The lifelong burden of student loans that entrench inequality | Letters
Readers respond to an article on people getting trapped by debt they can never seem to repayThanks for your article (Student loans: ‘My debt rose £20,000 to £77,000 even though I’m paying’, 23 January). I began my studies in 1999, part of the New Labour push to widen access to university. Had I known then that I would still be repaying this “loan” for the rest of my working life, I might have thought twice.The original premise was that student loans were a small, manageable contribution, easily cleared once you entered work. At the time, it was routine for more privileged families to take the low-interest loan even if it wasn’t needed, park it in savings and repay it later in a lump sum. For those of us who relied on the loan simply to live, that option never existed. Continue reading...
Readers respond to an article on people getting trapped by debt they can never seem to repay
Thanks for your article (Student loans: ‘My debt rose £20,000 to £77,000 even though I’m paying’, 23 January). I began my studies in 1999, part of the New Labour push to widen access to university. Had I known then that I would still be repaying this “loan” for the rest of my working life, I might have thought twice.
The original premise was that student loans were a small, manageable contribution, easily cleared once you entered work. At the time, it was routine for more privileged families to take the low-interest loan even if it wasn’t needed, park it in savings and repay it later in a lump sum. For those of us who relied on the loan simply to live, that option never existed. Continue reading...
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