Constance Watson

Is a degree worth the debt? | 17 August 2018

You’ll never get into a good university if you carry on like this.’ A haunting threat from school days past, but since the coalition trebled university tuition fees in 2010, the question is — do you really want to? The decision to increase fees to a maximum of £9,000 a year was met with anger from students and parents alike. Riots broke out with police arresting 153 people at a demo in Trafalgar Square. Widespread fury was particularly directed at Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who had pledged to vote against any increase in fees — so much so that he was forced to broadcast a public apology: ‘We made a pledge, we did not stick to it, and for that I am sorry… it was a pledge made with the best of intentions’, he said.

Tuition fees were first introduced by Labour in 1998, with undergraduates obliged to pay £1,000 per year. This rose to £3,000 in 2004 under the Higher Education Act. But it was the trebling of this sum that resulted in a seismic shift in attitudes: the monetary value of an undergraduate degree was now being called into question. And finances were not the only considerations; the educational and lifetime value of an undergraduate degree was also challenged.

I completed my degree before the cap on fees was lifted. In spite of this (and due to taking both the tuition and accommodation loans) I now owe the government thousands upon thousands of pounds. Under the previous system, the average student debt was estimated £24,754. The situation is far worse for today’s graduates, whose average debt is an eye-watering £44,035. Furthermore, a recent study predicted that three-quarters of today’s students will still be indebted into their fifties.

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