Invest in yourself and your education.

At this time of year, thousands of students in the UK are getting ready to start university in October. Many will be apprehensive about leaving home for the first time, as well as accumulating a large amount of debt at the end of the course.

The average student debt for tuition fees and expenses is now around £50,000, which can be daunting for any young person starting out in life.

It should really be remembered, however, that you are not paying for your tuition upfront and you do not start repaying the loan (by salary deduction) until you have reached a salary of £25,725 per annum.

Studying gives you many advantages in life and greatly enhances your earnings potential and career prospects.

• Graduates are twice as likely to get a job as nongraduates.
• The average starting salary for a graduate is now £34,000, £10,000 more than a non-graduate, and this gap will increase as the person lacking in education and skills falls behind.

I once heard a figure in America that every year spent in further higher education was worth £200,000 in additional lifetime earnings. Warren Buffett once asked students how much they would sell their lifetime earnings for right now, and predicted that they would sell for too little.

When you use debt to invest in yourself, you are investing in and leveraging your future earnings potential. Your earnings and career development will be boosted by any further education, whether it be academic or vocational.

When I was running a vocational college, I realised that there are thousands of degree and vocational or apprenticeship courses available in the UK at very reasonable, and sometimes zero, cost to the student. Despite being offered a free vocational course or an NVQ, some students still couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning and study. Then they complained that there was “no opportunity” in this country!

If you want to reduce your debt or self-pay, you can also do a degree at a private college for far less than a university, or save a fortune by studying at a local university rather than packing off to other side of the country.

Whatever you decide to do, there is probably no greater investment, than an investment in yourself, and you should never stop learning.

It’s never too late to study, whether this be for short-term courses to improve your skills, or going back to university, as I did, to finish a degree or take a masters.

Word of the Day

Dividend or Divi.

When you own a share in a business, the board of directors of the company can declare a dividend, or share of the profits, to the shareholders who are the owners of the company.

Used in another context, you could say that education will pay “dividends” in your life.

There are more examples and practical steps to getting rich and being happy in my book, Yes, money can buy happiness, I cover the 3 R’s of Money Management, the Money B.E.L.I.E.F System and much more. Check it out on Amazon http://bit.ly/2MoneyBook.