Summary
The cost of the government's new student loan system is rising according to a recent report. Tim Harford investigates whether the rising costs should have been foreseen, and whether the new system will end up costing more than the old one. Plus: mobile phone goldmines in our pockets; paedophilia in the priesthood and from machine learning to deep learning.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Thank you for downloading more or less from the BBC. This is the version first broadcast on Radio 4. |
| 0:42.0 | Here's Tim Harford. |
| 0:44.6 | Hello and welcome to a brand new summer series of more or less. This week one of the |
| 0:50.5 | greats of economic broadcasting advises us not to get lost in over precise statistics. |
| 0:56.8 | The Pope is reported to have said that one Catholic priest in 50 is a pitiful. |
| 1:02.3 | We look at the facts. And we investigate the strange numbers behind |
| 1:06.1 | the unglamorous business of recycling and the alluring world of... |
| 1:10.3 | But first let's talk about a government policy that's costing 1.7 billion |
| 1:18.1 | pounds more than expected every year. Well Ben Carter's here to help and Ben this is about student loans. |
| 1:25.0 | Yes Tim, while we were off air the government released a report on the student loan system |
| 1:29.8 | and the main headline from that report was that the government are expecting to recoup less money |
| 1:35.6 | from student loan repayments than they had initially forecast. |
| 1:38.8 | And there's history here. A few years ago, the coalition government floated its new system of student loans, where |
| 1:45.3 | tuition fees would be much higher, but students wouldn't have to pay back their loans until |
| 1:50.1 | they were earning more. |
| 1:51.7 | And the first prediction was that for every pound the government lent to students, |
... |
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