>It's nice to get so much loan and grant money for a few years of dossing.
Blanket statements like this make my blood boil. I worked incredibly hard for my education. And, when I did it I thought it was expensive. Since I graduated the UK government tripled tuition twice in four years. To be precise, the UK government allowed universities to triple tuition twice in four years. And believe me, most if not all of the universities in the Russell Group did indeed triple their tuition fees. The students that get the student loan help from the government now may be potentially facing a lifetime of debt, unable to pay off their loans before they retire. "Great," I hear you say, "When you retire, your student loan is written off." While at first glance this may seem appealing, it's bad for the economy. The UK government made a move that works well for them in the short-term but works out extremely poorly in the long-term. And this is not accounting for the fact that the average student graduating nowadays with about 9 times more debt. I don't know which country you are from or where you were educated, but in the UK where there are almost no scholarships for higher education, graduating with £30,000 of debt must feel pretty debilitating.
Oh, and by the way, there is no 'grant' money for students. Grants where for the education of yesteryear, when students didn't have to pay back the help they received from the government. It's depressing to think that the mere accident of the year of one's birth provides an entire lifetime of debt.
The 'fees' are differed on the off-chance you don't earn a reasonable salary. You can call it debt, but it isn't. In the US they have real student debt that is debilitating. In the UK, it doesn't even register on your credit score.
Why is it that a school-leaver gets little to no help, and a university student gets a whole tonne of grants and deferred fees? Doesn't that inequality make your blood boil?
It was around 40 quid when I lived there in 2009. I was just about to get a 6-month pass because I figured it was worth it with my usage, then prices nearly doubled a few days before I came back from my Christmas holidays.
TL;DR: It used to be much cheaper, then they raised the prices.
