Free £400 for switching bank! Was Uni worth it? Cash ISAs to be cut

25:04but you will have to fulfil the terms in order to get the bonus or the financial advantages such as paying the money in and the direct debits and all of that type of stuff. So yes, you can. If you want to have two single accounts and a joint account, I actually, that is my favourite structure of couples finance for most people. You know, it used to be that all people would have a joint account. I mean, if you go back to many couples who are in their 70s and 80s just have one account for all their money. And that tended to be because the structure of society has changed. Now, couples get married older, they have independent finances beforehand, they're used to having their own bank accounts, spending arguments that come from one person's a spender, one's a saver.

25:43So actually, an easy way for joint finances among couples is you have your own bank accounts and you also have a joint account for bills that you put money into. It is worth just noting, as an aside, any joint product, including a joint bank account, links your credit files. So if one of you has a poor credit score, you might want to think before doing so. There's no problem in doing so. The difficulty here would be that if you both have individual accounts and you're setting up a joint account for the first time, you're therefore not switching. And these are only switching bonuses. Now, there are two ways around that.

26:17I have to be careful what I say. I would probably I would probably wait a week or two because I think there might there might well be an incentive coming out from one of the banks that allows you to do that. But I don't know. But I might well work a week or two. Did I manage to get away with that? Yes, you've got that. We hear you. or the other thing you could do go and set up a bog standard account somewhere else first quickly, set up an account that doesn't pay you and then get the direct debits in and then just switch it the week later and then you qualify as you're switching your joint account to get it across the Santander Edge is a pretty good joint bills account it doesn't have an incentive at the moment but it gives you cash back on your bills that you pay from it so that is quite a good joint account and hopefully it'll pay an incentive in the next two or three months at some point and that would be the perfect time to switch to it.

26:59OK, we've got a caller. Michelle's going to be coming. Shall we just say a quick hello to Michelle? Michelle. Hi there. Hello, Michelle. That's a song, isn't it? Hi, Adrian. Hi, Martin. She's heard that one before. I was serenading her, and then I suddenly thought, is it appropriate? Michelle, my love. But really, my love is trying to help you on money. If you can sing, A, sing, and B, know the words, then you should certainly go for it. I can't do either. Where are you, Michelle? I'm in Glasgow, Adrian. In Glasgow. OK, so get your vocal cords warmed up for the delivery of the question on to Martin Lewis.

27:30My question is I am trying to rebuild my credit and I feel like I'm missing out on all of these switching bonuses so what impact will it have on my credit limit or my credit score rather to be to be switching my bank accounts and also not using my oldest standing bank account on my credit score as my as my primary. Okay so So you will have heard me say before, you don't actually have a credit score. Every lender scores you differently based on its own wish list of what is a perfect customer. So one thing I would caution you, if you do do this and you see your credit score at one of the credit reference agencies drop, that doesn't mean that much.

28:10I mean, if it dropped a lot, it's a problem. If it drops a little, it isn't. Now, the likelihood is if you were to do a bank switch, you can have a short term, one or two month, quite substantial impact of moving account over for two reasons. One, they like evidence of longevity. And two, it's an extra application on your credit file. In the long run, it shouldn't make any difference at all. But for one or two months, it can have an impact. Sometimes it's minor. I have seen people who've seen their credit score, the one they get from the credit reference agencies anyway, drop quite significantly because of moving a bank account.

28:43So my answer would actually throw it back to you. You're building your credit score, which is good, and you're managing it, which I approve of. But is there a specific transaction that you're building it for that is coming? And how far away is that? You know, I'm presuming it's a mortgage application or something. Where are we in the schedule of doing that? Well, that's not going to happen for the next or within the next two years. So it's probably the sort of two to five year plan. So quite a while away. And there's nothing else that you need your credit score for at the moment? No. Go and do a bank switch.

29:19Awesome. Thank you. But, you know, it's going to drop. So you're going to get, you've probably got a credit score that you see all the time. It's going to drop, but it's not going to drop in a way that will affect you. You should not be any worse off in two years' time when you're applying for your mortgage having done this. Now, if you had to do it five or six times and you were to become one of those people that we have who go on and who focus on getting all the banks switching bonuses and make over£1 ,000 of doing it, and most of those people do not need their credit score for any reason. So they don't give a monkey's about it.

29:50They're just trying to ramp the bonuses. And we can talk about how to do that in a moment, Adrian. But in your case, the key is the mortgage in two years, isn't it? Yes. This shouldn't affect that. But it will do in a much shorter term. So go and get some free cash. OK, that's great. Thank you. Right in time for Christmas. OK. Cheers, Michelle. Thank you very much for that. There's just a very short text has come in saying, and what about if you've got an overdraft, Martin? Okay, so if you're overdrawn, that should not prevent you switching bank account, but there is no guarantee that they will match the overdraft that you currently have.

30:29And it does change the switching process slightly. So let's take the First Direct example, because that's the one with the biggest 0 % overdraft. First Direct will give most people, though it's credit score dependent, a£250 0 % overdraft. It's also paying switchers£175. So you could argue if you were£400 overdrawn at the moment, the£175 would reduce your overdraft as long as you don't use it for anything else. That would put you, you know,£225 overdrawn and the£250 of the overdraft is at 0%. So it would therefore be interest free, whereas most banks are charging 40%, way more than the credit card.

31:05You know, people always say to me, credit card's bad, debit card's good. Well, hold on. If you're overdrawn, debit cards and debt cards too are not a much higher interest than credit cards. So the system isn't that simple. So you could use it that way. But the way the overdraft would work is you would go to First Direct and assuming they gave you the£250 overdraft, you'd have that overdraft facility. but your old bank if you were overdrawn when you switch would say to you do you want to pay off your overdraft now or do you want to keep paying it in monthly payments so it would stop the bank account closure part of the switch process and you would effectively almost have to manually move over that overdraft so you'd have to make a payment from the new bank to the old bank to clear the overdraft so you now owed the new bank so it does make the process more complicated OK.

31:55Jane says, I've been switching for years. I think I've exhausted them all now. She sounds quite exhausted herself. Can you run out of options? Well, Jane, I hope you're listening. Yeah, you can, but I've listed seven. I would be surprised if you'd done all seven. But the interesting thing, Adrian, there are people, I have lots of them in my office, lots of my team who do this, who literally their hobby is making money from bank switches. Now, the way that you do this, and it's just quite interesting, You have your normal main bank account that you use all the time, but then you set up what I name a mule bank account.

32:28So you have a bank account that you have set up just for the purpose of switching banks. So you have your mule bank account, you go to somewhere bog standard to set that up, and then when you want to switch, you move that bank account. You've normally got just a couple of direct debits coming across from it. You make sure you've got the money that you can pay in, as we talked about before, and take out. You fulfil the eligibility criteria. you get yourself the switch bonus and any other perks, and then when you're ready, you take the mule and you move on again. OK, and somebody does say, why do banks reward promiscuity and not loyalty?

33:04And in the end, for every successful mule rider, if we can call them that, it's a zero-sum game. So just correspondingly, someone somewhere is being penalised for their loyalty. look we started if we go back 30 40 years with a monopoly from four major banks and we have a lot more challenger banks out there or challenger brands of main banks which have come into the place so this is all about there is the pie of bank accounts is unlikely to grow the same number of people barring you know the fact the population of the country is getting bigger somewhat due to immigration uh the pie is generally the same size so if you are a bank you're trying to protect your own customers and win new customers.

33:48And often it's sub-branches or specific accounts where the person running it is trying to build their brand and hoping that you're going to stick with them. Some banks, First Direct, I've mentioned it probably too often now, First Direct is very sticky. It's tough to get First Direct customers to switch elsewhere. They don't want the money. We had the person from RBS earlier who was saying, I don't want to move. Why should I move? Well, the question is, I asked, would you be willing to pay£175 to stay? Well, actually, when you ask that question from certain banks, people go, yes, I would. And so I'm not going to switch.

34:22So many of the banks who are paying also tend to have the best terms. They tend to give you the best ongoing rewards, like the Disney Plus for a year, like the linked regular savings accounts, to try and make you sticky, to try and win you away from the old legacy banks that aren't giving you anything. We're going to leave bank accounts for now, but I'm coming back to it in the podcast only extras because you have a lot of questions and I want to answer them. Let's do the tell us. So what did you have in mind with this one? When you say, did you go to university? Was it worth it to you? You mean financially or other reasons?

34:58I shall read you the full question that I put on social media and we have had thousands of responses. It's been a very big one. Did you go to university? If so, was it worth it to you financially or for other reasons and please say what year you went recent or a long time ago and if you're willing what uni and what you studied and the reason I've done this is we did the student finance program a few weeks ago and student finance has changed the cost of going to university the real cost how much you pay afterwards forget the headline rates of tuition fees and you're borrowing but the real amount you will repay since 2023 has gone up quite significantly.

35:34So my view has shifted somewhat. I was always of the view that you should try and go to university if you can, and if in doubt, I would go. I am now of the view that you really have to take a financial decision to be absolutely sure it's right for you because it costs a lot. So I just wanted to spread that out there and say, is uni worth it, both in the past and now, and see what people's thoughts were. I think we're going to bring in Jenny in Preston. Jenny, go on. Was it worth it for you? Transformative to be perfectly honest. Couldn't have had a better experience and a massive impact to my life.

36:11So you're slightly different because you went at the age of 40. That's correct. So when I was 18, university wasn't an option to me. Our family had never been to university. You were to get an apprenticeship or move into a job as soon as you left college. I found that I hit a ceiling point in terms of my career in my 30s where there was no other developmental opportunities and no opportunity for salary progression so at the age of 40 I decided to make a major life change and go to university to give myself some financial security and stability And it worked. It smashed that glass ceiling for you, did it?

37:00Absolutely smashed that glass ceiling. So it's not just the financial aspect of it. If I go back to 2008, I've actually more than doubled my salary. So I left university for 2013, it would have been now. um pension i've got now is fantastic um but it's the confidence it's the the other skills being able to speak in public it's um got rid of my being able to speak on the radio yeah being able to speak on the radio yeah i mean if you'd have seen me 10 years ago there was no way on planet earth i'd have spoken on the radio and no way i'd have stood up in front of 500 people to present some research yeah i mean it's really interesting martin it's also Worth what?

37:46And to you, I'd say, Jenny, that we often think about 18 and 19 year olds, but often thought university is wasted on you, really, when you're 19 and 20. You know, it's how you've done it. It's, I mean, Martin, what would you say? Well, I mean, look, one of the interesting things about doing a degree for the first time when you are older is when you repay your student finance, you have to repay for a set period. For those starting now, it's 40 years. For you, it was 30 years. So actually, somebody doing their degree when they're in their 50s and, you know, they're going to get 10 or 15 years of repayments, but then they're going to go in their pension period and may well be earning less than the threshold at which you repay.

38:24bizarrely the way the system is set up it is often a lot cheaper for older people to go because you'll end up repaying less because most of the repayment is in your retirement period when you're a lower earner so you're not paying that much back so funnily enough in terms of enablement the system not deliberately not by design is actually skewed to make it cheaper for people who go and do their degrees when they're older okay um jenny really glad to hear it worked out Did your kids, Jenny, one thing I'd ask, has this changed? If you've got children, has it changed their attitude of going to get a degree?

38:55Do you think that you went? Absolutely. My daughter is not at least a bit concerned about the debt. She's 17 now. She goes to university next year. The debt is secondary to her. She wants to go to university to have the same opportunities that her mother has had. She's seen how my career has progressed, and that's because of university. so the debt means nothing to Erin. She's 100 % certain she's going to university. I will do. Thank you so much for that. I mean, there's a lot of balance, I have to say, and I will do many more of these when we get to the podcast. But let me just read one. Alexandra Andrews, my son did a pharmacology degree 2018 to 2021.

39:38He gets paid less than my son who stacks shelves in Tesco at Christmas. He wonders why you bothered. Well, my hope, Alexandra, is in the long term his degree if he's working in pharmacology will pay more than someone who didn't have a degree who's working in retail in the shop in that way. But we don't know. And that is part of the decision that you have to make. This is fascinating. I'm going to do a lot more of it later on in the pod. OK, so what's it time for now then, Martin? Play it.

40:12Hello and welcome to Martin's Money Mastermind, the current score in this three option multiple choices. Adrian has got 12 right and 23 wrong. Although last week I threw you a bone, Adrian. You caught it in your teeth. So you are now very slightly ahead of random chance. Well done. Thank you very much indeed. Okay. I appreciate it. Here's this week's set up. A new theme pub has just opened in the Midlands called The Grumpy Grandpa. It's doing great business, but when it wanted to expand and push the marketing, who did they think of first? Proud of you, mate. your role is to pull a few pints but mainly spend the day whinging to punters about whatever minor issue or issue with minors whatever you want you want to talk about this is the culmination Adrian of your life's work the salary is£49 ,300 and you get all the pub food and drink you want because of that you squirrel away enough in savings to be able to earn £1 ,000 a year of interest outside of an ISA life simply couldn't be better until you realise you may have grumbled yourself into a higher rate tax threshold.

41:20So you're asking yourself, is all that£1 ,000 of interest you earn a year tax-free? Yeah, it was a bit of a wiggle to get there, but we're there. So here we go. You earn£49 ,300. You have£1 ,000 of interest earned outside of an ISA. the higher rate tax threshold is 50 ,270. You earn 49 ,300, you've got£1 ,000 of ISA interest. My question, is all of the£1 ,000 savings interest tax free? So, in other words, does the interest count as income? Well, so let's remember there's a thing called the personal savings allowance. I'm going to help you a little here because it helps me explain why the question is important.

42:09The personal savings allowance, if you are a basic 20 % rate taxpayer, is£1 ,000 a year of interest tax-free outside of an ISA. If you're a higher 40 % rate taxpayer, it's£500 a year tax-free outside of an ISA. So the high rate tax threshold is£50 ,270. pounds. You earn under that£49 ,300, but your saving interest takes you over that to£50 ,300. But if you're a higher rate taxpayer, then you only get£500 of personal savings allowance. If you're a basic rate taxpayer, you get£1 ,000. So it's only the savings that are pushing you over. So the question is, if it's the savings that are pushing you over, are you a higher rate taxpayer or a basic rate taxpayer for the personal savings allowance?

42:59That's the number of the question. Your three options are A, yes, all the£1 ,000 of interest is tax-free. B, no, all the£1 ,000 of interest isn't tax-free. Or C, oh, hell, how on earth am I supposed to know this? You cannot pick option C.

43:19What's A and B again? Tell me again. So the question is simple. Is the£1 ,000 tax-free? or do you only get£500 because the savings pushes you to being a higher rate taxpayer? Do you understand where we're at? I do, I do, I do. I think... Well, I mean, it'd be sort of logical either way. You could argue...

43:53I reckon I... And the interest has come from an ISA, is that right? It's outside an ISA. ISA interest doesn't count to your personal savings. It's outside an ISA. It's outside an ISA. You've got£1 ,000 of interest a year. Yeah, I think it has. I think it... I don't... No, I think you pay some tax on it. So you think your answer is no, it won't all be tax-free, I'd have to pay some tax on it. Yeah. OK. Well, let's be... Straight away, we'll give you a hallelujah. Like that. Hallelujah. I think next week, or whenever we're next on, you've got to give me a four choice, a multiple choice, because two, I've cheated there, really, because it was a straight.

44:35It's fine, because ultimately this is one of the most perverse things in the tax system, which is why I want to bring it out. This is one of the few places in the tax system where earning more means you take home less. Normally, earn more, you might see the amount of tax you pay increase, so you take home a smaller proportion of every pound. Here you take home less. Let me explain. Remember, you earn£49 ,300. If you earn£1 ,000 of interest, that takes you into the 40 % tax rate. So your personal savings allowance reduces straight away, even though you're only£30 over the barrier, reduces from£1 ,000 to£500.

45:09That means the£1 ,000 interest you earned,£500 is tax-free, £500 is taxable, some at 20%, some at 40%. Ignore the calculation. You lose£106 interest in tax. Perversely, if you earned the same, 49 ,300, but your interest was only 950 quid, the interest was less, 50 pounds less, that wouldn't make you a higher rate taxpayer. So all of the interest would be tax free. So you would take home 950 quid as opposed to 896 quid for earning more interest. in this perverse hole in the tax system. Bizarrely, earning more interest means you take home less. What you do to avoid it is you'd make a donation by gift aid to a charity or you would increase your pension contribution.

45:56But it is a hole worth being aware of. There's this cliff edge that as soon as you hit the high rate tax threshold, you lose£500 of your personal savings allowance. And that gives us the perverse outcome, which the entire question was based on. You got the answer right, which is good. but I got to explain something that's very geeky and nerdy, which is good for me. OK, I'm looking forward to hearing more of the TELUS on the podcast. I mean, they're fantastic, aren't they? It's so interesting. I mean, Jessica Louise says, I went to university 2015 to 19, had a maintenance loan and grant, plus 9K student fees from student finance.

46:28I'm 75K in debt. Not worth it, as I don't even work in the field that I studied. Well, university may get you other jobs as well, and let's remember, while we call it a debt, Really, it's a lifelong form of a 9 % additional graduate tax, which is a better way to think about it for most people. That's how it works more practically, even though it isn't a tax in reality. Listen back to the student loan podcast we did a few weeks ago. It's all explained there.

46:55Now, that's all very interesting. I am excited to read out some of those university tellers, but we're going to start by finishing off all the questions that you've sent in on bank account switching. Podcast producer Matt isn't well this week, So I'm very grateful to have standing in his stead podcast producer, Michael. You're both PPM, so it's fine. No one will notice a difference apart from maybe the Scouse accent. What have you got for me, mate? It's good to hear a Scouse accent on the BBC, Martin. It's always good to hear a Scouse accent, yes. OK, let's get right to it then. So first and foremost from me, it's Emily Miles, and she says, what is the best package bank account?

47:30FYI, Martin, I avidly follow all your programmes and have done for 14 years. Oh, well, absolutely. Then you're allowed to ask a question. So for those who don't know, package bank accounts are where you pay a monthly fee, 10, 15 quid a month. And lots of generally high quality insurance products are thrown in. So if you would have bought all those insurance products separately, and it tends to be travel insurance, mobile phone insurance and breakdown cover, then this is actually a very lucrative and cheap way of getting insurance. So much show, I tend to think of packaged bank accounts as insurance products with a bank account thrown in rather than a bank account with insurance products thrown in.

48:11But if you wouldn't be buying those bank accounts anyway off your own bat, then I wouldn't be looking at a packaged bank account. Now, as for which one's best, the complexity here is generally exactly what they're offering. So right now, let's take the Club Lloyd's Silver account. Now, one of the advantages of this is it's currently paying Switchers£200. The account costs£11.50 a month. So effectively, for the first 17 months, the account is free because you get£200 and that would pay for 17 months of the account. And therefore, the insurance for 17 months is free. Now, what that gives you is family European travel insurance, mobile phone cover, but only for the account holder.

48:53And that's one of the crucial differences, who's covered on the mobile phone cover because mobile phone is actually getting, that's expensive. of you. It could be 80, 90 quid equivalent per person and family UK breakdown cover. But certainly for singles and couples to an extent where you're both going to have a joint account on it, that one's pretty lucrative. And it's the one with the lowest fee and the biggest cash. So you get the most months fee. You also get the 12 months Disney Plus and stuff. Alternatively, Nationwide Flex Plus, that's£18 a month. You get£175 of free cash for switching to it.

49:27So that is effectively the first nine months free. And the big advantage there is all of the family's phones. So that's you and your partner, plus any unmarried children under 19 or under 22 in full-time education, get all your mobile phone cover. So for families, that one's really lucrative. It also gives family worldwide travel insurance, crucially with no upper age limit, though you must declare pre-existing conditions and UK and European breakdown cover for the account holder. So those two, the Club Lloyds and Nationwide Flex Plus, I think give you a decent range of what is out there. There are other accounts.

50:02Co-op has a decent one. Virgin M has a decent one out there. The Virgin M account is decent from Virgin Money, worth looking at. But that's the idea. And if you were going to pay for that insurance, I mean, many people are paying three, four hundred pounds a year for those insurance products. So the fact that you can get them for, you know,£11 or£18 a month from a bank account and you'll get free cash, which covers it, can mean it's very lucrative to do that. I think I've probably answered that question. What have you got next? Well, since you mentioned Nationwide, though, we've got Sarah here and she's saying she's just switching banks to Nationwide as they have a good switch offer.

50:34And she said she didn't realise how much of a faff it is for somebody that's on universal credit. She said she has to keep going to the job centre to prove her identity. I'll be honest, I've not had that feedback before, So I'm interested to know why that's happening and whether that's a common thing for everyone or there's just been something going on specifically. So you forgive me, I'm not going to give an answer, but do get in touch if something similar has happened to you. And it's the type of thing I should, if it is going to be a struggle for those on universal credit to switch because it's quite intransigent, the system to allow you to switch the universal credit system.

51:03Something I would like to know about and I should be warning people about. So anything else on that would be gratefully received. Thank you. So Lucy Rose asks, what happens if I have multiple accounts with the one bank and I close the account with a switch? OK, so I'm guessing what you mean by multiple accounts is you don't mean multiple bank accounts. You mean multiple different products. So you might have your credit card there. You might have your savings there. You might have other things there. In general, it's absolutely fine. Most products are not bank account linked. You will have heard me earlier using the afraid links because there are certain products.

51:36It tends to be regular savings accounts that allow you to put a few hundred quid in a month are linked to the current account. So if you don't have the current account, you can't get the regular savings accounts. But most things like credit cards and others are totally separate products that are standalone and live without the current account. So the technical answer is it depends on which products you've got. If there is any product that you got and you were only allowed to open as a benefit of having the current account, then when you close the current account down it may well be closed down but most products are separate so you can shift your bank account and you can still keep those other products that you have with the same financial institution and it shouldn't be a problem but it is always worth checking.

52:18So we've got Geoff up next and Geoff's question is related to companies who only infrequently pay into an account and he says how robust is the process if you forget to update your account? Okay so this I presume is you're thinking I'm worried that I've switched account and then there's people who pay me irregularly and I haven't told them. Well, under the seven-day switching process, as I mentioned earlier, all payments made to your old account will be auto forwarded. It is generally for a minimum of three years. Some banks will continue to do it longer. If they don't do it longer, then they should have a account not available type message sent back.

52:54So really, it's less about the robustness of the process. It should work for at least three years. it's more about you. Now, if those irregular payments are coming every six months or so, what you would need to do when you switched is take note every time you get one of those payments that you don't recognise, you would simply go, oh, I need to go and I need to notice those people because I've only got three years to switch this across. But in my view, three years is long enough for most people. Right. Anything else on the list of bank switching questions that I need to answer? No, I don't think so.

53:24I think we've pretty much covered the whole bank switching topic right there, Martin. Fantastic. In which case, let us move back now because I'm really interested in the tellers and I want to go through it. For those who don't remember, this week's tellers is, did you go to university? If so, was it worth it to you financially or for other reasons? And we have had so many on these and we're going to read out as many as we can, but we're never going to do justice to every single one that we got in. I shall start. Michael, hopefully you've got a few in front of you. Mark Jones says, I studied paleobiology.

53:57Nice. Learned lots of interesting things. Luckily met the right people who encouraged me, went on to do a PhD and now work at the Natural History Museum with scientists and fossils. I mean, that is part of the point of going to university. I mean, I went and did a broadcast journalism degree and I went on to be a broadcast journalist and now I work with wonderful people and Adrian is probably a fossil too. I'm sure I'd appreciate that to be fair. You don't know what to say now. No, I don't know. Split loyalty is Michael. I know, don't worry, I'll send him a clip of that. So sticking with the history elements here, we've got Nat Middleton who says that they went to university back in 2010 and did a BA in criminology and ancient history.

54:38Nat says, I loved university. I'd say worth it more for other reasons though. I trained as a chef in 2014 slash 2015, which I also loved. I now combine my criminology and chefing and work at an incredible food behind bars organisation doing my dream job. Well, it sounds fantastic. The degree didn't necessarily relate. And it's interesting. And I think the commoditisation and the commerciality of university now that you're paying has changed it into this idea that university is solely for vocational advantage. My view is it has a much broader approach. Now, I'm probably old school when it comes to this.

55:14And luckily, I don't recruit staff anymore. Other people do that. So I don't do the interviews. But my view has always been in the type of work I do. As a journalist, when we're employing journalists, I'm not particularly looking for them to have a journalistic undergraduate degree. I would actually probably prefer them to have a good, firm academic undergraduate degree, which shows that they have some rigour and robustness in their academic work. That's what I would be looking for. And some might call me a dinosaur because I'm doing that. But I think it's interesting to get some of the comments, and they tend to come from the younger people that we've got, of people saying, you know, my degree, I never went and worked in that field.

55:53Well, that isn't necessarily what a degree is for. A degree is about learning how to learn and learning how to go with, you know, talk to other people and having a broader worldview too. But I'll do the next one. Karen Blunsdon says, yes, went to uni in the late 90s, qualified as a pharmacist, but no uni fees and no student loan as I lived at home. I've had a good career, but you can't compare my experience to those going to uni now. My daughter is in her third year away at uni. She will come out with huge debts and, fingers crossed, a job. But it seems like the grad schemes are given more by luck than ability, as so many apply.

56:31Please give your thoughts, Martin, on those who are attending uni now and not those that did 30 years ago. Well, as I mentioned earlier on, I do think the dial has shifted. So the cost is far more borne now by the individual who goes to university and gets a degree. And much of that especially happened for the changes that came in England in 2023 when we changed it so that you will repay your student loan for up to 40 years rather than 30 years. And you will repay from a salary of twenty five thousand rather than twenty eight thousand. And so those two changes, although the interest rate was dropped at the time, do mean the total repayment for going to university will cost more.

57:10And some of the original dream that Tony Blair had, which is a massified university education system, has meant that having a degree in some cases is just a tick box for people. Now, I think there are many professions where a degree is necessary. There are other professions where technical training, learning on the job can all do just as well. And you don't therefore need to burden yourself with what is effectively 9 % higher tax on earnings above£25 ,000. Again, talking about the English system there. So I think the balance is there. But what I wouldn't want to do is put off any young person who wants to go and do a degree, has a passion and yearning to go and get a degree, and wants to go on and have a future career that will have a degree-based entitlement, if you do that, while you will pay back quite a lot once you leave, it's still probably worth it for you to go and fulfil your life's ambitions.

58:03And I wouldn't want to squash anyone's life's ambitions, even though the financial circumstances are tougher now. I'm just thinking of my own sort of experience here, Martin, really. It's funny because I loved university. Honestly, it was one of the best times of my life, but I've got to admit it does frustrate me sometimes when I'd be working alongside somebody who didn't go to university but got the same job and they don't have that same level of debt, which you do feel. I think a lot of the time I was sort of told that you might not feel it as you go into your career. But it's the repayments.

58:33It's more like a tax, isn't it? Ultimately, you're paying a tax. And that's what I always try and go on this quite strictly, as we talked about in the podcast we did on student finance. I am not saying that student finance is cheap and doesn't have a financial impact. It does. but it has the impact as effectively you pay a higher rate of tax a 9 % marginal increase on your tax rate rather than as a debt. And I need to say too, and I've talked about this before, I had very difficult times at school. School was a dark time in my life. And university is where I was reborn and came out and had the most wonderful time and took advantage of everything that was there and absolutely grabbed hold of life.

59:10So I look back with my university with huge fondness and I went on later to become a governor of the university. I'm now so old, I'm an emeritus governor of my university. So I should declare that that's the London School of Economics, where I studied government and law. But the equation has changed. It's still worth it for many, but it's not worth it for some. And I think we need to say that. So next up, Martin, we have Emma Smith, who says that her first degree didn't benefit her career-wise at all. I just carried on studying what I enjoyed because going to uni was the done thing. That was nearly 20 years ago now.

59:42I'm back at university studying a healthcare-related course. If there's jobs at the end of it, then hopefully it will be the best thing I ever did and I'll get my dream job. Well, I hope so. Best of luck in getting your dream. And we'll finish with Helen Tapper. I went to UWE Bristol, 1990 to 1993, studied politics. It did teach me how to construct an argument, point of view and how to answer a question. But it never helped me get a job. I never got paid more because of that degree. If there had been tuition fees back then, I would never have paid him off. and I suppose I mean the ultimate message from that now and it going back to what I said earlier is back then and that's a very similar time to me I was 91 to 94 and then a sabbatical year in 94 95 back then you could choose going to university over something that you wanted to learn and what you want to study and I think now you have to choose based on how it is going to help with your life progression because of the cost.

1:00:38Now, I said earlier, that doesn't necessarily mean doing a degree in the vocation that you want to go into. You don't have to choose, but doing something at least that gives you some sort of academic rigour that will be seen in an employment system. And studying politics at Bristol should have helped with that. Maybe it helped more than you think it did when you wanted to get onto a future job, but who knows? That is why it's a big decision now, and that seems to be a good place to go for all those thinking of going to university or parents of people wanting to go to university, I'll push again.

1:01:08There are many myths and misunderstandings over student finance. I did a full podcast on it about three weeks ago. Go and have a look. You can listen to it on BBC Sounds or anywhere else that good or mediocre podcasts are listed. That's it for this week. If you've enjoyed it, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast and why not subscribe? Then your pockets will be pleased with you. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday and now on Mondays too in the form of our new Question Time podcast, where you can ask me absolutely anything and everything within reason.

1:01:43If you want to put a question in, just email martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. And if you haven't enjoyed it...

1:02:02I got a mouth I got a feet So I'm going to make sure everybody eats Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.