The Great Permacrises

The interest rate also depends on what you earn. Your interest is higher if you earn more. But you pay it off faster.

The way they work, they’re more like an added tax than a loan.

Martin Lewis is great at breaking them down so they’re easy to understand.

Here’s one of many articles on the topic:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/repay-post-2012-student-loan

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Certainly interesting, thank you.
So, from what I can gather from that, the headline about “richer paying less” seems a bit misleading, as the actual amount being repaid depends on salary too.

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I haven’t read the article, and I’ve not looked into what if anything is changing this academic year to know for certain.

It’s possible in response to the cost of living crisis they’ve removed or frozen the inflation element which would negatively affect most people. I can see how that might be spun to paint it in such a way that those who don’t earn enough to pay that level of interest won’t get that cut, and so it’s now costing them more than those earning more.

But I suspect what we have here is a divisive agenda push for clicks. Much like some other papers get slated for trying to turn one subset of society on another (blame the poor for everything), the guardian might be doing the same, but with the script flipped. It sews resentment towards other classes. When really we should be unifying against the real villains.

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I could also be interpreting it too simplistically and looking at it like a “normal” loan.
As in the same loan would be cheaper or more expensive depending on the repayment amounts and the length of the loan.

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If it were up to me, I’d just replace the whole loan system. Make it a tax contribution, and have education free for all.

I’d be fine even if it’s only those who continue further education who pay the contribution once they earn over a certain threshold.

The promise of a degree is a better paying job. If it fulfils that promise, pay 10% of your earnings above whatever the threshold is. If you don’t, then you don’t pay.

Which is sort of how it currently works, except since it’s a loan, it’s possible to fully repay back, and it does mean some will invariably pay more on interest than others, but I don’t think that’s as simple as a class problem.

But yeah, I don’t think it’s helpful or necessarily accurate to really look on them as loans. That just scares people and then they overthink it, or avoid it so they’re not stuck with debt.

It’s this that really drives that point home though:

- Student loan & interest: £20,000. Your earnings: £37,295.
As you repay 9% of everything above £27,295 your annual repayment is £900.

- Student loan & interest: £50,000. Your earnings: £37,295.
As you repay 9% of everything above £27,295 your annual repayment is £900.

- To get silly to prove a point: student loan & interest: £1 billion. Your earnings: £37,295.
As you repay 9% of everything above £27,295 your annual repayment is £900.

The bottom line is, if your qualification does it’s job, and you’re paying more back as a result, I’d be very happy with that outcome, and would see that as money well spent. Even on the lower end.

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I’d just take away the interest. It’s not supposed to be profit making, it’s an investment in the future.

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I think they should just replace it with a tax system. People with enough money or with a high paying job will end up paying less towards it as they pay it off earlier so less interest.

I’m personally not against making contributions towards university as the system in Scotland has issues, but the current system doesn’t work properly, with major issues with the maintenance loan being based on parental income.

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In an ideal world, that would be a perfect solution, but you would still have some who would complain that it was unfair.

Funny to see them candidly admit that the plan for voter ID to weed out younger voters backfired.

You can imagine them going stfu Jacob :face_with_peeking_eye::shushing_face:

We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well.

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By them you mean the splinter cell within the Tories who basically all think Boris was a good guy really and Rishi should go? I doubt the main Tory line is aligned to this.

He’s not wrong though.

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Them as in Rees-Mogg who has Labour underwear.

It would be career suicide if any active Tory suggested that the plan didn’t work.

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Well, as predicted by the pilot the voter ID scheme dissuaded thousands of voters:

BBC News - Local elections 2023: Thousands didn’t vote due to ID rule, data shows

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Well that’s on the people, it was easy enough to get some sorted.

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That’s true, it was well publicised and to an extent clear.

But…

It was clearly aimed at a demographic who were likely to easily understand the rules and vote blue accordingly.

Whereas clear as it was it did put barriers in play (albeit easily circumvented) which led to discouragement and them not voting for one reason or another.

It didn’t work the way they wanted but it was a deliberate tactic to reduce blue losses.

I do wonder how many people who say they couldn’t vote actually would’ve if the rules were not in place though…

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In the case of the ten thousand or so quoted by that BBC article, that’s the number that were turned away at the voting booth for not having ID with them, and then failed to return (i.e. were put off from voting). So that’s at least ten thousand that would have voted if the rules were not in place. It’s a bit harder to measure how many people were put off from going to vote at all. I think we will need to wait on the overall turnout figures to assess that.

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It happened once. People who weren’t prepared couldn’t do the thing they weren’t prepared for. Next time they’ll know, too. Big deal, I say. Everywhere else requires ID to vote, so it just makes sense.

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Only for Plan 2 of course.

Those of us lucky enough to be Plan 1, it’s base rate + 1%, or RPI, whichever is lower.

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https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/05/martin-lewis--the-energy-price-cap-will-fall-in-july--reducing-t/

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It’s a good start for sure.

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Except…

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