Thank the FSM, I read it wrong
I thought there was another e in faces.
Cash-strapped graduates sell their own faces
A couple of cash-strapped graduates are well on their way to paying off £50k in university fees after offering their faces as advertising space. Ross Harper and Ed Moyse (pictured below) kicked off their 366-day debt-busting face-painting drive back in October, and have so far raised a cool £31,632 from a mixed bag of clients …
-
Monday 5th March 2012 16:51 GMT Pete 2
Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
New loan-takers get an extremely generous deal on their student loans. The interest rate is guaranteed *never* to be above the rate of inflation and currently stands at base-rate + 1%. if you have savings you can beat that easily with an ordinary savings account.
So if these guys are making money from daubs on their faces (do students still never wash?) then they should be putting the cash into a savings account - not paying off their incredibly cheap debts.
Presumably they're not economics students.
-
Monday 5th March 2012 17:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
I guess this post isn't really related to the article but it might bring a smile to the face of anyone who has had to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Student Loans Company.
I've got a couple of friends who were in their 2nd year of some web design bachelors. They both got offered jobs in the industry and (after 2 years of being on a course that was only teaching them things they already knew at a cost of thousands per year) decided to leave university.
Apparently leaving your course isn't that difficult, getting SLC to acknowledge it on the other hand is somewhat more difficult. As the new year started for educational institutions they both received their loans and grants, despite having been working full time for the previous few months and having withdrawn their applications for funding before the term started.
The last thing you want when starting a new job (or ever I guess) is to be investigated for fraud. Cue many lengthy phone calls to SLC (most spent on hold) trying to get the customer service bots to understand that they'd just paid several thousand pounds to people who were neither entitled to it or requested it. The problem is though that SLC won't let you pay back money it doesn't think you owe.
My friends decided that they'd done all they could to inform SLC of it's mistake and short of stuffing money in an envelope and posting it through the letterbox of their HQ, there wasn't any reasonable method to pay them back. So, awaiting the day that SLC notices it's mistake, the money is sitting in a savings account earning them both a nice bit of interest.
AC for obvious reasons.
-
Monday 5th March 2012 18:21 GMT Mitch Kent
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
Whilst I'm pleased you're one of the many who can afford these things, not all of us had the privilege of being able to afford university on Student Loans alone. If these guys are able to pay off the debt as well as stick some in savings, then great for them, but please don't assume everyone can get through uni on the same finances as you.
-
Tuesday 6th March 2012 06:58 GMT Richard 12
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
What on earth were you buying?
I went through Uni on a smaller student loan than you will have received on worse terms than you*, and did a post-grad degree as well.
When I finished I had a big student loan, and no other debts at all.
Perhaps some of that was because I did a summer job each year, but why the hell shouldn't you?
*I went through just after the terms became infinite, even surviving bankcruptcy. Shortly after they became limited to 25 years, and under the newest terms very few people will ever actually pay back the absolute amount borrowed. It's literally free money.
-
Tuesday 6th March 2012 08:35 GMT Aldous
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
erm for me (2010 grad)
maximum student(maitenence) loan allowed = 4625/year
rent = 3840 per year (including electric etc but not net)
that leaves £785 to live off for a year which when you laready have some credit card debt going in to education, insurance of £180 (vehicle required to attend uni and do part time job), Internet (120ish) etc does not leave much left
So good for you if you found somewhere cheap to live, eat etc but the only ones pissing away their loan are the ones who's mummy and daddy pay their rent(including during the summer, not an option for myself or many others)/food/car and then give them a little bit more to "enjoy themselves". those of us not having the bank of mum and dad have to work as well as study which in my case meant being threatened with stabbings by underage chavs because i would not serve them booze , happy days
-
Tuesday 6th March 2012 12:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
Why is your credit card debt the student loan company's problem? The student loan is to allow everyone the opportunity to go to uni. If you blow that opportunity by having credit card debts beforehand, that's your problem.
£785 is plenty for someone to live off of for a year if they are careful and dont blow it on unnessesary purchases (such as internet... £120 a year?! Go to the damn library for free).
-
Tuesday 6th March 2012 14:20 GMT Santa from Exeter
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
Quote "£785 is plenty for someone to live off of for a year if they are careful and dont blow it on unnessesary purchases" Utter Bollocks!
That equates to £65/month, so far this month my daughter has had to spend £65 on compulsory trips for her course.
Even if she hadn't, unless you propose that she stops getting her prescribed medicine (needed regularly for a skin condition) and stops using such 'luxury' items as deodorant, she has just had to cough up a staggering amount to 'secure' the student house she will be sharing next year. This isn't a deposit, she still has to pay that, as well as rent for the Summer when she won't be there!
It seems that eating properly is a luxury if you're just on the Student Loan.
-
-
-
Tuesday 6th March 2012 15:13 GMT Mitch Kent
Re: Paying off your student loan is the worst idea possible
My main gripe was with all the presumptions you made, and, well, they're in full force again.
I worked full time every summer, and part time during term. How do you know what terms my student loan are on or who had worse? Perhaps I never got the full loan because of my parents earnings, but then maybe my parents never gave me money for uni? (Nor do I see why what they earn is relevant, I'm 18+, and shouldn't be tied to my parents in that way, but that's a different debate)...
How do you know whatever amounts we individually got would go as far in Lincoln as it would in London as it would in Loughborough etc?
I have no intent of going through my bank statements of yesteryear, all I ask is that you stop making presumptions as to financial status of others.
-
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
-
-
Monday 5th March 2012 19:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Damn!
Many moons ago when I was at university I wrote TWAT on a mate's forehead after he'd passed out at a house party. The next morning when he'd woken up he had to rush off straight away because he had an appointment with his tutor. It turns out the appointment was to discuss an extension he desperately needed for his coursework. He didn't get the extension because the tutor didn't think he was 'taking his course seriously'.
Needless to say, I've never owned up...
-
-
Monday 5th March 2012 22:19 GMT sabba
Actually, who is the bigger idiot...
...the students for coming up with an idea that actually requires very little effort on their part or the donkeys prepad to pay for it.
I wonder if we could raise the government's funding by suggesting something similar for the House of Commons. I for one would pay to have Cameron with a big tampon ad plastered across his smug mug. Or perhaps we could have a condom advert across Nick Clegg's - with the frequency he gets f#@ked he might appreciate it.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
