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BankruptcyNews
Junior Member
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 Posted - 11 June 2007 : 09:51:55
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Student debts break £3 billion
Student debt has risen above £3 billion for the first time, following the introduction of "top-up" tuition fees.
Figures to be released by the Student Loans Company this week will show a rise of more than £620 million in the money undergraduates in England owe.
The debt of current students - due to a combination of £3,000-a-year tuition fees and maintenance loans of up to £6,000 - is now three times the 1997 level.
The figures cast a shadow on the thousands of A-level entrants hoping to start university in the autumn. By the time they graduate, they will face debts of about £30,000, which most will still be paying off into their mid-thirties.
Graduates start paying back when they are earning £15,000 or more a year. On a £20,000 salary, the payments are £8.40 a week.
Debt has not deterred students from applying, though. By March, university applications were up by five per cent, compared with last year, to a record 446,765.
However, daunting debt does put off some people from poorer backgrounds, says the National Union of Students, despite the availability of aid packages.
Wes Streeting, the NUS vice-president, said: "Debt levels of such dramatic proportions do not only affect students' choices before they enter, or have the potential to enter university. They also affect the courses they choose, the career they take on, the likelihood of their pursuing further study and their chances to save and invest as graduates. We have not seen nearly enough consideration given to the longer-term impacts of fees and massive debt levels for the current system to be vindicated."
Source: telegraph.co.uk
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Student debts break 3billion
