People will blame Nick Cleggs Lib Dems for this and yeah they play a big part in this, but the root cause is further back.
Tony Blair removed the cap on the number of students who could go to university which lead to introducing tuition fees. Before then you used to get a grant, I got three grand a year, to go to university.
Suddenly universities could massively increase the number places so they did. This lead to spiralling costs, which lead to fees going up and loans had to go up to cover this. They also borrowed heavily to expand.
David Cameron removed the cap on fees while increasing the money students could borrow with Cleggs backing (against a key Lib Dem manifesto pledge fucking the Lib Dems for years after) and Universities started getting properly greedy.
Inflation kicked in but the loans available to students didn’t because the government couldn’t afford to, majority of students never pay back the full amount before its written off. Student loan book is set to be a trillion pounds in about 20 years.
The whole situation is fucked because Blair said anyone could go, rather than being honest about what we could afford to pay for. Now we have a ticking timebomb that someone’s going to have to pay.
9point6@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The lib Dems and Tories decided to fuck over our youth back in the early 2010s
Lib Dems campaigned on a promise of free uni and did the exact opposite when awarded the power to do something about it.
I can’t bring myself to ever trust a word they say again. And anyone that says the Tories stopped them, they were the only thing keeping the Tories in power, they were a VoNC away from potentially preventing 15 years of Tory kleptocracy
kaitco@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Un-freaking-believable…
I’ve always known the Tories were trash, but I had no idea that there was a whole extra party that were just as bad. Crimony…
FozzyOsbourne@lemm.ee 20 hours ago
The Lib Dems really aren’t just as bad, they’re actually one of the better major parties. Unfortunately they made a deal with the devil to get a chance at power and the Tories completely fucked them over. That said, Clegg (their leader at the time) then left politics to work for Facebook so maybe he was a bastard all along!
Nighed@feddit.uk 1 day ago
They did it to get a referendum on a new voting method. They chose a shit one no one wanted though