Sarah Lewis

As a nation we are much more successful in athletics than football, wish more of the money and resources was focussed on training future athletes.

@BrandonLuuMD @ajlamesa Maybe students typing notes are getting distracted by other things on their laptop too

Students who took notes by hand scored ~28% higher on conceptual questions than laptop note-takers. Writing forces your brain to process and compress ideas instead of copying them.

“According to the code, men are allowed to beat their wives as long as they do not use “obscene force” causing fractures, wounds or visible bruises, which the wife must prove in court. For this crime a man may be sentenced to only 15 days imprisonment.” theguardian.com/global-develop…

@lukas_ohl @mckyau_steve Yes but it is an interesting hypothesis. There is so much to unpack from this and I agree would be good to have more granular data.

@ProfSarahJLewis @mckyau_steve That’s a fair point. We’d need to compare like-with-like at a more granular level. I suspect there may be too many variables, making it difficult to isolate the London effect alone.

If you study medicine in the UK, it basically doesn’t matter what university you attend. For any other subject, it matters a lot. Huge premium for Oxbridge.

@lukas_ohl @mckyau_steve You wouldn’t be able to tell whether King’s and UCL benefits from this data as they are lumped with all the other Russell group unis, there might be some big differences between those unis

@mckyau_steve It’s curious how other central London universities don’t benefit as much though. King’s and UCL are Russell Group members, but Birkbeck is unremarkable, City even less so. (SOAS by contrast couldn’t be anywhere other than central London.)

@Matt_Pinner Yes

Be honest because I’m trying to prove a point Would you back your child or grandchild's decision to attend trade school rather than college?

@MrsNickyClark Surely people can have an opinion on things without it turning into a culture war!

Good morning. Remember now kids, it’s sexist to say that women are being “over emotional” unless of course that woman is autistic. Me on the new frontline in the culture war - autism. Happy IWD from the sisterhood apparently..

@TomChivers It makes sense to me. Maybe it is harder to fit in with norms now because society has changed and people don’t socialise in the same way they used to.

reading this Uta Frith interview in TES. It's so important on the expansion of autism diagnoses to include almost anyone, many of whom would be better described as having social anxiety. This bit in particular on masking seems really insightful tes.com/magazine/teach…

@thatginamiller @implausibleblog @NuffieldTrust Why expect students to pay loans in first years of graduation when they earn less? Most people would be in favour of funded medical degrees, with perhaps an obligation to pay it back if students don’t work for NHS

Lot of respect for Anthony Seldon but a carefully designed, time‑linked loan write‑off for people in defined public service roles could be a more powerful recruitment and retention tool. @NuffieldTrust proposed writing off student loans for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals after 10 years in the NHS, explicitly to tackle a “dropout crisis” during training and early career. Analysis for the Royal College of Nursing @theRCN found that a loan‑forgiveness model tied to NHS/public‑service work could keep over 14,000 nurses over ten years, filling over half of current vacancies in England. They looked at a loan forgiveness scheme based on - 30% of the loan after 3 years - 70% after 7 years - and 100% after 10 years Strong empirical cases that a well designed time and service linked write‑off scheme can materially improve retention in shortage specialties If the goals are to: - reduce unfairness & anxiety for graduates - improve recruitment into shortage public‑service roles - keep staff through the high‑attrition early years Lessons from other countries mean a scheme needs to be targeted, simple to administer, and clearly communicated to potential entrants. It's not that difficult - but takes political will and strategic thinking. On education, it is so much more than grades. Extensive research across economics, sociology, and psychology show that an educated population is significantly more cohesive, socially "human", and economically productive. That the aggregate benefits of education function as "social glue". #studentloans #university #educationandtraining #education #highereducation @BBCNewsnight

Watch this from Historian Sir Anthony Seldon 👏 ➡️ Calls to wipe student debt and pay for it out of general taxation ➡️ Bring in Martin Lewis and give him four weeks to find a solution ➡️ There are no dead end courses eg the arts, stresses universities are so much more, "Education is the great human activity, it is the liberation of the soul and the human mind"

@thatginamiller @implausibleblog @NuffieldTrust I am not sure that nurses need degrees they never used to and it is putting off people who would be great nurses but aren’t academic and don’t want to get into dept. If they need degrees why not offer degree apprenticeships

@Green_JohnCoyne @natalieben @ucu Sorry missed a word out, I think it would be “good”..

@Green_JohnCoyne @natalieben @ucu I was thinking about this earlier, I think it would be if unis offered shorter courses, night classes etc

Half of UK universities face a deficit next year. Up to 50 could close. That is a sector in crisis. Simply blaming a tuition fee freeze and nudging fees up with inflation is not a plan. Where is the long-term strategy for higher education? #Universities #HigherEducation | @UCU

@DrHWazir @paul_d_stevens I agree with you. I teach future doctors but I would never have gone to university if I had to incur the current level of dept.

An entire generation has been sold out by successive Governments, trapped by Student Loan interest rates so high even a loan shark would hesitate. I graduated as a doctor with around £75,000 of debt. After years of repayments, I now owe close to £90,000. That is the reality of Plan 2 loans: extortionate interest rates mean balances can rise even while regular deductions are taken from your salary. We’re told this system is “fair.” The Chancellor, @RachelReevesMP, has defended it as such. But I struggle to see how a system can be described as fair when those who can afford to pay upfront leave university owing nothing beyond the headline fee, while those from less financially secure backgrounds carry escalating balances for decades. Freezing repayment thresholds while interest continues to accrue increases the real burden on graduates year after year. The Labour Education Secretary, @bphillipsonMP, may prefer to debate who first introduced tuition fees, but that does not change the fact that the current Government is actively maintaining this structure. Successive governments may have built this structure, but the current Government is choosing to maintain it. And that choice has consequences. For many of us, this no longer resembles a conventional loan. It functions as a long-term graduate tax that quietly removes a significant portion of our income every month, often well into our 40s or 50s. If this Government believes in growth, productivity and social mobility, it cannot defend a model that disproportionately burdens those without family wealth. Reform is within its power: cap the interest, review the thresholds, and redesign the structure so that repayment reduces debt in a meaningful way. Governing is about taking responsibility for the system you oversee. The question now is whether this Government intends to defend the status quo or change it.

@TJiMTS Pension contributions would mean take home pay is even lower

Plan 2 student loan: 9% on everything above £27,295. Plan 5: 9% above £25,000. On top of income tax and NI, a graduate earning above £50,270 pays a 51% marginal rate. A graduate earning £60,000 takes home the same as someone without a degree on £54,925. We've created a £5,075 tax on education.

@soniasodha I agree the current system is unfair to students but Universities really aren’t raking in ten of thousands per students, they are struggling. It costs 100s of thousands just to keep the lights on, keep the buildings warm, pay cleaners, porters, IT, student support staff etc

My thesis has always been universities are raking in tens of thousands per student and a chunk of that is just young people paying for the privilege of a system that accentuates rather than tackles structural class inequality by sorting kids with AAA and ABB into different unis.

I actually can’t believe how long it’s taken for student loans to blow up. I’ve been writing about inherent unfairness in the system since 2015- complacent uni sector & ministers ignored the breathtaking lack of accountability for how young people’s future earnings being spent.

@paul_d_stevens They really have not thought this through, if the status quo continues, the hospitality industry will not exist soon, and neither will a lot of other businesses

“…the sheer amount that people pay on their loans every month diminishes their capacity to spend money on other things…”

@splashman32 @MartinSLewis I agree a payment calculator would be good, but difficult to predict because salary can increase substantially over 30 years.

@ProfSarahJLewis @MartinSLewis The threshold going up though will help those who will never pay it off. When to overpay, if it’s an option, is a difficult one! Some info on that would be of great benefit. Maybe it’s out there and I have missed it.

On a Plan 2 Student loan? Why freezing the repayment threshold from 2027 to 2030 is, in my view, a breach of natural justice. A brief audio explainer

@splashman32 @MartinSLewis They are allowed to overpay if they want to, but yes if they didn’t they would end up paying more

@MartinSLewis If the interest rates stay the same, will moving the threshold at which you pay upwards mean more interest for those, who in the end, will pay off the loan? So they will pay more long term.

We’d all be better off if all graduates had higher disposable incomes to spend into the economy. Scrapping loans and paying the universities directly (as we used to do) would free up £12-16billion in graduate spending power. Keeping graduates poor is counterproductive.