Roland Perry:
In message , at 13:35:55 *on Sun,
30
Jan 2005, Jonn Elledge remarked:

personally, I'd rather have an extra penny on income tax th*an £15k
of debts.


One penny for you or one penny for everyone?

Once you are earning an average graduate salary of £30k, tha*t 1p
will be
yielding 300 pounds a year, which is less than half the inte*rest on
£15K, let alone paying back any of the capital. To be compar*able
you'd
have to be paying more like 4-5p extra for at least 20 years* (maybe
life).


£30k is the average grad salary? How depressing. I'm a 24 year old
Oxbridge graduate with two degrees, and I'm still earning nowhere near
that. My stupid life choices. I couldn't just want to be a financier
could I, noooooo.

Anyway.

You'd need some form of gradated scale; and it'd probably be easier to
just have it as an extra tax rate that you essentially pay for life. I
realise it's not an ideal solution - if it was, the government would no
doubt have gone for it - but it's less intimidating to a 17 year old to
say, "Go to university and you'll pay slightly more tax" than "Go to
university and be landed with £15k debt before you even start
earning." It's more a perception thing than anything else.

Jonn

In message .com, at
10:23:54 on Tue, 1 Feb 2005, remarked:
it's less intimidating to a 17 year old to
say, "Go to university and you'll pay slightly more tax" than "Go to
university and be landed with £15k debt before you even start
earning." It's more a perception thing than anything else.

But I think it's a con. By the time you are 45 and earning 50K, that
extra 5% on your income tax will be hurting real bad.
--
Roland Perry

On 1 Feb 2005 10:23:54 -0800, wrote:

=A330k is the average grad salary? How depressing. I'm a 24 year old
Oxbridge graduate with two degrees, and I'm still earning nowhere near
that. My stupid life choices. I couldn't just want to be a financier
could I, noooooo.

I think the average graduate *starting* wage is much closer to 20k, or
perhaps even lower than that (some will, of course, start on the
minimum wage which affects the figure).

That 30k figure is most probably the average lifetime salary for
someone with a degree, which sounds a bit more like it (you'll have
some who do reach the 100s, some that end up on millions, and some who
earn the minimum wage their entire life).

Incidentally, in pursuit of the magic 30k, I don't think I'd want to
make the kind of life choices (long hours, miserable work, from what I
can tell) that would result in me getting that now or soon. I value
my spare time a lot more so long as the money I am on is sufficient to
sustain me in a lifestyle I want, which it is.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.