The education system: Go to university and get £40K+ of debt, become a teacher, teach your students to get good grades to get into university.

English people: my student loan debt is crushing Americans: hold my beer

This seems like an absolutely insane system that doesn't work for anyone.

As a current student this video just gave me a heart attack, thank you for the critical information 🙌🏽

I agree that students have been horribly misled and misadvised into unaffordable borrowing to pay for degrees that are often worthless (at least in terms of employment prospects). However, you should be clear that your video describes the situation of tuition fees and loans in England, not in the UK as a whole.

my loan was 63k when i left uni 3 years ago its now up to 67k ill never pay it off and im working full time as a doctor. i have no incentive to pay it back since im only paying interest. ill actively avoid paying any more than i have to until its written off. i feel like i was lied to about student loans.

I remember all the people that complained when students protested this in 2012, all the newspaper headlines and pub talk about ungrateful students who clearly weren't as intelligent as 'adults'. The kind of adults who always know better until they don't. Students knew this then and we know it now. It's a ridiculous system doomed to fail, and when it does it'll bring quite a few universities down with it. All done for political reasons to the detriment of future generations. This video also forgot to mention the Student Loans company has been fully sold off and privatised so now any profit doesn't go to the government but all debt is underwritten by the government. This is probably one of the worst legacies of the Cameron government. Y'know apart from Brexit and cementing a system for our NHS to canabalise itself. But like everything else this generation will fix the horrific mistakes of our parents and grandparents.

Why are they called "Boomers" Previously: they were part of the baby and economic boom Now: they left economic time-bombs for their children and grandchildren

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Goodhart's Law

As a german i often forget what a huge privilege it is to have a completely state funded education system... not just the money but especially the Grades and Ranking is very interesting Can't wait for your vacation to be over! even if you deserve it

When someone robs a bank’s money its a crime. But when millions are in debt for a piece of paper it’s just plain business for these predatory institutions.

I did masters, and now 1 year later im £64k in debt. I mean at least there is a big figure next to my name.

I think this needs a title change from UK student debt to English and Welsh student debt, as the education system is entirely different in Scotland this all only applies in England and Wales (I am unsure about NI perhaps someone from there than clarify the situation in NI).

£1000 left to pay on my student loan, i'm almost free!

Well this is lovely news to hear while I’m doing my ucas application

As someone who's got about £40k in student debt who's going into teaching, I feel this video hard

Meanwhile in Sweden: The interest rate for student loans are 0.16% during 2019. And remember, university is of course free of carge in Sweden, this is just a loan you can take to cover living costs if you don't want to work part time jobs while you study. Crazy system in the UK :(

I think you missed out on a case study here: Scotland has no tuition fees. We get loans to cover living costs over our 4 year courses, but the degree itself is free. We therefore have far less student debt, and aren’t tied into such a disastrous debt cycle as the English.

I really need to stop spending my maintenance loan on prostitutes and fifa coins

I'm 19 and got good a level grades and i am so glad I am taking a gap year to work and take courses instead of bowing to family pressure of going to university. Uni is a scam now i think.

Tbh, since joining university I believe it’s the biggest waste of time I’ve ever embarked on. If you read this, get an apprenticeship! University should be just for partying and the degree is NOT worth it UNLESS you are in sciences.

I just did the maths and had I gone to uni a decade ago I’d have less than 10% the debt that I will graduate with

As England, has to always differ from what the rest of the Europe does (power outlets/ driving side/ pound/ imperial) they had to follow American in the pursuit of University capitalism.

I'm waiting tables after graduating. Feels good man.

As someone who is acutely aware that he'll never be able to pay off his debt, this was a fascinating video. I particularly found the part abut the old system being moderated by Durham and London interesting, as I read and have a Bachelors and Masters degree from Durham. It all feels a little ironic, and I also wonder how this will affect me now that I've moved to Germany and I'm no longer putting anything back into the UK economy, at least not directly through taxation. I always suspected it would be a huge debt bubble.

"Up in the morning and out to school Mother says there'll be no work next year Qualifications, once the Golden Rule Are now just pieces of paper" Billy Bragg wrote that in the 80's and now its more true than ever.

It's not really a debt. It's more of a graduate tax

I went to university feeling unemployable with the expectation I would leave with a degree that meant I could apply for jobs as a graduate and that would mean something. As it is I am stuck living back with family after 3 years of freedom, incredibly depressed and only able to get low level jobs I could have got at 16. I constantly apply for roles that should easily be graduate positions or early level (particularly given my volunteering and work placements in the field) and am told "since we see you are a recent graduate we do not believe you have the experience." Employers want experience, not education. My degree feels not only utterly worthless but a massive negative which has dragged down any non-accountant or other-very-specific-courses student who fell for it.

The bubbles gonna pop in 10-20 years when loans start getting wiped.

Remember when watching TL;DR news was quicker than reading the news literally anywhere else?

Ahh yes, the last ticking time bomb the baby boomers have left us. Good stuff.

As someone who takes calls for Student Finance England*, I concur with just about everything said in this video. The problem is with the education system in general. People are not getting smarter. They are getting better at completing specific tests which makes it look like people are getting smarter, but the reality is that a lot of young people never learn common sense or important life skills like filling in a form (when they haven't been given all the answers in advance). Heck just this week I've had 2 callers asking about progress on their application, when they haven't submitted one, and another who had no idea what a (household) bill was - and these people are our future! While maybe not relevant now, one bit of advice for any students applying for finance, get the application in early, we generally recommend May for new students and June for returning students, but the earlier the better. Too many people wait until after they get A-level results or even September and get burned as a result (we will not fast-track an application just because you started your course already). * Before anyone asks, this is my own personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of SFE or any other part of the Student Loans Company (SLC)

Student loans. Legal loan sharking in both the US and UK

How about a video about private and public high schools? There seems to be a big difference between private and public high schools in the UK. I recall no big differences between ours. Heard a private high school founded by Samsung got escalators...but if there was a big difference it was school lunch and dinner quality.

So in 30+ year's time, a whole bunch of graduates are gonna stop paying off their loan, but be landed with a higher tax bill?

I was thinking about going to uni in the early to mid 2000's and already had older friends coming out with degrees that proved to be useless. This tipped my decision making in favour of not going. That and general career indecision.

I'd like to point out that IQ tests are constantly restandardized so that a score of 100 will always be considered average. Since the equivalent IQ of people has been rising, they have been lowering the scores through various means so 100 is still the average IQ.

Most tuition fees in Scotland are paid by the Scottish Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS), not the students themselves.

It sound like bank bail out of 2008 waiting to happen alover again.

Imagine my face when he said there was an average of 50k debt, when my financial guide tells me to expect 100k debt by the end of my course 😫😫

Something relating to this, which I feel isn’t talked about enough, is how the mass expansion of further education and the introduction of student loans in England, occurred alongside the sudden and rapid increase in property prices throughout most parts of Britain. All these new students needed somewhere to live, so property ownership suddenly became much, much more lucrative. You could say that having students as tenants is a reasonably safe bet, as their student loans mean they’re unlikely to miss rent payments. So, you’ve got millions of young people getting burdened with obscene levels of debt all whilst actively contributing to a property market which is going to be virtually inaccessible to them, creating additional financial difficulties for them in later life when their only option is to pay rent, rather than own property and achieve a greater degree of financial independence. This has all been very profitable for some people but a complete and utter disaster for most. Most of the losers here have been scammed big time. And to think, this was all started by a Labour government.

I had a great time at uni. Hardly studied at all but partied every week and played a lot of video games. Got a massive load of debt and have paid back less than £1000 of it in the last 20 years. I am currently self teaching, and aim to have a well paid job in 5 years, so I can still make good money but also avoid paying back my student loan. Thank you tax payers, you also paid for my 4 year long party x

I've tried explaining these issues to people many times, particularly the bill waiting for the government after 30 years. It's a ticking time bomb. Remember when Corbyn said we should wipe student debt now and everyone said "where does the money come from"? That question should really be reversed... where is the money coming from to pay it off plus 30 years of extortionate interest rates? I presume those that put this system in place in its different stages didn't care because they knew the negative consequences would fall on a different government

One of the greatest videos on your channel.

There's a pretty obvious alternative explanation for how grades could have risen without either students getting smarter or academic standards having declined: students nowadays have the internet (and various other learning resources that were not there in the past). I'm not sure how exactly it works out for Arts courses, but for science courses, as far as I can tell what used to happen is that if you couldn't understand your lecturer's explanation of any given concept, or understand what was in the textbook in the college library, that was it, you sunk. Whereas nowadays you can go online and find hundreds of different explanations of pretty much any concept, along with example problems to practice on. Given this, it would seem extremely strange to me if grades WEREN'T rising, even if the students nowadays have identical intelligence to people from the past. Thinking about it more, even if grade inflation is real, surely it can't affect how many high paying jobs there are in the first place? It might be frustrating on an individual level if you are someone who would have gotten a first even with higher standards in place, and now you have a degree with the same number on it as someone less academically talented. But the same number of high paying jobs would exist regardless of how many people have 1sts (the amount of work companies need done does not change due to the accuracy level of degree qualifications, that just does not make sense). Firsts being easier to get might make it a bit more random who exactly gets those top jobs, but regardless of who gets them, there remains exactly the same number of people with student debt they need to pay off and an insufficient amount of pay to do so. To put it a simpler way: there are a set of students who need well paying jobs to pay off their student loans, and there are a certain number of jobs that pay well enough to do so. The number of such jobs available must be lower than the students with degrees, otherwise we would not be talking about any of this. It does not matter how well or badly the ranking system for the students works, there will still be the same number of students with insufficiently well paying jobs to pay off their loans, just different specific individuals in the "well paid" and "not well paid" categories. So all in all, I can't see why grade inflation would play any role in the problems ex-students are currently facing with loan debt .

Love how it’s like £40k of student debt in England but only like £4K of student debt in Scotland. Just shows how Scotland’s better

Thank you so much for this video and all the other ones. Thank you for bringing us the information which otherwise would remain unseen.

One of the most ridiculous parts is that the government "helps" the poorest students by loaning more money to them in the maintenance loan which means they have to pay back way more

Im glad Scotland has free uni

Sorry to point this out but you have a tendency to put out these videos on "U.K." issues which are actually "England" issues, ignoring that things in other parts of the U.K. can be quite different. For example, my Sister just started Uni in Northern Ireland, and for a start her interest rate is only 1.75% on Tuition Loans. Looking back at previous years the highest it's gone is 4.8% way back in 2007, while in 2009 it was actually 0%! Also, they didn't replace Maintainance Grants with Maintainance Loans, they offer both. My sis turned down the Loan, but was entitled to the Grant, which is great because it's worth about the same but doesn't have to be repaid. This could be seen as both better and/or worse than your own situation, but it's undeniably a very different one, which is my point. (Also, it's "Fewer People Going To University" at 7:58. Sorry, couldn't help it.)

You explained this SO much better than the students I spoke with in Cardiff did. Thanks Jack!

In Wales you get a maintenance grant based on household income, above £55K, you get £1K per year and you get more the lower it is. When household income is £18K or lower, you get the whole £9K. This applies to unis outside of Wales and those studying in London get larger grants. A few years ago, Wales would just pay around 66% of your tuition fees (So you end up paying around £3K per year), this applied to unis all over the UK.

Never paid any of my student loan. As I've decided to set up my own business, and don't pay myself through PAYE. Therefore.. no student loan tax for me :)

One extra detail I would include in this whole scenario is the pressure put on schools to rank well in tables. The schools then dangle the university carrot, including all the questionable benefits, to pressure their students and so on.

Here in Scotland, where Scottish students don’t pay any tuition fees, instead the Scottish Government covers that cost. However it’s not an incentive for those universities to take in more students, because the amount of money they get per student doesn’t actually cover the cost of that student, international and (to an extent) students from the rest of the UK, along with research grants, subside that cost. In fact it actually seems to encourage higher academic standards because universities are encouraged to become more research intensive, as that’s where the money really is. The education system here in Scotland is also completely different in general.

Both New Labour and the Tories have been pursuing a misguided Thaterchite inspired Financialisation of the economy, including previously publicly funded areas, such as Education, Healthcare and even Defence. The growing Student Debt Crisis is just one of several problems on the horizon ensuring the UK is destined for a 21st century of stagnation rather then progress. Parliamentary reform is desperately needed to replace the idealogues running the major political parties with competent leaders who prioritise the interests of their citizens instead of subverting government to line their own pockets.

Computer Scientist in the making here, at least I'm on the better side of graduate positions lol

This is so stupid! They would've saved money if they just paid the fees at the beginning. I hate this system it is so stupid!!!

People used to finish degrees without debt and everyone used to afford a house, family and children. Huh. What changed?

I paid my Postgraduate UK student loan (3000 pounds) within 3 years of graduating (2009-2012). I was a EU citizen and stayed on in the UK workforce, slaving in horrible working conditions, to make the payments. A lot of my fellow EU students just disappeared back to their countries without paying back anything; and were never worried about anything. Debt is a state of mind, nothing to do with finance or economy.

It’s apparent that nobody in this thread (including TLDR News) understands how UK student loans work.

I feel like the education system has really forced my hand into joining a university, really wish i would've gone with the apprenticeship route it seems like the way better option

Finally a video that doesn't have 2 mins and 30 seconds of intro and merch plugs. Instead, it was replaced by slow talking and unnecessary detail that doesn't provide any insight to the topic, let alone context.

Currently sat in my uni halls doing work while watching this - I feel great

I feel a-bit disappointed and misinformed, I’ve encouraged my daughters to go to uni because she loves to learn, I for one didn’t go enough in to student loans and it really means. Thanks for information ℹ️ now I feel its my fault for having that debt.

When the UK starts talking about the problems with the student loan system, the US just leaves the room

You're not supposed to pay it off. It's a tax in disguise.

Glad to see you guys read my comment on the previous uni fees video and raised my points ten levels higher in this video. Hopefully at minimum it educates future potential students so they can make a more informed decision.

There are few diplomas really worth getting into debt for. Also around @4:00 why would you take a loan if you can pay if off immediately ? Rich people don't take those kinds of loans to start with.

This video hit me hard. I entered into university aiming to go the whole way and be a historian or become a government worker, a civil servant. I’ve just completed my masters degree and had that whole plan destroyed. The debt is so crushing that I’ve realised no matter what job I take I am screwed over. I wanted to do some good in the world, but it just doesn’t seem feasible as no government job will take me without a different arbitrary qualification I didn’t gain at my university. My degree feels pointless and to some extent, I wish I had just done an apprenticeship instead, at least then I feel as if my education may have meant something. I may have already gained my dream job. As it stands I feel like I’m an uphill battle where no matter what I will have to go into an apprenticeship after going to uni for 4 years, or pay for a course to get this qualification. When I went in I was told I could get a government job with my degree, now I’m aware that was a lie. It was just something to get me to sign on as a student. I regret it deeply.

I got a 2.1 Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and its absolutely worthless. Ive applied to over 150 jobs and only 2 ever lead to an offer. Ive been laughed at for asking more than minimum wage and my first proper graduate job was £18k, I was repaying £1 per month of my student loan while the interest adds over £500 per year

That moment when you’re both going ‘oh, wow, the UK’s interest is better than mine.’ Whilst you’re also going ‘well, i won’t be able to pay this off’ when you have a top earning profession, but don’t have rich parents.

I enjoy watching these videos, but it would be nice to have some sources for the claims you make, rather than just taking your word for it.

4:36 a lawyer will be paying less student load than a teacher?! this just confirms the saying "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer"

I think it’s important to remember that student loans have no affect on your credit score and will eventually be written off so on an individual level it doesn’t feel like regular debt. I graduated 6 years ago and have never earned enough to pay any back. The £15k earnings figure quoted in the video has adjusted over time, I’d currently have to earn over £1500 a month according to the gov website before I’d have to pay any back. I have a mortgage and a very high credit score regardless of the £20k+ I technically owe... it doesn’t feel real! I get a letter once a year reminding me how much I owe and it goes into a drawer forgotten about for another year. I wouldn’t let the cost put anyone off going to uni in the first place.

Extraordinarily informative. Thanks for compiling this. I love the depth and detail.

5:50 I'd like to point out the Flynn effect for IQ where younger generations outperform older generations. IQ test are adjusted for this every so often as the average population IQ by definition is 100.

It's really shocking just how unaware of most of this I was, and I finished my undergraduate degree 4 years ago now. No one explained just how much the interest actually was (0.6% and 6% are just numbers to a 17 year old). I'm not even really mad at the government because I fully expect them to treat young people like shit, but why isn't this information explained to people simply and often in the media? I know why now. It's because this system is so God awful that to present the reality of it would be 'bias', which can't be allowed.

The most frustrating thing is that this future debt mountain was so blindingly obvious when tuition fees were introduced, but it never went through proper scrutiny. If 15 year old me could see the problem, why couldn't anyone else, especially when politicians espousing the loans system positively boasted that the majority of students wouldn't pay their full loan. Its an absolute scandal and I'm sure is making some people stinking rich

I would disagree that degrees are worth less because there are more universities based of Jon majors scheme, but more of the fact that experienced based jobs demonstrate a more practical value than the thousands of students picking pointless niche degree specialisation.

This is already outdated - ONS have just finalised a new treatment of student loans and how it counts towards public sector net borrowing - gov have to account for debt now, not in future. And this also glosses over a huge improvement in teaching standards - lecturers now expected to have teaching qualifications, so that's obviously going to have a positive impact on student achievement

I paid off my mortgage by 28. I deliberately avoided uni. People will look back at this era and think students were crazy to get in £40k debt with no guarantee!

- Schools encourage students to go to uni without thought about quality of uni or course because it looks good for the school. - Many parents encourage kids to go because they don't realise degrees have depreciated and think it will lead them into a high paying job. - Many kids look at personal interests or dream jobs instead of jobs which are achievable / in demand because they don't have the knowledge of the labour market. They also don't appreciate how the loans work or the impact on wider society. - Young adults come out of the safe bubble of uni with debt, a lack of direction and then get chastised for making a stupid decision years ago. Then to top it off see that they've contributed to a debt bomb for themselves and future generations.

Might wanna exploit tf out of Germany's tuition-free higher education system for everyone worldwide at the cost of monstrous taxes, which you're ain't gonna be subject to if you leave after graduation

So u tell me even though the cost of a degree went crazy high expensive comparing to old degrees, the actual value went way down 🥴

It's simple: Choose a degree in a field that requires a degree and that society actually values (that isn't oversaturated). The issue is a lot of people choose degrees that don't lead to lucrative careers (art, coding, journalism, English, gender studies, counselling, political science). The simple fact is: the best way to make the most of your degree is to choose a field society values more (not necessarily at the low end but has a high upper ceiling) such as science (particularly biology, and forensics), social science, medical fields (doctor (human and veterinary) psychologist, radiographer, pharmacist, surgeon, GP etc), choose subjects society value highly and in the case of medical fields, cannot do without.

Good video thanks for making this I'll never be a student but I have a nephew and nieces who might so your video makes this very interesting indeed!

"what does this actually mean" means I ain't going to uni

Great content but i have had three ads in 4 minutes dude... clearly very keen to pay off you student debt.

I'm currently in university, and I've been talking about this since I first came. I'm so glad it's finally been brought up in a bigger medium. I'd love to talk more in depth.

They should just scrap all tuition fees and student loans, replace them with "free" high education and student grants. Then that can be paid for with a graduate tax. It would streamline the whole system and would probably cut back on bureaucracy as well.

So this video is great, but there is one aspect that is missing: wages. The UK wages are incredibly low which has been compounded by austerity measures post 08 crash. Wages need to increase. The 7.5 minimum is appalling. Most people with degrees wont see 60000 and is worse if you are employed under the NHS.

Thank GOD we never went to university ! 😆

1. Student loans should be seen as a tax not a loan 83% of people pay it off. 2. Too many people go to university doing pointless degrees , in yoda studies or business studies my cat could pass . Universities used to be for the top academics with others going to apprenticeship etc . These day everyone leaves school with As and has a degree (they are no smarter than the past) so there is no way of telling if a job seeker is excellent or poor the entire education system is completely flawed .

Yes but don't forget, prior to student loan only about 20% of school leavers went to university. Blair came up with a clever scheme to drastically reduce youth unemployment by stating that 50% of youth will go on to higher education. The problem now is that half of the degrees are worthless in the workplace and the graduate is stuck with a debt and would have been better not having attended. I have many times as an employer been shocked when a job applicant with a degree is severely lacking in basic literacy and communication skills.

Wait, did you go to Loughborough? Were you in Elvyn Richards?

Iq tests are adjusted every so often to maintain a constant average

In Ireland... All I paid was a registration fee of maybe €150 or €50 each year. It was such a miniscule amount, I don't even remember.

It totally blew my mind to hear that some people could pay off their loan, let alone quickly!

Graduated in 2014 with a 1st in History, never been earning enough to pay it back, currently sitting at £27,000 XD Probably never gonna earn enough to start paying it back ayyyy