Student loans inquiry: UCB Guild of Students responds to the Treasury Select Committee call for evidence.

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UCB Guild of Students has responded to the Treasury Select Committees call for evidence on the student loans system.

We sided with students and graduates and have advised the Treasury Select Committee to make recommendations to change the current student loan system. We have noted that the current system is costly to graduates and penalises their ambition to achieve financial stability.

Under the current system, graduates must earn £66,000 a year to begin to reduce their student loan balance. This is made worse for Postgraduates who have taken PG plan 3 loans who are having to pay more into the system but at the same time are receiving less to help either pay off their tuition fees or cover maintenance costs.

The balance of cost-sharing has tilted heavily towards students. We urge the committee to recommend working directly with National Union of Students and Students’ Union to ensure a more equitable system is put in place, one that sees education as a public good and for a fair progressive graduate contribution system that does not penalise lower to middle earners.

Soham Chougale, Education Officer, Trustee of UCB Guild of Students’ Union, said:

Our submission to the Treasury Committee sets out clear evidence that the current student finance system is not keeping pace with the real cost of living and is forcing students to take on unsustainable levels of debt just to get by. We call upon the MPs to look at student finance as a investment in the country’s future not as a profit making toll. Britain needs a student finance system that is sustainable and affordable not the one that drags middle lower earners into large depts over years.