24/10/2011 Inside Out North West

Hello, welcome to Inside Out. This week, I am in Manchester, which has

one of but highest number of students in the country, but will

the new fees put young people in the region of study in? More later.

Tonight, Alf and Hall reveals the real cost of paying back the new

tuition fees. �75,000. Just for one person?

for one person. With so many different courses to

choose from, are some university degrees a waste of money?

When you turn up with your A-level in media studies and you have a PhD

in the Beatles, do not expect an employer to give you a job. You

have got to understand what you want to be.

And, helpful people who have lost their twin.

There is a sense that something is missing, that something is their --

that something is not there that should be there. The closeness

A survey commissioned by Inside Out suggests 10% of A-level students

have been put off university because of the increase in tuition

fees. We interviewed more than 1000 sixth-formers, and almost half say

they are beginning to look abroad for cheaper options. We have asked

a financial Cymru to crunch the numbers and see it if there are

Movie that we've been led to Young, confused and afraid. This is

what thousands of teenagers across England fear - a lifetime on the

run. What's chasing them? Student debt. But is it really the horror

movie that we've been led to believe? Whether you think next

year's hike in fees is fair or not, it's happening, so young people

need to know the facts. I'm going to show you what a degree will

really cost, and how you can avoid those fees altogether. Next year,

English universities will charge up to �9,000 a year. With living costs

on top, graduates can face debts of around �50,000. But how much will

they actually end up paying back? Well, I've come to meet some sixth

formers in Birmingham to show them. I think the number's going to shock

them. I think that earning interest over such a long time as you're

paying back that loan really is a number that most people don't think

about. Let's imagine that you graduate from university with

�50,000 worth of debt and you get a high-paid job, like we expect Jacob

here will get. How much of that money do you have to pay back?

not sure, but is it all of it? of it, and more, because what?

interest. Interest, oh, God is Is that just for one person? That's

just for one person. That's horrible. That is really bad.

that just for an average degree of three years? That's for an average

degree of three years, if you take out the maximum loan. But what if,

for some reason, their careers don't go as planned and they never

earn more than �21,000 a year? The So, what's going on? Basically, the

repayment of the loan works like taxes - the more you earn, the more

you pay back. If you never earn above a certain amount, you don't

pay back a penny. The new Independent Taskforce on Student

Finance is led by Martin Lewis. biggest confusion out there quite

simply is that people confuse the price tag, these �9,000 fees, total

of �50,000 fees at the end of university, with the actual cost.

This is a very, very, very different type of system. Many

people won't come close to repaying in full what they borrowed. Some

won't pay anything at all. And the bewildering fact that we're putting

people off paying for university because we're looking at the price

tag, not the cost, is the biggest problem to me. But most graduates

will face large debts. So, is there any way of avoiding the fees? Well,

yes - you could study abroad. At the recent Student World Fair in

London, teenagers discovered just how much they can save. I think

everyone would rather go to a university where they're paying,

like, �8,000 cheaper than, like, the UK, so yeah, especially because

that's a year, as well. The fees are much cheaper. That's more

attractive, so when you come out, it's not going to be in so much

debt. In fact, dozens of universities across Europe offer

courses taught in English. The fees differ from country to country, but

in Scandinavia, tuition is free. Denmark, we have no tuition fee at

all. Because the Danish government pays for Danish students, and

according to EU rules, we have to Harriet Moore has already taken the

plunge. She's off back to uni in Slovakia. I am trying to save money

on my flights. Over there, she saves a fortune on living costs,

spending just �100 a month. I caught up with her via webcam. What

would be the piece of advice that you would give to anyone

considering doing what you have done? I think if you're even

considering it, I think you should go for it. Definitely. It's worth

doing. You just get on the plane. You have to be a bit brave on the

first plane journey over, but I've I want my money! So, studying

overseas may be one way to outrun But there are downsides. If you

study abroad, the Government here won't make you a loan. Only some of

the courses are taught in English. And employers might not recognise

foreign degrees. So you need to do your homework. Another way of

beating the fees is to get someone else to pay. But who? Well,

London's financial heartland is a good place to look. Don't be fooled

by the power suits - believe it or not, these youngsters are all

freshers. They're being sponsored by accountancy giant KPMG.

entire package was a degree, a salary, the tuition fees were paid,

and a job at the end, and you obviously were helped to become a

qualified chartered accountant. you think there was a catch in it?

It sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? You know, as with

everything in life, you have to work hard, and if you want, that's

the only catch, I guess. And the man who runs the programme tells me

KPMG don't offer the stereotypical They've got to work for us, they've

got to study for their degree and they've also got to obtain their

chartered-accountant qualification in six years. That will require

hard work, and that's all we really ask of the students who are joining

us. And then there are bursaries. Students from low-income families

can get money from various sources, But is there another way of

escaping the debt? Well, you could 16-year-old Safina Adam is trying

to do just that. As well as studying for her A-levels, she

sells beauty products on her website. I started my business

because I wanted to save up for university, and my parents said

that, because of the rise in prices of university fees, it would be too

much for them to pay for it. I'm The Government allows students to

pay up front. But most will have to take out a loan. But one financial

expert believes that graduates could end up paying back far more

Financial journalist William Cullerne Bowne is warning students

to beware. I think the problem is that the deal is actually not a

deal. There are all these numbers flying about, saying that you'll be

charged a certain amount of interest on the loan, that your

repayments will start at �21,000, over that you'll be paying a

certain percentage. But actually none of those parameters are in the

contract that the student signs up for. And in fact, the Government

can change those numbers if it wants to in five years' time or ten

years' time, 20 years time, 30 years' time. So students could end

up paying a lot more. But any big changes would have to be approved

by Parliament. Like many Americans, I graduated with debts of tens of

thousands of dollars. It was daunting, but if you know the facts,

student debt doesn't have to be If you are prepared to be creative,

you can get a degree without drowning in debt. But there is

another way of beating the fees. To not go to university as well.

-- all. It's the first week of the academic

year, and the start of a whole new adventure for these freshers who

have left home for the first time to study at Liverpool Hope

University. I am studying the primary school teaching with sports

studies. English and language. English literature and media.

Theology and religious studies. according to Pete Waterman, they're

making a massive and costly mistake. I just think that universities have

to look at where they are in relation to today's world.

Learning's a great thing, but learning for the sake of learning,

if people expect something at the end of it, it could be a bit of a

shock for them. And I think that that has to be explained to

students when they go on certain Pete's a self-made man who made his

millions through the music industry, producing hit records for a whole

host of artists, including Kylie Minogue. He says universities give

students false hope and a whole load of debt. I'll of education.

Don't get me wrong. Announcing you cannot have education. I'm saying

that we have to look at it more fundamentally than we do, and there

is a place for people that do want to go to university, but that is

not everybody, so let us not push everybody down this road, and build

bigger and bigger campuses, and give people on that we are creating

this to leak work force. We are not. My three main priorities for

government, education, education, and education. These days, it seems

you can get a degree in almost anything. Liverpool Hope University

was formed when three education colleges merged, but it offers

courses in all kinds of subjects, including football and pop music,

taking study of the Beatles to postgraduate level. The course

leader says that that is a ballot area of study. As if we are all

singing Beatles songs. You get that a lot, actually. This is a classic

criticism. It is a classic misnomer. The idea that popular music studies

does not prepare you for a job is another misnomer and another

fallacy, because any degree, of any level, is a very empowering for

people. I left school before my 16th birthday, and I floundered, I

really floundered for years, until I had my daughter, to study, and I

studied English and history former First degree, but I felt so when

power by that, I felt I could go out and talk to people and stand up

for myself, so any degree, really, is a massively improving trend for

people. I would recommend it to anybody of any age because it to

sue in a position of advantage. Being able to talk to people about

theoretical complex things in life and understanding the degrees, for

example, of the music business, of the way that political thought-

processes are present in the music industry, all of these things are

very important and certainly lead to my own personal empowerment over

a number of years. But will there be a job at the end of it? Pete

Waterman pens not. Do would expect an employer to see, I have got no

jobs for the long and winding road this week. You have got to

understand what you want it to be. The university chancellor says that

Pete Waterman's views are old- fashioned and not all degrees have

to be vocational. Let's not do the whole thing that you get a degree

and someone will employ you, the new thinking must be, how can you

create jobs, how can you be an employer? And what schools can you

pick up at the University, how can you pick up the King's of skills

that will make you not just an employee, but an employer? And we

have got to think about that otherwise we will not be able to

compete, globally. I think that is part of old thinking. If we are

going to remain a First World country and a leading country in

the knowledge economy, we have to have people well educated and we

live in a democracy that requires talk will, thinking people, so

people can go to university, the match it. But as more students

apply to go to university, more and more are being rejected as there

are not enough places to meet demand. What happens to be Jean

people? Pete Waterman thinks that the way forward is more

apprenticeships like he has at the Senate is really. What we're doing

is old fashioned Engineering. -- at his heritage really. -- railway.

They go to college one day a week but we never asked them for a

qualification when they start with us. Our job is to teach them to do

the job we want them to do. Even then, if they cannot, that does not

stop them getting the job. A one of those apprentices has just

completed his ideas Engineering Training. It is just a lot of hard

work and a lot of learning. It is not something that you can learn

from a book. It is physical, hands- on experience, and that is all it

comes down to, at the end of the day. Some people have been to

university, boys and girls, and have done really interesting

courses. One of them has done some sort of graphics course, another

has done a history degree, but have all ended up with a lot of debt, 15

grand's worth of debt, and not the job out of it, and one of them

works as telesales with British Telecom, another of them works as a

pub singer in London, so I cannot see the point, to be honest.

court is one of the biggest employers in the north-west. Over

the next three years they are taking on 2,000 apprentices,

compared to fewer than 100 graduate trainees. There is not much that as

we can apprentices and graduates when they, international

organisation. But that doesn't mean one silo. You can do your

apprenticeship in one area and then work in different areas in the

future, so I'd say there is no difference, maybe just the entry

requirements. Actually, maybe the graduates are a few years on in

that process level, but look at the apprentice in six years' time and

they could be beyond that level as well. So I think it's just a

different stage of their career that we're bringing them in

at,really. Back at Liverpool Hope University, the freshers, while

hoping to improve their job prospects by gaining good degrees,

say they're also here for the things apprenticeships don't offer

the chance to get away, make new friends and have the time of their

lives. It is a great chance to develop yourself as a person, to

discover yourself. I'm having good experiences that I could not have

at home, I could not get the full experience of university. All my

friends have said it is the best time have a, but I am just here for

the qualification. Hopefully, make new friends, lots of experience,

and good fun. One of the hardest things we all have to cope with his

bereavement, losing a parent or someone close can be devastating.

But imagine losing someone who has been with you sits before you were

born? In the north-west, support group has been set up to help

people who have lost it when. -- a twin. Twins are one of the miracles

of life. In the case of identical twins, one egg creating not just

two people but a lifelong bond. Joan Woodward, a psychotherapist,

lost her twin Pam when she was just three years old. Despite her being

so young, Joan believes her death had a lasting effect. There's no

doubt whatsoever that what it produced is extreme levels of

anxiety. I was very lonely, and that, in a way, it's quite well

known among lone twins, this sense that something's missing, that

something's not there that should be there. They are seeking

closeness, and I think one of the hardest bits is that you want to

find that closeness again, but it never is available. In the 1980s,

Joan wrote a book on the subject and interviewed more than 200 lone

twins. Some had lost their twin in adulthood, some in childhood and

others at birth. I think other people were surprised in that twins

who'd lost their twin at birth were so deeply affected, but that's

because there was a lot of evidence to show that the thing that

mattered about twins was the parent response to the loss, and for

mothers to have this agonising experience of giving birth to one

child who's alive and at the same time giving birth to a child who's

dead is a very traumatic experience, and a very painful one. How do you

adore one and feel happy and yet grieve and feel terribly sad for

the other? Having interviewed so many lone twins, Joan then decided

to set up a support network for them, and they now meet a couple of

times a year. It's not a therapy group, it's what the twins can

offer each other in listening and supporting each other. Since the

1980s, the group has grown. Its website is run by Nancy Power, who

lost her twin Jane to suicide when they were both 20. I had no idea

how to cope. I didn't think I'd ever have to deal with it. I knew

I'd have to cope with my parents dying, but not my twin sister. Even

though we weren't identical, we were two halves of a whole. I was

the shy one, and she was the outgoing one. She would be the one

having a cigarette behind the bike shed and staying out late. I was

the shy, retiring, just getting on with my little hobbies, sort of

thing. We would have abilities that we would give to the other. I'd

help her out academically, and because of her I'd try to be a bit

more outgoing, and I needed her to help me with that, and she needed

me to help her with other things, so as soon as that goes and it's

not there anymore, I felt so lost. I felt completely lost, I didn't

know how to function anymore. It is like losing half of yourself, it

really is. Nancy joined the Lone Twin Network eight years ago and

has drawn huge strength from the support of others. You're suddenly

like, "Oh, right, I'm not a freak or mad." Cos the stuff you say when

you're in groups, I just say, "Right I'm going to say this cos

it's in my head," and so I say it and then I've nods going round the

group and I think, "Oh, right, I'm not completely crazy," and you can

all be crazy together and cry and just empathise, really. This is the

memorial cloth, that I have to come from one of the ladies that started

it. It has members' names on it with their twin's names by the side

of it. It is just a memorial, something a little more permanent,

of their twin. It is good for people who lost their twin at birth,

who do not have a grave or any other kind of memory or photographs

or anything. At least there is something, somewhere, giving their

twin a place in the world. Perhaps that is the most difficult aspect

for outsiders to understand, the grief of those are lost their twin

at birth. People like Gill, whose twin was stillborn. She did not

realise the effect of this until she was in her twenties. The best

way to describe it was intense insecurity, being frightened about

what was going to happen next. Great insecurity. And a sense of

looking for something. As I study languages I spent quite a lot of

time in foreign cities, studying and working, but I felt I was

wandering around looking for something, with a feeling of unease,

and not being rat -- very relaxed, and that the South it manifested

itself. Jill's twin was buried in the grave of an adult to died at

the same team. The Lone Twin Network was able to help gel locate

the unmarked grave. I have a nice plaque made with the date on, 2003,

and a little message to her, and I put down some flowers, and my

parents were very surprised that I managed to do this through the Lone

Twin Network. And we all felt better for it. Having found peace

through the Lone Twin Network, Gill wants to set up a regional branch,

here in the north-west. We have the first meeting on 29th to October.

Details can be found on the Lone Twin Network website. We will have

that, just an afternoon, with tea and cakes, that sort of thing. And

we will discuss at the end of the session what people want to do,

whether they went to meet twice a year, it will be what people want

it to be. It wins do not just share a birthday, but the symbiosis, a

special bond that is impossible to replicate. But, with the help of

others in the same situation, lone twins can help find a way through

their grief and be help to others. We had a good couple of sessions

when lone twins went and met parents who had recently lost a

baby and the innate up was full of emotion but we were able to say, we

are here, don't start thinking that it is a terrible loss, try to make

the best of the one that has a rich, full life to live who is glad that

somehow they have a twin, and make the most of who they are, because

being alone twin is being a special person. You can find out more about

the network on our website. The address is on the screen now. That

is all from me in Manchester. You can watch again on the BBC iPlayer.

I am back at the same time next Monday. Until then, have a good

week. Next week, as the recession hits the north-west, we discover