The Cost of Education: Student Debt

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by: Hollie Wilcox
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Word Count: 399
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 Time: 1:26 AM
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Going to university nowadays costs a small fortune. There are just so many expenditures: tuition fees, books to buy, bus and train fares, rent, food and general living expenses, and that is not to mention going out. The cost of a bottle of larger nowadays can be over four quid in some of our local clubs, though the student union bar is quite reasonable. At least you don't need to pay tuition fees up front, they only have to be paid after you have finished the course, but they do have to be paid someday.

Everybody says don't get in debt but how are you expected to live as a student without getting into debt? It is really impossible to avoid; the choice is doing nothing at all and starving or borrowing some money. Once you have borrowed money you get charged interest which is so unfair. Not only that but you get charged interest on the interest, and you even get charged interest on that ad infinitum. Borrow a hundred quid which you don't pay back and eventually you will owe an infinite amount of money. Student loans are OK as they don't charge any interest at all, for the moment anyway. Then there are student overdrafts which are also free while you are a student but as soon as you leave you will get clobbered by high interest rates. Credit cards are a disaster. They charge about 19% interest rates and you get clobbered every time you miss a repayment, which is easy to do. They can cost some really serious cash.

On average you leave university owing about £18,000 though some people end up owing twice that amount. That is some serious debt, and some serious interest on that debt. Sometimes you can persuade your bank to let you keep your student overdraft even though you are working, but you can only keep that up for so long. Eventually they will kick in the interest.

Some lucky people seem to be able to manage on virtually nothing or they have some really generous parents. Some people take out the student loan and invest it so that they actually make money, but most of us end up in debt and need to set up some sort of debt management scheme to pay it back.

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Have you just graduated from University with a massive amount of debt? Why not get some debt advice by visiting the experts at www.debt-free.org.uk today!