Study loans
At home. Browsing through the evening news on the internet. The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reports that fewer people are taking up student loans in Sweden and that the government agency in charge of administrating these loans now receives more money in repayments than they give out.
They sure do. Last month I myself contributed around €500. Of all the things that an egalitarian liberal should promote, student financing should be one of the highest priorities. And Sweden was, for a long time, a leading nation in this regard. But the new scheme introduced in 2001 has come to discourage a lot of people from studying at university.
For the state, paying out student loans is a negligible cost. With a V.A.T. level at 25 percent, a quarter of everything given out is returned immediately as soon as the students go for their books, computers and lattes. The rest is injected into the economy leading to even more taxes.
And even if this was not true, education in itself should be held as invaluable to a cultural society.
Of course, some would object, spoiled middle class kids like myself can pay. Yes, we can. But the current system with unfavourable interest rates and speedy repayments deter other groups, especially those coming from low-income families, from even considering a university degree. And they are the ones who need it the most.
They sure do. Last month I myself contributed around €500. Of all the things that an egalitarian liberal should promote, student financing should be one of the highest priorities. And Sweden was, for a long time, a leading nation in this regard. But the new scheme introduced in 2001 has come to discourage a lot of people from studying at university.
For the state, paying out student loans is a negligible cost. With a V.A.T. level at 25 percent, a quarter of everything given out is returned immediately as soon as the students go for their books, computers and lattes. The rest is injected into the economy leading to even more taxes.
And even if this was not true, education in itself should be held as invaluable to a cultural society.
Of course, some would object, spoiled middle class kids like myself can pay. Yes, we can. But the current system with unfavourable interest rates and speedy repayments deter other groups, especially those coming from low-income families, from even considering a university degree. And they are the ones who need it the most.
posted by Rasmus Karlsson at 19:54
3 Comments:
Another reason could be that we who have had a hell with CSN have shared our sh*tty experiences with younger people. And life does not always go as planned, life turns into a tragic joke but you still have to pay.
I still can not believe how stupid I was to loan the money.
Oh and... I never finished my studies... and never became somebody.
/Found your blog on DN sidan. Hejsan.
Well, to a certain extent maybe, but not sure that any middle class offspring can. After all, higher education take several years to complete (and more if one can not decide what to study) and that sums up to quite a lot of money anyway. You are very right though, that it affects those who already have the hardest time to enter of many reasons. When the background (non economical) has such a big effect, making the rules about financing the studies so hard, is to make it even harder. And now, not being entitled to any help AFTER finishing the studies, hardly make it more fun to start to study in the first place... Not everybody has a safetynet!
Hi again. To be just I need to add that I have gotten help from a very kind person on CSN. This person listened to me and made my life easier by giving me fair treatment and the necessary information I was not given from the beginning.
That's all
/the anonymous being
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