Put more into pension - there is a huge amount of misunderstanding about what pensions are/arent/how they work and whats the relation to retirement age. Whats the difference between personal pension and state pension?
My personal finance hope is that some company takes on ‘educating young people about pensions’ as a mission and helping them make the best choices
Edit: One thing that upsets me a bit about it is how frequently misconceptions are spread by people who are most affected by them (e.g. “there is no point in me paying into a pension because by the time im old the retirement age will have been raised so much”)
It’s generally accepted that most student loans today will be written off. We’re looking at a big black hole for the tax payer in about 30 years time which will be on top of the pensions crisis we already have brewing
I’d tell myself to save £15 a week from the age 18, and to buy a house early in my working life. Probably a big regret of mine, never imagined housing would become so expensive, at the time I found the idea of tying myself down crazy.
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Anarchist
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Student loans are best thought of as a time limited, capped, graduate tax.
Indeed. So counterintuitive as it seems, there’s no need to feel sorry for students and unmanageable debt. There’s evidence that shows a proportion will actually pay less towards their education now, than they would have under the previous HE funding regime. (Once bursaries etc are taken into account).
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Anarchist
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I disagree. I feel sorry for anyone with unmanageable debt. I do think that there may be some graduates who are worrying too much over their student loan, though.
Don’t confuse the above with any sort of support for student loans (or graduate taxes). I’m against both.
If you’re seeing it as a loan that needs to be paid back in full, sure. If you accept it’s actually a tax and will never be paid off, slightly different story. The issue is the government have called it a loan, people need to ignore the name and see it for what it is. Again harder said than done, I understand some will respond very emotionally to this one.
I’ve worked in HE for more years than I care to mention, specifically in this area, and have done a lot of work with younger people trying to make them aware in most cases, you’ll never need to pay it all back.
Edited to add: assuming a student has home status. I’m not sure when it comes to international undergraduates; they may be getting some support from their national governments.
In most cases I don’t think that’s true, as a student earning over a certain amount pays it back in instalments, whether they want to or not. Not unless they don’t earn over £17,7750 in which you would pay 9% of your income over the above freehold.
From their POV they make more money out of you if you keep making minimum repayments, paying full interest. Once you start with a repayment plan / arrangement to pay, they won’t lend further to you but will freeze interest and let you pay back an agreed amount per month.
It’s in their interest as if you default they get nothing. Well the chances are less at any rate. Remember banks have to be “responsible” or pay lip service to the notion.
