Letter: Impoverishment of student life

I am a graduate in economics, having finished my studies last summer. I could identify with many issues raised in your story ("MPs hear harsh loans truth", THES, February 2), but I feel you have only scratched the surface.

I found work as soon as I graduated from Hull University, I earn a good salary and my future is secure. The university played a big role in this.

I am not from a wealthy background, and so did not have money to waste at university. I did not receive a parental contribution as my mother could not afford it. This is not untypical of students from Land's End to John o'Groats; it is an impoverished existence.

On finishing university I found myself in a lot of debt. I had a credit card bill, a massive overdraft and student loans. When I had taken stock of what I owed, I felt I had been let down by a government that promised to help.

I have worked solidly now for six months to pay off debts and slowly I am turning it around. One grudge is that I want to buy a house with my girlfriend. We both work and have good jobs, but the banks will not touch us because of debt incurred at university.

Does Tony Blair realise the gravity of what he and his party have done to the higher education system? Any person intelligent enough to secure a university place is intelligent enough to do the simple maths and see that only people who are truly affluent can afford a university education.

People ask me if they should go to university. I tell them it is not worth it. They may look at me and think it has advanced my life, which it has. But I was lucky and I can point to 40 or 50 of my university peers who now work in supermarkets or, worse, do not work at all.

How do they cope with the debt? They do not. It is getting bigger each time they look at their bank statements.

There will come a day when this government sorely regrets what it has done to its student population. And, with an election just around the corner, I don't think it is very far off.

Phil Jones
Burnley, Lancashire