Call for reform over £50,000 student debts
THE average undergraduate will leave university with nearly £50,000 in student debt – and the majority of it won’t be repaid, figures show.
New Government statistics reveal the gargantuan scale of debts being loaded on to young people under the “deeply flawed” system.
It has led to calls for the return of polytechnics and more jobfocused options.
An average student starting an undergraduate course this year will leave university with debts to the Student Loans Company of £48,500.
Just one in four is expected to pay off their debts before the 30-year cut-off period when all outstanding balances are written off.
In 30 years’ time it is calculated the balance of all unpaid student loans will be £1.3trillion – 10 times the annual cost of the NHS.
But the statistics, revealed in a Freedom of Information Act response from the Department for Education, show the Government is underwriting the figure and the only “winners” are universities, which get to keep the cash.
Matt Western MP, Labour’s Shadow Universities Minister, said: “The Government’s approach to student finances is deeply flawed, leaving them with mountains of debt which most will never pay off.
“Combined with the Conservatives’ abolition of the maintenance grant, it is the poorest students who are often left graduating with most debt.
“That deters others from applying to university altogether.”
Graduates are only asked to pay back the loan once they start earning more than £27,295.
Christopher Mcgovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “The country is saturated with underemployed or unemployed graduates yet we have a massive skills shortage.
“The needs of young people and of the economy should come before self-seeking, money-grabbing, university racketeers.
“We need to return half of universities to their former status as joborientated polytechnics.”
A DOE spokesman said: “The student loan system is designed to ensure all those with the talent and desire to attend higher education are able to do so, while ensuring that the cost of higher education is fairly distributed between graduates and the taxpayer.”
He said recent reforms to the student finance system are at the heart of plans to “build back better”.