Event: England

Graduates are drowning in unforeseen debts to pay for a degraded, hollowed-out education. Graduates are angry. With the cost of repaying student loans spiralling, and far fewer entry-level jobs available for recent university-leavers, some now argue they were sold a lie. The myth that loans for higher education are an ‘investment’ with a guaranteed return – the so-called ‘graduate premium’ – has been exploded. But this is far from the worst way in which students have been deceived. In England, those who started university and took out student loans between 2012 (when higher tuition fees were introduced) and 2022 are finding out that they have a lot more debt than they expected. It’s not just the £53,000 the average student now borrows to cover tuition fees and living expenses that they have to repay. Graduates in this cohort are charged interest rates based on RPI (the Retail Price Index – a measure of inflation some economists criticise as too high), plus up to three per cent on top of that. As inflation has increased in recent years, students with average salaries find they are paying out money each month but never denting the loan balance. Their wages take a hit, but their debt keeps on growing. Worse still, in last year’s budget, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that from 2027 the salary threshold to begin loan repayments will be frozen at £29,385 per year. This means that, as inflation and wages rise, people will begin repaying loans sooner. On top of all this, the number of graduate jobs available has fallen to a record low, and youth unemployment is at an 11-year high. Graduates who struggle to find any job, let alone a well-paid one, will soon find they are expected to make loan repayments while earning little more than…