Student debt stories

A survey has suggested that students starting university this year could end up with debts of £23,000 upon graduating. Two students who contacted the BBC News website share their experiences on the issue.

STEFF WOOD, GRIMSBY

Steff left university with debts of £30,000

I've just finished an English Literature degree at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln.

I'd always been interested in books and my degree was fantastic.

I really enjoyed my whole time there and the lecturers and support given were great - it was just the money side of things that wasn't.

As well as tuition fees, which I had to pay as my parents earned 'too much money', I had to spend about £1,000 on books per year.

I worked two jobs throughout uni, working weekends and holidays to avoid getting a credit card or ending up with a high interest student overdraft - but it really took up a lot of time that I needed to use for study.

After my first year in halls, I moved back home to save money and drove into uni every day.

Despite all this effort, I still left university with £30,000 student loans to pay off and a feeling that this might have been a bad idea.

All the companies I have applied to for a job say I am either overqualified or lack experience.

In two weeks my boyfriend and I are moving to Norwich, so he can start a degree in Computer and Games Design.

He is 24 and is classed as a mature student - he left his parents' home many years ago.

Struggle

He always wanted to do this degree but couldn't afford it until he met the mature student criteria, which gives him access to a lot more grants and bursaries.

It will still be a struggle for us though.

The money he gets will just about cover rent and food but other equipment he needs, like a computer and specific software will be costly added expenses.

As for paper and pens, I've had to give him all the leftover pages from my notebooks and all my almost dried up pens and highlighters as we just can't afford new things for him.

Luckily the games industry hasn't been that affected by the recession so we're hoping he will be able to get a job at the end of it.

DAVID LANGFORD, NOTTINGHAM

I'm starting a Masters degree in Energy and Environmental Engineering at Leeds in September.

I want to experience university life, get a decent degree and do something useful.

I'm not so much concerned with the headline figure of total debt, the worry centres more on how I'm supposed to source this money in the first place.

As it looks right now, after I've paid for my self-catered accommodation, I'll be left with £700 of my student loan to spend.

The government says it expects parents to help finance students where they can afford to.

But my parents don't feel they should have to support me - a view I do empathise with, given how much I've cost them already.

Moreover, the Student Loan Company's assessments are rather dodgy.

I'm one of four and all of us want to go to university but the SLC doesn't take siblings into account to any meaningful extent.

A few of my friends are actually in a better situation as their parents have divorced meaning the income being means-tested is far less and the loan available far more, although I do have a friend whose mother remarried before she finished her degree and the loan she was offered plummeted as a result.

I used to work in debt management at a bank and I've seen the terrible situations people can get into.

The government is trying a load of half measures and not seeing it through properly

Provided you can finance yourself through and aren't being forced to take on credit cards then I think it's OK, but it would better if there was more support available - perhaps at a higher interest rate - just to fall back on instead of getting credit cards.

In my view, the government are trying a load of half measures and not seeing it through properly.

If anything, it's tilted now too much towards people from low income families at the expense of higher income families.

That's not to say that they don't need equal opportunities - it's just that the government should provide these opportunities for everyone no matter how much their parents earn.