Flaws in the UK student tuition and finance system

There is a situation in the UK where the opportunities for students are unequally distributed across the 4 nations. This is “issue “is a combination of separate problems and inequalities that are not regularly acknowledged or proactively campaigned against.

So what are these problems well they are numerous, however in short they are tuition fees: English students pay the full £9000 via loan regardless of where in the UK the university is. Northern Irish students who go university in Northern Ireland pay up to £3,575, up to £9000 anywhere else in the UK, via loan. Welsh students pay £3,810 via loan and the rest is covered by the welsh government, regardless of University location in the UK.  Scottish students who go to university in Scotland, don’t have to pay for their fees, anywhere else in the UK they pay up to £9000 via loan.

Interest on the loans are different: for English and Welsh students, interest is charged at a rate of RPI + 3.9% while studying until the April after you finish your studies. Then it is charged on a sliding scale, based on income from 0.9% to 3.9%. For Irish and Scottish students, interest is charged at 0.9% constantly from receipt (changes with inflation).

Now the differences continue into the repayments. English and Welsh students start repayments at £21,000 regardless of the borrowed amount. Where Northern Irish students start repaying at £17,495 regardless of the amount, the same is for Scottish students who took out a loan.

These differences have a profound impact on English and welsh students will have far more interest added debt, relative to what they borrowed when they finish their degree compared to Scottish and Irish students. These inequalities leave English students at a severe disadvantage as they have the highest rate of interest while studying on the max loan amount. Here are some numbers to demonstrate (just tuition fees)

 

·         NI student (In NI university) £10,910 approx. debt at the start of the loan repayments

·         Welsh student £12,145 approx. debt at the start of the loan repayments

·         NI and Scottish students (elsewhere in the UK) £27,200 approx. debt at the start of the loan repayments

·         English student £28,700 approx. debt at the start of the loan repayments

I personally think that it is wrong that English students could have to pay well over twice what a Welsh student could pay just because they are English, I also think it’s wrong that a Northern Irish student could pay 3 times more because they chose to study outside of Northern Ireland.

So why do these inequalities exist, some would say that it is to encourage people in poorer, less employed areas into education, Wales does have the second highest poverty rate in the UK. Yes, it does but it is a shared second with the west midlands at 23% and Northern Ireland is close behind with 21% poverty rate. Scotland has a poverty rate of 18%, the lowest in the UK. However, you have to average England’s poverty rates to compare to the other nations, you get 21% the same as Northern Ireland but larger than Scotland’s poverty rate at 18%.

Also with the UK being the largest nation there are some areas that are at Scotland’s rate of 18% but some that are higher than wales rate, London has the highest rate of 27%. So the differences in the tuition fees and loans cannot be done on poverty rates since, by nation, they don’t match the fee dispersion as England should have the lowest rates of poverty but it doesn’t.

What about employment rates well Northern Ireland does have the lowest employment rate at 68.8%, Wales has a rate of 70.5% and Scotland has and the employment rate of 74.9%. To have the current fee dispersion England should have the highest rate of employment, but it doesn’t at 73.9%. with a rate of 74.9% Scotland has the best nationwide employment.

Ok so maybe it’s done NEET rates (students/young people not in education, employment or training). Scotland has a NEET rate of 13.8%, wales have a NEET rate around 10.5% and Northern Ireland has a NEET rate of 5.2%. England has the NEET rate of 13.7%, However unlike all the other nations England’s NEET rate is the only one that Is increasing year by year.

So why do these inequalities in the student tuition and loan systems exist? There is no evidence to support why Scottish students are being given a subsidiary to cover their fees if they go to university in Scotland. There is no reason why Welsh students get a grant to cover nearly two-thirds of their fees and why Northern Irish students get charged nearly two-thirds less than English students if they stay in NI and why don't they get that help if they don’t go university in Northern Ireland?

Look, I’m not saying these subsidiaries and grants and reduced tuition fees shouldn’t exist. What I am trying to say is, why do they only exist for certain students with many stipulations attached? Am I the only one who feels that a student from Bristol shouldn’t have to pay more than nearly twice as much as a student, only 25 miles away, from Cardiff.

I am not angry at welsh Scottish or Irish students for having these opportunities, I am upset that English students don’t get them. We live in a meritocracy and universities require you have merit to be accepted however it seems that in some cases merit is not enough depending where you come from.

I guess I am just reiterating the same issue that has been said so many times, UK student tuition and finance systems are seriously flawed. From the inequalities based on locality, the interest being calculated/charged with RPI instead of CPI, the freezing of interest thresholds till 2021 all the way to the current changes of increasing the maximum fee in line with interest and the dept. Business, Innovation and Skills constantly over calculating repayments, over estimating unpaid loans and not keeping track of who owes what.

I think students and educators dislike complaining about the system since we know how lucky we are to have one at all, but that doesn’t give the UK government the right to abuse that gratitude and extort us. I have always wanted to protest about these issues but always been afraid that instead of giving English students similar opportunities, they would just remove the ones held by Welsh, Irish and Scottish students.

(Disclaimer: this article does not intend to be offensive it is just my opinion that the inequalities dispersed throughout the system are just one of the many flaws of the system the figures use in this post are approximate figures calculated from interest figures in the complete university guide for 2016 and do not account for Inflation change, maintenance loans or planned tuition fee changes. the data used is collect from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Welsh government website I understand that you may have seen other sources which may contradict those in the post please feel free to comment any opposing arguements)