During the election, I did a video focusing on the tuition fees and the case about thresholds requiring to be increased. President and Deputy President videos – THE HOOT (thehootstudents.com)
Excitingly, I have found out that starting from April 2025, student tuition fees thresholds within England will rise from the current £25,000 to £28, 470 if you are studying under the Plan 2 undergraduate loan. Student Loans Interest Rates and Repayment Threshold Announcement – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Whilst this was annouced on August 13th, it is a welcomed news for many students who are currently working at minimum waged roles. Working in a 40 hour role or less, can be challenging as well as frustrating when you consider paying both National Insurance and Income Tax, any benefits provided by the business you work for, e.g. medical insurance and dental insurance, as well as salary sacrifice schemes such as the pension contribution and maybe, the cycle to work scheme. N.B. the salary sacrifice contributions and cycle to work are fantastic schemes whereby they reduce the National Insurance contributions however as this is knowledge aquired, I am not endorsing or recommending these as I am not a tax specialist but a fellow student and colleague.
Considering the effects of which one has to learn to manage one’s finances, a fantastic module I would highly recommend from the Faculty of Business and Law (FBL) is DB125 | You and Your Money | Open University. This deals with a lot of key issues which will be relatable to one’s own personal circumstances and understand the life cycle of the economic impacts where one’s finance goes, particularly governmental and corporate entities as well as households.
I hope that as you continue with your studies at the Open University, you would succeed well and that through your learning, you will continue to point other potential students to the OU and recommend for studying irrespective if you are working or not, retired or just about start work, disabled (physically and/or hidden) or not, because it is by your representation of the university that we gain students and the courses we have, grow.
I look forward to meeting everyone during welcome week, starting Saturday 28th September and finishing Sunday 6th October, and as a reminder, all of our key meetings will be recorded so don’t worry if you missed a session or two, you’ll still be able to watch it.
Hope to see you there.
Andrew Wilson
Deputy President: Andrew Wilson (oustudents.com)
0 Comments