Gen Z

[swill453]

After about age 40 it is no longer payable.

It's 30 years after you start repaying it, so a bit longer than that.

Scott.

[pje16]

That's Plan 2
if you are on Plan 1
If you started studying in the 2005/06 academic year or earlier, your Plan 1 Student Loan will be written off when you turn 65. If you started uni in the 2006/07 academic year or later, your Plan 1 Student Loan will be written off after 25 years.
Note that when we say "after 25 years", this is referring to the amount of time since the first April after you graduated (i.e. when you first became eligible to repay your Student Loan).
And if the loan is 'written off', that means you no longer have to make repayments towards it – even if you haven't paid it all back.

Plan 4
If you started studying in the 2006/07 academic year or earlier, there are two possible dates on which your Plan 4 loan could be written off – it will be whichever comes first between:
You turning 65 years old
Reaching 30 years after you first become eligible to repay (the first April after you graduate).
If you started studying in the 2007/08 academic year or later, things are a little more simple – your loan will be written off 30 years after the first April following your graduation.

You almost need a degree to make sense of it

[swill453]

That's Plan 2

Well yes, and that's all new undergraduates starting today or in recent years. No need to overcomplicate it.

Scott.

[pje16]

That's Plan 2

Well yes, and that's all new undergraduates starting today or in recent years. No need to overcomplicate it.

Scott.

Ok fair point but there are those who have been on it a while - even though this is a GenZ post

[James]

To be fair, most Gen Z won't need pensions as they'll be living quite comfortably off their sense of entitlement.

[pje16]

Can I buy some of that somewhere

[xxd09]

I think I was aware of the structure of the Student Loan but however you wrap it up -a loan ,a tax etc it is a burden assumed by callow youth
We should make sure as far as possible kids they enter adulthood as little burdened as is possible -hopefully with major assets only like good health and a sound education and certainly not possible debts or taxes
Life is hard enough-if we can make it easier we should
The Guardian figure of 50% of women under 30 in Britain having no children should make us all think
Probably a sensible response to hard times?
xxd09

[absolutezero]

Student loans strike me as adults loading kids with adult responsibilities before they -due to their youth - are able to understand what they are getting into-this is not parenting as I understand it
xxd09

I think you are missing Gilongo's point. Student Loans may have a name which incorporates the word "Loan", but they are not a debt in the way that you are interpreting it. Loan is a misnomer IMO. They are more like a targeted tax. You get taxed the tax if you earn enough and if you are young enough. After about age 40 it is no longer payable. What other debt can you name that is linked to your income (not repayable if your income below a certain level) and only payable below the age of 40?

A more accurate name for the thing would be Graduate-Tax Funded Grant or some similar. So it seems to me that you deprived your offspring of a grant, or at best paid a huge lump sum up-front to relieve them of a bit of taxation in their 30s.

GS

Also add in that the overwhelming majority never come anywhere near to clearing their 'loan' via the graduate tax and its rather foolish to either not take the loan or to pay it off too quickly.

[Gilgongo]

I didn't mean this post to all be about student loans.

House prices/deposits and rent prices are the highest in real terms than they have ever been, pensions are nothing like what they used to be, and real median wages have been dropping for decades. Student loans are just another kicker.

I dunno why I posted this. TLF average age must be like 70 anyway.

[TUK020]

I didn't mean this post to all be about student loans.

House prices/deposits and rent prices are the highest in real terms than they have ever been, pensions are nothing like what they used to be, and real median wages have been dropping for decades. Student loans are just another kicker.

I dunno why I posted this. TLF average age must be like 70 anyway.

And as a result, they are invading Ukraine, as you can see all the logos painted onto the tanks (which are probably bought on PCP credit)

[swill453]

pensions are nothing like what they used to be

They're not that bad. I was in Defined Contribution schemes all my working life since 1984, much the same is on offer to anyone starting work now.

For the State Pension, agreed it's 2 or 3 years later than I first expected, but the amount hasn't changed much in real terms - just about enough to live on if you're extremely frugal, much better when topped up by your own pension or savings.

Scott.

[James]

The Guardian figure of 50% of women under 30 in Britain having no children should make us all think
Probably a sensible response to hard times?
xxd09

I don't think hardship has anything to do with it. I'm Gen X version 1.0, first of the new batch. I can think of maybe two or three women in my cohort that had children before they were 30. It is far more to do with education and aspiration. Get a degree, get a job, do some stuff with that freshly earned money... then think about getting into baby making.
Assuming, of course, there is a viable candidate with which to do it who isn't too busy styling his beard, launching an eco-friendly vegan shoe making collective or working in digital media and assuming he should be making the big calls.

[GoSeigen]

After about age 40 it is no longer payable.

It's 30 years after you start repaying it, so a bit longer than that.

Scott.

Oops thought it was 20. Must pay more attention. I think the latest changes will extend this by 10 years too.


GS

[Gilgongo]

pensions are nothing like what they used to be

They're not that bad. I was in Defined Contribution schemes all my working life since 1984, much the same is on offer to anyone starting work now.

For the State Pension, agreed it's 2 or 3 years later than I first expected, but the amount hasn't changed much in real terms - just about enough to live on if you're extremely frugal, much better when topped up by your own pension or savings.

OK, but my point here is not to focus on any one aspect, but the COMBINATION of house rental, house prices, student loans, lower wages, declining rights and the possible arrival of USA-style private health care costs (which can and does wipe people out at a stroke - no pun in intended) is new. None of us have faced into that lot, but Gen Z will be.

This is why I wonder whether something will have to give.

[dealtn]

OK, but my point here is not to focus on any one aspect, but the COMBINATION of house rental, house prices, student loans, lower wages, declining rights and the possible arrival of USA-style private health care costs (which can and does wipe people out at a stroke - no pun in intended) is new. None of us have faced into that lot, but Gen Z will be.

This is why I wonder whether something will have to give.

And yet they also face the combination of living in a country with a higher standard of living, lower interest rates, lower unemployment, higher vacancies, less discrimination, lower Gini coeffcient, labour market flexibility, higher longevity, better healthcare, longer retirement, and opportunities to live and work wherever they want in the world, with around 50% taking advantage of tertiary education at University, and near universally noone being required to work at aged 16, or younger. Better in many respects to most prior generations.

Specifically to retirement investing they aren't required to buy annuities, or face charges from middle men at the scale of previous investors, and have a range of investment options that would be considered staggering through the eyes of earlier generations.

Thinking, and claiming, the current generation is somehow worse off than others by listing solely perceived negatives and not offsetting them by equally valid positives isn't likely to generate much sympathy in the real world I suspect.

[Gilgongo]

Better in many respects to most prior generations.

Of course we're all living better than in the 1800's, or whatever. Just ask Monty Python.

Adjacent generations have an emotional connection mediated by voting habits and outlook on the same life around them. This was the context of the conversation with my son. Who cares about whether great great grandpa ate dirt and died at 40? That's just not relevant, in the same way as the ancient Britons had it even worse.

What matters to the people who are living now is whether they can expect the same or better lives than their parents. And the answer to that is no. If you are 20 today, you can expect to be worse off than your parents born in the 60s/70s in terms of house ownership, disposable income, pension income, debt and cost of living (and they can expect to be worse off than their parents born in the 40s/50s).

As to some of the metrics you mention:

Lower Gini coeffcient? Oh really? https://www.statista.com/statistics/872 ... d-kingdom/

Labour market flexibility? That mean "less job security." That's a bad thing for most people.

Opportunities to live and work wherever they want in the world? - Brexit.

They aren't required to buy annuities. Because who would want to? "Pension freedoms" was the only rational response to the fact that annuity rates tanked and have kept tanking since the financial crisis. It wasn't some wonderful gift from Cameron. And it means yet more uncertainty for the young.

Life expectancy: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/toda ... -nr5p5xsd3

Lower unemployment? Doesn't look good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemploym ... 1-2017.png

[dealtn]

Better in many respects to most prior generations.

Of course we're all living better than in the 1800's, or whatever. Just ask Monty Python.

What matters to the people who are living now is whether they can expect the same or better lives than their parents. And the answer to that is no. If you are 20 today, you can expect to be worse off than your parents born in the 60s/70s in terms of house ownership, disposable income, pension income, debt and cost of living (and they can expect to be worse off than their parents born in the 40s/50s). Adjacent generations have an emotional connection mediated by voting habits and outlook on the same life around them. This was the context of the conversation with my son. Who cares about whether great great grandpa ate dirt and died at 40? That's just not relevant, in the same way as the ancient Britons had it even worse.

On that we will just have to disagree then.

On most, if not all of those measures I would expect the 20 year old today to have the opportunity to match and likely better their predecessor generations.

[Moosehoosenew]

I think the son of the original poster has a computer science degree? He should be fine with that.

[Kantwebefriends]

"we may well all have to pay for private health care USA-style by 2050 at this rate"

Not a chance. No other country I know of runs quite such an absurd crony-capitalist, cartel-ridden system as the US.

I do hope though that we can dump the NHS and go for something better along the lines of Germany, or Singapore, or Australia, or France, ...

If that were to happen the lad could be quite optimistic about the future.

As for money and a twenty-one year old: did he earn money in his last two or three summer holidays at school? If not why not?

[anon155742]

On most, if not all of those measures I would expect the 20 year old today to have the opportunity to match and likely better their predecessor generations.

Then why do they keep killing themselves? If they were happier then the suicide rate would be decreasing rather than increasing, especially with much more advanced health care for handling mental illness such as depression or treating the fallout from overdose.

In the UK the suicide rate has roughly been the same since the 2000's

source: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7749/

I suppose you could argue that if the health improvements have had zero impact then people are just as suicidal despite large increases in use of the likes of anti depressants. Conversely you could say that more people are suicidal than before but a proportion of those dont kill themselves, keeping figures fairly static.
Image too large to post, see link below showing anti depressant use increasing multiple times per capita.
source: https://bjgpopen.org/content/5/4/BJGPO.2021.0020

In America:
The suicide rate for people aged 10 to 24 increased by 56% between 2007 to 2017, according to new data from the CDC.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-teenage-gen-z-american-suicide-epidemic?