At times, I begin to feel uncomfortable living here. It seem like every public service is performing better and everything cost more than in the rest of the UK, after 17 years of SNP in government.
Oh no, here’s more:
Funding for Welsh students is “broken”, according to a student union, after figures showed the average university graduate leaves with more than £35,000 of debt.
That is an increase of more than £14,000 in five years, according to Student Finance Wales (SFW) figures obtained by BBC Cymru Fyw.
The highest outstanding student loan balance in June was nearly £140,000, which the National Union of Students for Wales (NUSW) president called “horrendous”.
The Welsh government, which finances SFW, said it provided the “most generous finance system in the United Kingdom”.
That last line is funny, isn’t it?
Average student debt statistics across the UK
As of 2022-23, the average student loan debt across the UK was highest in England (£44,940), followed by:
- Wales (£35,780)
- Northern Ireland (£24,500)
- Scotland (£15,430)
Source:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Ah, but ….. this PROVES that Scots are subsidy junkies. Debt is so low because England and Wales are funding Scottish students. It is ‘pooling an sharing’ as Labour tells us.😉
Alasdair Macdonald
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Westminster cut Education funding £6Billion a year. From 2015. ConDems. Clegg reneged on student promises. £54Billion. Increased student fees in the South. Half will never be paid back. A total waste. The student loan book in the south is £87Billion. Being sold on by the Tories. Trying to make graduates pay more to private companies. An absolute disgrace.
The Scottish Gov has to mitigate the cuts. To stop students from starving and being in eternal debt. Based on the ability to learn. Not the ability to pay. A well educated population is an asset. A healthy population is an asset. Cutting child poverty to eliminate bad health is an asset.
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westminster is happy to see holyrood cover the costs that westminster will not pay for because all they then do is what they are doing right now with fuel payments withdraw funding so each year that passes the holyrood government finds it more and more to make ends meet and when that problem is exposed it is holyrood that is blamed , not the wrstminster cuts.Its time holyrood did something really big to shake the walls of westminster , something westminster wont like but cant do anything to stop.
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And it seems the Labour Gov would not bail out any Uni that looks as if it is going to crash
https://www.channel4.com/news/will-labour-let-universities-go-bust
The Labour Gov has already damaged the Uni of Edin by cancelling the £800 million the Uni was expecting for the AI research project. The extent of the damage this has caused will become clearer in the coming weeks. The Uni had started preparations to receive the money and this would incur costs eg buildings to house the project, personnel to manage & work on it who now have a doubtful future and more.
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‘The Labour Gov has already damaged the Uni of Edin by cancelling the £800 million the Uni was expecting for the AI research project.‘
Candidly, it’s worth clarifying I think that the significance of this strictly goes beyond an ‘AI research project’. Labour has cancelled investment in a major piece of computing infrastructure of significance for the UK’s science and technology research and innovation capability and capacity. It was destined for Edinburgh University in large part because the university has been the host of past generations of supercomputers as well as long having one of the world’s best AI research centres.
The now cancelled investment in a new exascale supercomputer would have been used to support perhaps hundreds of research projects for academia and industry.
For context, from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_High-Performance_Computing_Joint_Undertaking )
I’n 2022, the EuroHPC (High Performance Computing) Joint Undertaking announced a further five supercomputers coming soon to five European countries:
DAEDALUS hosted by the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET) in Greece,
LEVENTE hosted by the Governmental Agency for IT Development (KIFU) in Hungary,
CASPIr hosted by the National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway) in Ireland,
EHPCPL hosted by the Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET AGH (CYFRONET) in Poland,
and JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer, will be hosted by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany.
In 2023, the EuroHPC JU announced a further two supercomputers:
The second European exascale supercomputer,[33] hosted by GENCI in France; and
Arrhenius,[34] a mid-range supercomputer hosted by Linköping University in Sweden.
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Of course it has wider implications beyond the immediate impact on the University of Edinburgh which was one part of a bigger project. At the very least it suggests the new UKGov is not very adept at joined up thinking.
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Labour said that it it wouldn’t hang around – changes would begin on Day One of the New Labour Government.
It llooks like Labour is not expecting to hang around long in government either as it is already doing what it usually does over a decade or more – implementing policies paid for by the lower earners to fatten up the turkeys for a Tory Christmas on their return to power.
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OT, Tory leader hopeful James Cleverly will look into £440 fare for IoW return ferryboat trip when he’s the PM, honest gov.
https://www.islandecho.co.uk/cost-of-cross-solent-travel-needs-to-be-addressed-says-tory-leadership-hopeful/
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Although not specifically mentioned, I assume the disparity in debt levels is simply because Scotland’s figure is just for the Maintenance loans, whereas the others also include Tuition fees?
I have to say that I am so glad that I obtained my degree in Australia – where the government actually pays students to study at university rather than hit them with a loan…
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SKY News had a Edinburgh student , pre the GE, state that he was going to vote for the Labour party in the GE as he wanted to get on the property market as a home owner.
Perhaps that said student was being somewhat ungracious and unappreciative of the SNP, as the Scottish government, in them giving him free tuition fees thus more opportunity to gain a better paid job in order to be able to afford a mortgage.
As this Scottish student’s debt, post leaving University, would be far less than others within the UK as any student loan that he (perhaps got if applicable) would not have needed to also have to cover high tuition fees.
Plus I bet he did not expect all of these austerity announcements to be made so soon by Labour after they, Labour , won the GE and so were elected as the new UK government.
I assume he , the Scottish student, was over influenced by Labour promising “Change” and a “Fresh start” so he assumed (wrongly) that this would personally benefit him and his ambition after leaving University in owning a house.
I imagine the Welsh student in this article with so much student debt will also not be thinking that she will try and get a mortgage if she finds a job as she will, if she earns a specific amount, have to instead focus on paying back her student loan.
Will she be looking to saddle herself with even more debt via a mortgage on top of the existing debt she has accumulated as a student , much of which was , I assume, to cover her high tuition fees that the above Scottish student was exempt from paying in Scotland?
In February this year it was reported that tuition fees in Wales would rise from £9000 to £9250 from September. Will the new Labour government change that ? I doubt it based on the extensive other cuts to funding that they are making.
More and more I think that for some voters in Scotland their choice of voting for a party supportive of the UK in elections is solely based upon many false notions they have of the UK and for some a misplaced loyalty that somehow they think the UK and it’s government will benefit them more than an independent Scotland and it’s government.
Yet the facts and truth that they are constantly confronted with as still being a part of the UK expose the reality is the exact opposite of what they believe.
I know that the media here has to assume a lot of responsibility for that misunderstanding and too the false notions being held by some in Scotland in them, as a media, reinforcing much of the lies and spin in what and whom they choose to promote and also in what and whom they choose to attack.
In that the media fail to highlight Scotland’s true wealth and potential. the past and current positive initiatives implemented by the SNP as the Scottish devolved government that benefit us as a people living in Scotland.
While simultanously they, as a media , are also obscuring how very reliant the UK and it’s respective governments have been on resources sourced from Scotland that benefit their whole UK.
It’s not just students who have suffered but all of us who have suffered too under the Tories and it seems that , as a situation, that will not “Change” under Labour at WM as the new UK government.
Just think if Labour do win in 2026 in Scotland then potentially they as a party will be the UK government, the Welsh government and also the Scottish one in their Britain.
Now that will truly then be Britain , with Labour as all three governments, witnessing us all as a people in Britain being under (controlled by) a one party state will it not.
Where Labour will control all of the so called British governments.
Very very scary thought .
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According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the home ownership rate since 2019 amongst 25 to 34 year olds in Scotland is substantially higher than the rate for the UK.
See https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2024/06/24/homeownership-rates-among-younger-people-in-scotland-far-higher-than-for-uk/
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