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