Oxford future fees: Ouch
2012 FeesHousehold incomeTuition charge for first year of studyTuition charge for subsequent years£0 - £16,000£3,500£6,000£16,001 - £20,000£7,000£7,000£20,001 - £25,000£8,000£8,000£25,001 - £9,000£9,000
"In summary, Council has approved a sliding scale of tuition charges, from £3,500 to £9,000 a year, depending on household income, and payable ( Read more... )
"In summary, Council has approved a sliding scale of tuition charges, from £3,500 to £9,000 a year, depending on household income, and payable ( Read more... )
So I would be owing £36,000 right now. Whilst not knowing if I will ever be able to work, let alone full-time. Would an English degree - even an English degree from Oxford; even a very good English degree from Oxford - be worth that? I don't even know.
And that no additional debt for living costs - which in reality I do have, only my parents could probably have paid that, instead of me having a loan, if they'd had to. But while we are not at all poor, they don't have £36,000 lying about to pay the fees. I can hardly imagine how rich you'd have to be to have that for each child, just...spare money.
It makes me so angry and miserable. :(
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Um, a system which completely ignores the impact of factors such as disability is not taking a lot of account of variations in earning potential.
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Speaking as, er, a person with disabilities....it really is. The less assured one feels about one's earning potential or general financial security, the more oppressive and alarming such high levels of debt are, whether prospectively or retrospectively.
For you, it's a question of imagining what it would be like not to be well enough to work. But I actually am not well enough to work, owe over twenty thousand pounds, and believe me, it is nothing like as easy to cope with as you think.
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This really doesn't function like debt, which is why it's so unhelpful that it's labelled as such. People have a reasonable fear of debt. But the problem with debt is that it is problematic if you can't pay it back, and it can affect your credit rating, etc. None of that applies here.
I'm sorry to hear that you're not well enough to work, and I'm sorry that you find your financial situation hard to cope with (although, was this a student loan? If so I'd make the same point that you shouldn't treat it like debt, even if it's less progressive than the proposed system in that the earning threshold is £15,000).
I find your assumptions about me kind of patronising, though.
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You said this:
if I were not well enough to work (or to work full time), then I would not owe anything
I don't see how interpreting an 'if...then' statement as indicating that something is not actually the case for you right now is a particularly egregious assumption. Of course it's impossible for me to know every detail of your private situation with regard to work, health, disability, etc. - but your easy dismissal of what I'm telling you (all of which stems from extensive personal experience of disability), leads me to believe that you are unlikely to have had similar experience. Though of course I could be wrong.
I am not asking for you to declare abled/disabled status, only pointing out that what you're saying sounds as though it comes from a position of immense abled privilege. (Even if it actually doesn't.) I think you could use a privilege check on this issue ( ... )
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