Interest rates on standard student loans that are used by most students to pay their loans look set to shoot from 2.4% to 4.8%. They will now have to pay more after they graduate from their course. The Education Department were keen to point out that students would only pay this after they are earning £15,000 this doesn’t change the fact though that they will be paying more.
Not only will they be paying more but HSBC has announced that will be ending its zero interest overdraft policy for graduates so they will be paying more and able to borrow less.
Neither the Conservatives nor Labour including Brown can escape their role in brining the tax on education about. The argument that graduates should pay in the virtue that they will earn more ignores the effect of income tax. It also ignores all of the wealth put into the economy by a trained graduate. Statistics have shown that applications from the poorest students have fallen since the introduction of tuition fees. All the talk in the world about meritocracy won’t help develop equality of opportunities if we continue to charge students out of secondary education. Only the Lib Dems stand as the major force in Westminster committed to ending the tax on education.
(Source Guardian money 24/06/2007)
2007-11-04 @ 23:33