“Debt campaigners tear up student loans
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29505582
An activist group in the United States has been carrying out deeds that some might think the stuff of dreams – buying and cancelling other people’s student debts.”
The situation in the States that has caused this to be necessary is what happens when free markets are allowed with little to no regulation.
Enjoy your futures children of Britain, you too can / will be in debit to big business for the rest of your lives just like those living the American Dream are.
Or is Britain far too sensible to go down this route…?
By: charliehunt - 22nd October 2014 at 17:47
Some of us saw it about – ooh – a decade ago!! Madness….
By: Creaking Door - 22nd October 2014 at 17:05
Reading the article it seems that the student-loan system in the United States operates somewhat differently to that in the United Kingdom; here you do not have to pay back any of your debt until you earn over a certain threshold (NOT minimum-wage!) and also when you reach retirement age your debts are cancelled…
…can anybody see a major flaw in this system if there are too many graduates chasing too few jobs?
By: Creaking Door - 22nd October 2014 at 16:59
Half of all school-leavers now go to University; this is neither affordable nor necessary.
If we are to have so many students then the government should at least control the number of each type of degree course that is available; these days a degree is not enough as ‘everybody has one’ and students often stay on to do a Master’s or even a PhD.
And don’t forget tuition-fees were a New Labour initiative…
…not that the Conservatives wouldn’t have been forced to introduce them either!
By: charliehunt - 22nd October 2014 at 16:28
Touché!!;) Yes to some of that but I hope I’m not looking back through rose-tinted spectacles but the mix of universities, polytechnics and in-work apprenticeships seemed to offer as broad a range of higher education as necessary to encompass youngsters of every ability.
By: Arabella-Cox - 22nd October 2014 at 16:11
I was being provocative to ensure people took a look charlie 😀
Do agree that higher education seems to be somewhat devalued these days. Do you not think that the making of money has got rather a lot to do with the abundance of rather pointless courses that young folk can get into debt taking?
Of course it is their chioce but it is also “choice” that leads people to be in debt through short term loans etc.
People are sold through advertising and marketing a vehicle, be it a degree or loan, that in reality is not fit for purpose or actually useful for them in the long run.
PS for balance i also consider left wing nutters to be equally unbalanced. 😀
By: charliehunt - 22nd October 2014 at 15:56
I can’t speak for the US but the ballooning of universities and courses to study is to blame for the indebtedness of so many young and not so young ex-students. Higher education has simply become a way of delaying the start of work or training for work, and many leave university barely qualified or qualified in subjects for which there is an abundance of applicants or for which there is little or no work. I am not sure what it has to do with “Tories and other right wing nutters”, which by implication defines Tories as right wing nutters. Well there’s an easy response to that!;)
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October 22, 2014 at 3:24 pm