Dean Sas's Weblog » General http://www.deansas.org/blog Tappity tap tap Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:21:35 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Student loans cost increase http://www.deansas.org/blog/2009/05/20/student-loans-cost-increase/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2009/05/20/student-loans-cost-increase/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 21:49:42 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/?p=599 The Student Loans Company have just announced that they are to increase the real cost of post 1998 student loans.

Student loans are supposed to be linked to the lower of the retail prices index (RPI, a measure of inflation) and the Bank of England base interest rate +1%. The idea being that inflation does not erode the cost of the loan and so you pay back in real terms exactly what you borrowed. Thus the only cost to the government for the loan facility which encourages thousands of young people into higher education, is that of administration and of opportunity cost, and over the life term of the loan there is effectively no cost to students.

Unexpectedly, since this system came into place we’ve had a bit of a recession and now the RPI is at -0.4%. The government has decided to lower the student loan interest rate to 0%, which is 0.4% higher than the cost of living, meaning that students are now paying more for their loan than they have borrowed. This isn’t lots of money, about £40-£50 per year but government forecasts expect RPI to hit -3% by the end of the year, which is more like £300-£400 extra per year. This breaks the understanding that I think many of us had when taking out the loans.

If you feel strongly about this then please sign the petition or better yet, write to your MP. You can use my letter to Paul Holmes as an idea of what to write but please do not copy it word for word – MPs get that many copy and pasted identical letters that they don’t tend to pay them much attention.

Dear Paul Holmes,

I’m writing to you about the recent decision to lower the interest rate
of post 1998 student loans to 0% between 1st September 2009 and 31st
August 2010.

As you may know, student loans are linked to the lower of the Retail
Price Index (RPI) and Bank of England base rate plus one percent. The
aim of this arrangement was to keep student loans in-line with the cost
of living so that students will payback the same as they loaned in real
terms.

With recent figures showing that RPI is -0.4% and the government
setting student loans at 0% interest, students are now paying back more
than they loaned in real terms. It is only a small amount but the
forecast in the last Budget was for RPI to fall to -3%, which would
then cost students and graduates hundreds of pounds each year.

Given your record of voting against top-up fees I hope that you will do
what you can to oppose this.

Yours sincerely,
Dean Sas

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2009/05/20/student-loans-cost-increase/feed/ 3 Internets 1 Parliament 0 http://www.deansas.org/blog/2009/01/21/internets-1-parliament-0/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2009/01/21/internets-1-parliament-0/#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:18:27 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/?p=573 MP’s plans to make their expenses exempt from FOI requests have collapsed. It’s a humiliating U turn for the Labour party, who were planning to enforce a three line whip. The Conservatives seem to have received slightly better publicity by changing their minds about it sooner and insisting they were against the idea from the beginning. The turn around came after a largely internet-driven campaign against the plan began, and finished within a couple of days.

The MySociety blog has some interesting statistics on public participation of this campaign

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2009/01/21/internets-1-parliament-0/feed/ 3 QUOTD 04/12/2008 http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/12/04/quotd-04122008/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/12/04/quotd-04122008/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:48:17 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/?p=566 “we must be the only nation on earth whose constitution is distributed, only partly canonical, of unclear ownership, not necessarily maintained, and poorly documented. It’s an open-source project!” – Alex on an interesting and humourous thread describing Westminster style parliaments in computing terms. Via Brian Burger

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/12/04/quotd-04122008/feed/ 0 Peaks and troughs http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/05/02/peaks-and-troughs/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/05/02/peaks-and-troughs/#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 20:06:03 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/?p=561 RSS reading times

You can clearly see what time I have lunch, what time I get home from work and what I do before I go to bed.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/05/02/peaks-and-troughs/feed/ 0 Bookmarks for October 11th – April 3rd http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/26/bookmarks-for-october-11th-april-3rd/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/26/bookmarks-for-october-11th-april-3rd/#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:21:02 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/?p=557 I had some catching up to do…

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/26/bookmarks-for-october-11th-april-3rd/feed/ 0 Froggat Edge http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/04/froggat-edge/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/04/froggat-edge/#comments Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:13:29 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/04/froggat-edge/ I went on this walk from Froggat Edge to Curbar Edge and then back along White Edge. There was lots of fog around, which looked especially nice on the drive there when descending from Beeley Moor onto the B6102, and seeing the opposite hill peek through it. The weather was less fun when attempting to take pictures from the edges into the valley below and of Karl Wark in the distance, though it was nice weather for walking (and judging by the climbers, also for climbing).



Silhouetted King of the World


Curbar Edge

Curbar Edge


You can see lots of other photos people have taken in the area, some of which are absolutely stunning, particularly this one.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/04/froggat-edge/feed/ 1 Migrant http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/03/migrant/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/03/migrant/#comments Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:38:37 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/03/migrant/ Apparently even though I’m 3rd generation I’m still a migrant, still waiting for the house though.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/11/03/migrant/feed/ 1 Using Windows http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/10/21/using-windows/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/10/21/using-windows/#comments Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:19:30 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/10/21/using-windows/ I’ve been using Windows this weekend (installing Counterstrike: Source) for the first time in months. After being spoilt by apt-get and synaptic I’d forgot how annoying managing programs is in Windows.

Before installing CS:S I had to remove a lot of programs to free some disk space, which consisted of going through packages in add/remove programs one by one and pressing “remove”, “next”, “next”, waiting an age and then pressing ok which requires I’m at the computer actively managing the process all of the time.

The same process in synaptic consists of clicking on the package you wish to remove and then choosing “remove” from the pop up menu. When you’ve chosen all the packages you wish to remove, press ‘apply’, then go and have a cup of tea. Mmm tea.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/10/21/using-windows/feed/ 0 22 http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/22/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/22/#comments Sat, 01 Sep 2007 21:39:59 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/22/ For my birthday Sara bought me this:
Wii box

I may not be responsive to email for a while.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/22/feed/ 0 Owned http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/owned/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/owned/#comments Sat, 01 Sep 2007 21:37:04 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/09/01/owned/ Monitor difference

:(

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