Fun fact: In the UK, if you took out a student loan any time until a couple of years ago, anything you didn't manage to pay back was automatically forgiven after 30 years (now it's 40, boo!) and unlike American student loans, you don't repay until you earn above a certain threshold.
Now, this threshold varies depending on the type of plan you took out, which nation of the UK you come from (in Scotland it's lower because Scottish university tuition is free if you are Scottish) and it's lower for a Masters degree, but on average, you can earn about £21,000-27,000 without having to pay back anything, and many of those who earn about £25,000 or more a year pay back no more than £20 a month.
So business graduates, and those with flashy degrees that lead to six-figure salaries often end up paying back their loans in full, with minimal interest. Doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, all those who we are completely reliant on for society not to collapse, they pay back their loans in the end, but often have to pay a hell of a lot of interest on top, even if there are still bursaries available (some of these were scrapped then reintroduced when the government realised what a joke it was to be charging people £9k a year to train to be a nurse while wondering why we were short of nurses).
You know who never pays back a penny of their student loans?
People with 'useless' degrees.
The arts graduates, the anthropology/sociology-with-a-very-odd-specialism graduates, the English Literature graduates who retrain as teachers in their 40s having never quite managed to publish a best-seller, the people who study something not because it's going to guarantee them a job or make them money, but because they love it.
There are so many degrees which, in a civilised world that recognised the full richness of humanity, would be massively oversubscribed, but in the one we live in are treated like they're not 'real' degrees, degrees in disability studies, film studies, LGBT+ history, linguistics, media literacy, psychology with a side of behavioural economics, and women's studies. Y'know, the kinds of degrees right-wing pseudo intellectuals hate because they teach you to think.
My degree was in Visual communication. I have never, since leaving university, had a job in the arts, I still do the odd commission, but I'm worked mainly in education and the charity sector, where average salaries are often just below the repayment threshold.
I've never paid a penny back on my student loans. On the rare occasion I've earned a bonus, or had overtime, and the student loans company have made the deduction, I've immediately gone online and entered my salary info to claim that money back as a refund (like getting a tax rebate but so much more satisfying).
It's also worth bearing in mind that the repayment threshold is primarily earned income (though any pension income or dividends over £2000 will also factor in) so if you work part-time while bringing up kids, and receive means-tested child-related benefits, it doesn't count towards the repayment threshold, same goes for if you receive benefits as a disabled person. So if you do a useless degree and then work freelance or part-time from when you're first kid is in nursery to when they're a teenager, you've probably already shaved off almost 20 of the 30 years needed to see the loan wiped out completely.
So yes, it is so important to do a useless degree, especially if you live in a country where your government will give you money to do a useless degree, then allow you to basically never pay it back.
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