Head of Science specialising in biology. @ArkTTonline & @UBSportExR grad, #AVFC fan. Proud @CityYearUK alumnus. All views my own - #BeTheChange#AlwaysLearning
IMPORTANT PLS SHARE. It's rumoured the English £9,250 tuition fee cap may be raised this pm for the 1st time in 8yrs, as University's finances are strained. As student finance misunderstandings abound, I've bashed out a few notes to help...
1. Higher tuition fees WON'T change what most pay each year. For most, they're paid for you by the student loans company and you repay afterwards only if you earn over the threshold. The amount you repay each year (9% over the threshold) solely depends on what you earn not on what you borrow.
2. Increasing tuition fees will only see those who clear the loan in full over the 40yrs pay more. That is generally mid-high to higher earning university leavers only, so the cost of increasing them will generally be born by the more affluent. Most lower and middle earning university leavers will simply pay 9% extra tax above the threshold for 40yrs (and higher tuition fees won't change that)
3. The rise is tuition fees is likely to be trivial compared to the changes the last govt made for 2023 starters. 2023 starters had their repayment thresholds dropped to £25,000 (from £27,295/yr) and had the time they had to keep repaying for (unless cleared) extended to 40years from 30years.
So these higher annual repayments for longer, increased by over 50% the amount many graduates will eventually have to pay back for going to university. Yet they were almost stealth changes because people can't intuitively feel the seismic impact.
Changing tuition fees is a more obvious rise, but in reality has far less of an impact on the amount most will repay (though combined with the 2023 changes it does certainly up the cost).
4. The biggest practical problem for students isnt tution fees (even if raised) its the fact maintenace loans aren't big enough. English maintenance loans have not kept pace with inflation. I'd urge the govt to couple the tuition fee loans with bigger living loans - if not it is a real risk to social mobility, with those from the poorest backgrounds likely to be worse affected.
I could write more, but will stop here, hopefully this gives an idea the issues are less straightforward than many feel.
Surely a generation will come along that will just cancel the “happy birthday to you” song. It’s time it died out. What psycho even started it? It’s the only time in life when your family sings at you while you wonder what to do with your face.
This is really powerful and important from @graeme_brown and the @birmingham_live team.
We need to put an end to child poverty across Birmingham now.
This lays bare the appalling situation.
Please read and share and help be the catalyst for change.
https://t.co/GN5e4Tt9Wb
@ParalympicsGB An amazing achievement and one I hope she will be proud of once the dust settles. She certainly didn't let anyone down, really felt for her in that interview. So glad to see her smiling on the podium #Paris2024
@BBCSport Was lucky enough to be in the stadium to see Arshad Nadeem's Olympic record javelin throw followed by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone's 400m hurdles world record. Incredibly joyful atmosphere and celebration in the stands!
Word of the day is ‘matter’, which began with the Latin ‘mater’, ‘mother’, because it is a substance from which we are made.
(Should those of us lucky enough to be writing a Mother’s Day card need an alternative word for ‘mother’, there is always ‘genetrix’.)
On the 200th anniversary of the first dinosaur to be named (Megalosaurus), we’re reminded that the iPhone is closer in time to the Tyrannosaurus Rex than the Tyrannosaurus Rex was to Stegosaurus