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Loans News - Last Updated Tuesday 5th June 2007

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Student loans slated by credit charity

Tuesday 5th June 2007

Credit Action has said that students are too willing to take on debt and that student loans just perpetuate the problem.

Despite the fact that Credit Action believes that paying the loan back does not take much of a toll on graduates financially, it could affect career prospects and effectively teaches young people that debt is acceptable.

Chris Tapp, associate director of Credit Action, said: "What you have with a student loan is essentially government-endorsed debt on a massive scale. The average student now leaves University 13 and a half thousand pounds in debt.

"Students have grown very used to spending three or four years of their lives living in debt, spending money that isn't theirs that they'll have to pay back, and probably borrowing on an overdraft and credit card at the same time; becoming very, very comfortable with a lifestyle that is essentially lived beyond their means.

"The way of thinking that's come in with the student loan, and the increasing debt levels that we've seen amongst people in their twenties, is more of an issue. So whilst the student loan itself isn't a problem, it's feeding into a debt culture, which certainly is."

Mr Tapp pointed out that 80 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds admit that they don't monitor their finances. And with the culture of debt that student loans introduce from an early age, the situation is unlikely to improve.

Credit Action advised that youngsters should adopt a cautious attitude to credit. "By all means take out the student loan, but don't see debt as a right, or the norm. It should be used as and when it's needed, and only when you can afford to pay it off," Mr Tapp concluded.