I was 18, full of hope and expectation, with three years ahead of me studying English Literature and the authors I loved, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf.Seven years on, though, and life looks very different.
Yes, I had a great time. I read a lot of books, made lifelong friends and played masses of sport. But was any of it truly worth it? Financially, professionally, socially and even in terms of ‘real’ education – would I have been better off turning around, dumping my gown on the floor of my halls, heading back down the M1 and buckling down to a proper job?
Let’s take the money first. By the time I’d finished my undergraduate degree in 2022 – followed by a one-year Masters in English Literature at Bristol University then a journalism qualification – I’d borrowed nearly £60,000, despite doing part-time jobs throughout.
Two years on from finishing my further education, and now that I’m earning a fairly typical graduate salary, thanks to the appalling interest rate my student loan balance stands at £76,227.49. In the past five months, I’ve contributed £335 towards the loan, yet the total amount has risen by £627.49.
I’m essentially paying a ‘graduate tax’ of nine per cent of my gross income for the course of my working life. I may never pay the loan back – 44 per cent of graduates won’t, according to the Government’s own figures – and it’s only scant comfort that the debt will be wiped after 30 years.
Durham is generally seen as one of Britain’s better universities, perhaps second only to Oxbridge. So if I feel like this, what about the 2.86 million other students currently enrolled in other universities across the country?