FREE MONEY !?! :)
The time is long overdue to teach young people how to be financially responsible.
Student Loan. The government’s answer to aiding students from cultural and socioeconomic demographics who typically wouldn’t be able to afford higher education. A really good idea both in theory and to be honest in practice too, although the massive rise in fees in 2011 did the cause no justice.
The UK Government would pay both the tuition fees as well as providing maintenance loans for students to pay for rent, food, travel as well as educational facilities such as books and laptops. Students will then be able to pay back the load once employed and are earning over a threshold of 21k. It all sounds very good on paper, but as always the dirt is in the details.
The loan itself is specially designed in such a way that it is almost fiscally impossible for the average person to pay back in one go or even in bulk but rather in a lifetime to maximise the interest on the loan which has now been raised to 6.3%.
Beyond the figures, the real-life implications of giving thousands of pounds to youths who have never seen such an amount of money and have not been taught to manage such assets effectively and responsibly, have indeed been overlooked.
As a result, there are undoubtedly a high proportion of students that allocate their funds ineffectively through reckless expenditure. Why think about the rent, or how you are going to get to university or even how are you going to eat tonight when you’re friends are all going on holiday and you need to pay for the flight tickets to join them. It is easy to dismiss the issue as young ignorance, but the root issue must be addressed.
For people that come from an unprivileged socio-economic background, it is very easy to see loans like its free money. Especially, youths of whom many have not yet had a job and thus have not experienced real and consistent income.
Take myself for example:
There was a time not so long ago that I lived life with the most ignorant of motto’s: ‘Let tomorrow me worry about tomorrow, and today me think about today’. This was an attitude that I applied to most areas of my life, most notably to my finances, it got so bad that I’d never check my balance until the card stop working. When I got my first student loan, I blew it all on Netflix, Dominos and a bunch of high priced gadgets ordered through Amazon Prime’s next day delivery service.
I’m wasn’t suffering from stupidity, I was just suffering from a lack of education on how to handle my cash responsibly. It is a vital life skill and it urgently needs to be incorporated into the educational syllabus.
Teach our future to take care of our future.
Richie Babalola. Storyteller // I write, create & document.
Socials: @richiebabalola
Email: richie.babalola@gmail.com
