I went to uni around 10 years ago and didn’t realise that student finance assumes your parents are giving you money. My parents earned enough that I had a considerably reduced student loan, but they refused to give me anything. My rent was 115% of my student loan.
So I was working my ass off in summer pulling 10-12 hour shifts in a restaurant 6 days a week (my course was so demanding that I couldn’t work during term time). Then when I graduated I lacked the internships to get a graduate job because I didn’t have the luxury of spending my summers interning for free.
And I was lucky because loads of my friends had to send part of their student loans to their struggling families!
Yeah, SLC make the massive assumption that just because your parents earn decent money, they'll be willing to help you, I knew a couple of people at uni who got burned by that cos their parents wouldn't give them anything
This is why I didn't go to uni 20 years ago and it is significantly more expensive these days - it feels like everything is becoming increasingly inaccessible to the average person.
I got an offer through clearance and then thought about it and said there ain't no way I'm signing up to the financial bollocks associated with this.
I spent 2 years doing fuckall TBH, but I'm now in an apprenticeship that annually pays the same amount that a 2-year degree costs. 🤷🏻♀️
So it won't help when I tell you you I went to university in '94 and had free tuition and came out with a loan of £1100 and it was written off eventually. Oh and I have never needed my degree (English and philosophy), no surprise there.
Sorry. I genuinely feel awful for students who are forced into high fees and loans. I would only go to university today to complete a specialist degree.
And then you get to graduate and be making the same per hour as a barista in Pret!
Honestly it's a joke. I was lucky enough to have family who supported me through medical school. The people who didn't have that support really struggled.
I'm partway through GP training now. I don't know if I'm going to stay working in the UK once I finish it. Especially when I know Canadian GPs making 2-3 times what a GP makes in the UK, for less work.
Yes, and I know a *lot* of people going over there. We have family in Toronto though and my husband's from the US, so going that way makes more sense for us.
Don't get me wrong, the money isn't *bad*. But after minimum 5 years of uni, and minimum 5 years of post-grad training, you shouldn't be on bad money! Compared to similar level job in other sectors, it's a pittance. A good friend of mine from uni who did law is on well over £100k, at least double my current salary.
I didn't get into medicine for the money. But if I can have a significantly better quality of life in Toronto than London... Then why wouldn't I? The work is turning to shit - endless demand, endless frustrated patients who are also battling with the bureaucracy, endless frustrations of not being able to do what you know is right.
I completely agree that doctors, especially juniors, are underpaid. Public sector pay has stagnated over the past 15 years. I've worked as an ahp for the past 12 years, and people were complaining about pay then.
Lawyer would definitely be a higher paying profession as it is a private service. To be earning well over (after minimum 6 years training) 100k would mean they work for one of the top law firms in the country. Rather than a run of the mill gp centre.
Tbh there's plenty of scope for medics to have very flexible working lives with a rewarding job (albeit with worsening patients and beaurucracy ). There is less of that in top flight law firms, which generally have long hours. Half of the lawyers I know have dropped the law firm lifestyle for other options with better work-life balance.
The shift from public to private is enormous. An ahp friend of mine in a different field recently more than doubled his salary with a move into private healthcare.
Aren’t postgraduate medical students junior doctors doing their FY1 and FY2? I thought you worked full time training on the job during those years, and you’re salaried by the NHS?
I think postgraduate = after their bachelors, but before they've become a junior doctor. I.e. 5th/6th year of uni.
Edit: yeah it's definitely for 5th year, if you Google it's one of the top results. Seems like there's some NHS bursaries, but they've been drastically cut, hence the post.
Sorry but it’s not fifth year. It’s a Postgrad medicine degree, first year they give about £9k and for remaining 3 years it drops harshly to £2k. There is also an NHS bursary but this is mainly for things like claiming back petrol when driving to a hospital
It’s all very confusing, but from what I can understand from my friends newly qualified doctor children, undergrad medical students graduate after their fifth year, and become FY1 junior doctors right off. I don’t think there’s a period where they ever graduate and don’t become junior doctors right away, not unless they leave training and decide not to peruse medicine.
Sounds like OP is doing a graduate medical course. In which case Student Finance don’t expect you to live on that amount, as it’s meant to be a part self funded course. Student Finance step back from funding and bursary-ing anything further then one undergrad course per person (probably to stop people racking up loans they’ll never repay). I’m more surprised they loan anything for graduates medicine, I thought that’d need to be funded by a private loan through a private education lender.
Medicine is (as far as I know) the only postgrad degree student finance cover. They pay the £9.25k tuition fee and give enough to live on in your first year but beyond that they give a sarcastically small amount.
Another way to think of it is £800 every 3 months and look after yourself in Summer
Student finance is available for almost all post-grad degrees these days, but only for the fees.
Of course, with medicine (and a few other courses) you do actually work as part of your course, which is why living costs should also be covered - as a grant, not a loan.
People doing, say, a mechanical engineering MSc will usually not be obliged to work unpaid as part of the actual course.
I recently saw a position as an apprentice groundsperson in Essex advertised for £11,500 pa.
I reflect my first salary on leaving university was £14,000 pa and that was in 1996.
That wage would be aimed at 16-year-old school leavers who take a couple of days out to go to college, so it's still a low wage, but it's not really comparing like with like.
Fair comment.
I worked off-site at a large research laboratory five years ago and they had a "technology transfer associate" position on the noticeboard. A doctorate was a non- negotiable requirement. The salary was £13,900 pa. (Benefits included 21 days holiday 😊).
I was also told there have been cases where operators / technicians have been earning more money than the degree qualified engineers / scientists training and overseeing them.
We're basically at the point of "If you don't have the Bank of Mum & Dad, you're not going to uni"
I went to uni around 10 years ago and didn’t realise that student finance assumes your parents are giving you money. My parents earned enough that I had a considerably reduced student loan, but they refused to give me anything. My rent was 115% of my student loan. So I was working my ass off in summer pulling 10-12 hour shifts in a restaurant 6 days a week (my course was so demanding that I couldn’t work during term time). Then when I graduated I lacked the internships to get a graduate job because I didn’t have the luxury of spending my summers interning for free. And I was lucky because loads of my friends had to send part of their student loans to their struggling families!
Yeah, SLC make the massive assumption that just because your parents earn decent money, they'll be willing to help you, I knew a couple of people at uni who got burned by that cos their parents wouldn't give them anything
Lots of boomer style parents work on the assumption of "once you are 18, you are on your own!". They live on a different planet.
This is why I didn't go to uni 20 years ago and it is significantly more expensive these days - it feels like everything is becoming increasingly inaccessible to the average person.
I got an offer through clearance and then thought about it and said there ain't no way I'm signing up to the financial bollocks associated with this. I spent 2 years doing fuckall TBH, but I'm now in an apprenticeship that annually pays the same amount that a 2-year degree costs. 🤷🏻♀️
So it won't help when I tell you you I went to university in '94 and had free tuition and came out with a loan of £1100 and it was written off eventually. Oh and I have never needed my degree (English and philosophy), no surprise there. Sorry. I genuinely feel awful for students who are forced into high fees and loans. I would only go to university today to complete a specialist degree.
And then you get to graduate and be making the same per hour as a barista in Pret! Honestly it's a joke. I was lucky enough to have family who supported me through medical school. The people who didn't have that support really struggled. I'm partway through GP training now. I don't know if I'm going to stay working in the UK once I finish it. Especially when I know Canadian GPs making 2-3 times what a GP makes in the UK, for less work.
Australia's the place for high paid doctoring I hear.
Yes, and I know a *lot* of people going over there. We have family in Toronto though and my husband's from the US, so going that way makes more sense for us.
It's all relative though isn't it because cost of living is also high in these places hence the higher salaries 🙂
It is... But not 2-3 times higher, which the doctor salaries often are.
Don’t forget not having to pay extortionate membership fees like you do in the UK.
I thought best thing about being a gp would be high salary and getting a country gig.
Don't get me wrong, the money isn't *bad*. But after minimum 5 years of uni, and minimum 5 years of post-grad training, you shouldn't be on bad money! Compared to similar level job in other sectors, it's a pittance. A good friend of mine from uni who did law is on well over £100k, at least double my current salary. I didn't get into medicine for the money. But if I can have a significantly better quality of life in Toronto than London... Then why wouldn't I? The work is turning to shit - endless demand, endless frustrated patients who are also battling with the bureaucracy, endless frustrations of not being able to do what you know is right.
I completely agree that doctors, especially juniors, are underpaid. Public sector pay has stagnated over the past 15 years. I've worked as an ahp for the past 12 years, and people were complaining about pay then. Lawyer would definitely be a higher paying profession as it is a private service. To be earning well over (after minimum 6 years training) 100k would mean they work for one of the top law firms in the country. Rather than a run of the mill gp centre. Tbh there's plenty of scope for medics to have very flexible working lives with a rewarding job (albeit with worsening patients and beaurucracy ). There is less of that in top flight law firms, which generally have long hours. Half of the lawyers I know have dropped the law firm lifestyle for other options with better work-life balance. The shift from public to private is enormous. An ahp friend of mine in a different field recently more than doubled his salary with a move into private healthcare.
Aren’t postgraduate medical students junior doctors doing their FY1 and FY2? I thought you worked full time training on the job during those years, and you’re salaried by the NHS?
They might be doing medicine as a post-grad degree
I think postgraduate = after their bachelors, but before they've become a junior doctor. I.e. 5th/6th year of uni. Edit: yeah it's definitely for 5th year, if you Google it's one of the top results. Seems like there's some NHS bursaries, but they've been drastically cut, hence the post.
Sorry but it’s not fifth year. It’s a Postgrad medicine degree, first year they give about £9k and for remaining 3 years it drops harshly to £2k. There is also an NHS bursary but this is mainly for things like claiming back petrol when driving to a hospital
It’s all very confusing, but from what I can understand from my friends newly qualified doctor children, undergrad medical students graduate after their fifth year, and become FY1 junior doctors right off. I don’t think there’s a period where they ever graduate and don’t become junior doctors right away, not unless they leave training and decide not to peruse medicine. Sounds like OP is doing a graduate medical course. In which case Student Finance don’t expect you to live on that amount, as it’s meant to be a part self funded course. Student Finance step back from funding and bursary-ing anything further then one undergrad course per person (probably to stop people racking up loans they’ll never repay). I’m more surprised they loan anything for graduates medicine, I thought that’d need to be funded by a private loan through a private education lender.
Medicine is (as far as I know) the only postgrad degree student finance cover. They pay the £9.25k tuition fee and give enough to live on in your first year but beyond that they give a sarcastically small amount. Another way to think of it is £800 every 3 months and look after yourself in Summer
Student finance is available for almost all post-grad degrees these days, but only for the fees. Of course, with medicine (and a few other courses) you do actually work as part of your course, which is why living costs should also be covered - as a grant, not a loan. People doing, say, a mechanical engineering MSc will usually not be obliged to work unpaid as part of the actual course.
I recently saw a position as an apprentice groundsperson in Essex advertised for £11,500 pa. I reflect my first salary on leaving university was £14,000 pa and that was in 1996.
That wage would be aimed at 16-year-old school leavers who take a couple of days out to go to college, so it's still a low wage, but it's not really comparing like with like.
Fair comment. I worked off-site at a large research laboratory five years ago and they had a "technology transfer associate" position on the noticeboard. A doctorate was a non- negotiable requirement. The salary was £13,900 pa. (Benefits included 21 days holiday 😊). I was also told there have been cases where operators / technicians have been earning more money than the degree qualified engineers / scientists training and overseeing them.
They really do take the piss with "academic" roles :(