so. When taxes paid by everyone fund university education then you incentivise as many as possible to go. Conversely, when university education is funded by those who ‘are willing to take the hit due to the benefits you get afterwards’ then people from poorer backgrounds are unwilling to go because there’s a clear risk that it won’t work out, given current levels of graduate unemployment. Parents are far more likely to dissuade their children from going to university, knowing that they can’t provide an adequate safety net for them. And as was mentioned, now the rich kids will just jolly off to private institutions and you get more social tension.
Even in an age of austerity you should invest in human capital, from across the board. The tuition fees rise is a pathetic cop out not in the interest of fairness of productivity, but saving money.
I feel I have already answered everything you have said already. I really don’t understand your argument at all. I fail to see how students having more debt but this is offset with how they pay it back is bringing back class divisions. How are you getting to that conclusion? People believing everything they read regarding student fees is what is causing friction… If people actually sat down and did the math they would soon realise that it is stil just as beneficial to go to uni. My sister will be doing physio under the new system and should she get the job she wants, she will pay back considerably less under the new system than she would under the current one. How is this unfair? There will always be rich people who can pay for there university fees outright, you just have to accept that.
What are these clear risks it won’t work out? What you go to uni get 50Ks worth of debt then there is not the job you were expecting at the end of it? in which case you end up working a job getting paid anywhere up to 27K a year… and therefore payback less in the log run then you would do under the current system. If you’re getting paid 19K a year you don’t pay any of that money back so uni has been free for you. You will also have a high level qualification and when the job market grows again you will be in a prime position for a better job relating to your degree if you want it.
‘are willing to take the hit due to the benefits you get afterwards’ translates to ‘people earning well above the average wage and therefore have more than enough money to live so they are now putting back into institutions that helped them get to there current position’. I genuinely can’t follow your first statement at all.
Please can you expand on the cop out. I struggle to see the other options that were available to the government. I would rather university was free, but the numbers don’t make sense.
This is just more sensational nonsense. This isn’t real debt, find me anywhere else you can get a loan where you only pay 9% on earnings over £21,000 and all outstanding debts get written off after 30 years. How the hell is this crippling students? The median salary last year was £26,000, someone earning this on the new system would be expected to pay £8.50 a week and on the current system they’d pay £19. Also as Adam has already pointed out many people will actually pay back less than they do now, the BBC worked it out as the bottom 25% of graduates. This is because of the thirty year time limit. There’s no reason why this should put people off from poorer backgrounds because what you pay back all depends on what you earn when you leave uni. There are no upfront fees! And yet people ARE being put off because of articles like this that don’t want the facts to get in the of a good story.
FUCK YOU BITCHES YORK IS WELLL SHIT INNIT. WORST INVESTMENT EVA, NEGATIVE NPV AND ALL THAT JAZZ.
Was it a slow day for you at Lanc, as you lumber slowly towards this page with wrong comments and an even more wrong attitude? If we ever meet, just remember I want a large Coke with my McMeal deal.
I think complaining about debt is only really a problem if you’re at York St John or similar… i.e when it definitely isn’t worth it!
I fail to see how student debt is ‘crippling’ students.
It would be a different story if the debt was owed to a commercial bank, however with the repayment structure in place, chances are this person will never pay it all off unless they get filthy rich – in which case surely they should pay back into society as a result.
The student loan system is fair and is actually about to get a lot fairer as the threshold goes up.
The NUS has done a lot of harm by scaremongering about debt and these articles don’t help. Aaron Porter wants to discredit the repayment system because his future political career in the Labour party partly depends on its failure.
Meanwhile, graduates up and down the country are getting an incredibly good deal from the student loans company – no upfront payments, no crippling interest rates and it gets wiped out after 30 years anyway!
Sounds like a good deal to me.