What part of going to university aged 18 to get a junk degree, just because that's what's expected, and tens of thousands of pounds of debt by the time you're 21 is absurd, is wrong? In the UK in 2022, if you're not inclined to do a STEM or professional degree, you're probably better off going into a trade or apprenticeship.
> I'd also add that in the UK student loan debt is orthogonal to the problem of young people being unable to get onto the housing ladder.
Perhaps you'd like to tell that to one of my kids that has to factor all their outgoings (including university debt) into their calculations which tells them exactly whether they can afford to take on mortgage?
Civil Engineering is a junk degree!? I was going to say Architecture but I thought CivEng was playing it safe. Wow. Ok so can I take another punt - Mechanical Engineering? Is that worthy?
I'm really puzzled by your second part, so you have kids who have sufficient deposit saved up, and a high-enough salary to qualify for a suitably-sized mortgage ... but the difference between their current rent and the would-be mortgage repayments is high enough that specifically their student debt repayments are stopping them?
That's an incredibly unique problem. I mean, as someone who is probably within a few years of your kids' age, the overwhelming problems in our age groups are the deposit and the price itself beyond beyond what a bank would lend based on salary. Everyone I know who is struggling to get onto the ladder is facing these two problems. I was lucky with where I bought and more importantly when I bought (on the eve of a 3x price boom) otherwise I might have hit the same issues.
> I'd also add that in the UK student loan debt is orthogonal to the problem of young people being unable to get onto the housing ladder.
Perhaps you'd like to tell that to one of my kids that has to factor all their outgoings (including university debt) into their calculations which tells them exactly whether they can afford to take on mortgage?