Imagine being a young Muslim in the UK today. You are committed to your religious belief – which tells you that lending money at interest is forbidden in Islam – but you want to further your education…
According to a new pamphlet issued by the Social Market Foundation, “the Tories’ student loan system that finances our universities, voted through by the Lib Dems, is a timebomb waiting to go off”. The…
The funding of higher education is a mess, and it is getting messier. New proposals on the table to allow universities to take on the debt burden of their own students could have profoundly worrying consequences…
The debate around how to finance undergraduate education at English universities has been reignited by a new report from the business, innovation and skills select committee questioning the sustainability…
“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” according to Oscar Wilde. No more so than in the contemporary issue of debt. It seems that while we may have been born free, many of us will die financially…
Students should be given a lifetime loan allocation that they can use for different undergraduate and postgraduate courses, according to new proposals put forward by a group of universities. The University…
Until now, student debt in Australia has been relatively modest, with low repayment rates, low indexation and high repayment thresholds. This won’t be the case if the government proceeds with changes mooted…
Spring in UK universities sees the funding letter drop on the mat of the vice chancellor’s lodge and like an English April, no two years are the same. Coalition ministers are keen to tell us that the present…
Nearly three-quarters of graduates will not clear their student loans before the end of the repayment period. This means the large majority of those who go to university aged 18 or 19 will still be paying…
A Grattan Institute report I co-authored highlights student debt costs, with the finding that the government could save $800 million a year by retrieving unpaid debts from deceased estates and students…
The government could save A$800 million a year by recovering unpaid student loan debts from deceased estates and students who have moved overseas, a new report from the Grattan Institute has found. “Doubtful…
It was clear that recent fundamental changes to the way we pay for university in England would have longstanding ramifications for young people’s plans for their future. Two years into the new fee regime…
I recall the time some years ago when the possible introduction of student fees was being debated and a government decision was imminent. I was attending a seminar on the subject organised by a think tank…
Gill Wyness, London School of Economics and Political Science
The announcement that the government intends to sell off part of the student loan book is perhaps no surprise, but it is bad economics. Debt from student loans is currently a groaning £46.6 billion on…