DATGANIAD I'R WASG - PRESS RELEASE - DATGANIAD I'R WASG
Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales
Monday 18 June 2007
Student Loan interest rates to double
Interest rates on student loans are set to double if the Student Loans Company (SLC) continues to use the same source figure for setting rates. The current rate of interest has been 2.4% but a large increase in the inflation rate (RPI) on which the figure is based means that students and graduates could see interest rates of 4.8% on their outstanding loans.
Figures released last week also showed the huge scale of the debt that students have built up with the SLC. The total amount owed is now over £1.1bn and averages £7323 per person (154,000 students/graduates) in Wales alone. In England the figure is £15.3bn and £6224 per person (2,458,000 students/graduates).
Last year the total interest charged to welsh domiciled students was £24,742,000 but this will more than double next year if the rate goes up to 4.8%. A typical graduate leaving university with a student loan of £12,000 will be paying interest of £576 per year compared with £288 this year.
Plaid AM Bethan Jenkins said,
"The student loan system is a complete scandal. 154,000 Welsh people have taken out these loans. If interest rates double many people will be charged £50 per month in interest alone. We can not allow this to continue.
"Plaid has always opposed tuition fees and the huge debts that that they have burdened Graduates with. In our manifesto we proposed support to help Graduates repay their loans. I intend to start a campaign to try and persuade the Westminster government and the Student Loans Company to set a more reasonable rate."
Diwedd / Ends
Notes to Editors
Since 1994 the student loans company interest rate has been set at the RPI of March. In March 2006 this was 2.4% and that is the rate set from September 06 to August 07. March 2007 saw the RPI reach 4.8% twice the figure of the year before.
Statistical release with details of scale of debt and numbers effected available from: Wales: http://www.slc.co.uk/pdf/slcsfr022007.pdf
England: http://www.slc.co.uk/pdf/slcsfr012007.pdf
2 comments:
Bethan, I counsel you to drop that idea. Go after Westminster on the loan agenda full stop. If you ask them to set a reasonable rate, they will laugh an say that it is uneconomic - and they will be right. Interest and inflation are inevitably linked and you can't take one and leave the other. Wages increase annually, roughly in line with RPIX to nullify your argument.
Also, you compare Welsh and English student debt per head. There are very good reasons for this.
Yes, debt does exist - it won't spiral out of control. The point is that student loans are a socially damagin policy, not what the SLC is doing with its rates.
Best of luck with the campaign, but go on the right issues and not these ones.
It's unbelievable that the Labour party continued with tuition loans! Party of the people suppose to be! How many thousands of students have dropped out due to financial worries over the years across the whole of the UK. I remember half my class disappeared after the first year in the 90's. It's one of the darkest and most shameful chapters in the Labour party's history. I hope Plaid will hit them with it for years to come!!Education is the key for Welsh kids to get on in life and having policies depriving them of that opportunity is a crime against humanity!!
Graduate tax seems to be the fair way ahead!!
Post a Comment