What would a boomer say about student loans?
Boomers who went to university paid no tuition fees and could get a maintenance grant. Graduates now leave with a loan balance. Here's the Boomer on it, followed by the real numbers.
Ask a Boomer: student loans Comedy, not advice
Fifty thousand pounds?! What are they teaching you, how to build Concorde? When I went to college the council paid, and I got a grant for beer money!
Well, I say college. It was day release in bricklaying, but I got a certificate and a handshake from the Mayor.
Anyway, why did the student eat his homework? The teacher said it was a piece of cake! Ha!
In my day only the swots went to university, and they all became geography teachers.
Everyone else left school at sixteen, learnt a trade and had a Ford Capri by eighteen. If you want my opinion, learn to fix a boiler. There's never been a queue for a plumber.
Anyway, what do you call a dinosaur with a big vocabulary? A thesaurus! That's educational, that is.
More interest than you're paying back?! That's not a loan, that's a timeshare in Benidorm!
Go and see the student loans manager in person, take your mother, and explain that you're a hard worker with a firm handshake. If that doesn't work, write a stern letter in green ink.
Anyway, why are fish so clever? They live in schools! I'll get my coat.
The real numbers
- Students in England paid no tuition fees in 1983. Fees of £1,000 a year were first introduced in 1998.
Source: House of Commons Library, Higher education tuition fees in England (CBP-8151) (Before 1998) - In 1983/84 the maximum maintenance grant for a student living away from home outside London was £1,660 a year, means-tested on parental income.
Source: House of Commons Library, The value of student maintenance support (SN00916) (England and Wales, 1983/84) - In 2026/27, full-time undergraduates in England can borrow up to £9,790 a year for tuition fees.
Source: GOV.UK, Student finance for new full-time students (England, 2026/27) - Borrowers in England who became due to repay their student loans in 2025-26 owed an average of £47,730.
Source: Student Loans Company, Student loans in England: financial year 2025-26 (England, 2025-26, provisional)