u/someone wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I’ve never heard of that. Generally, assuming you get a job that’s reasonably well paid you will pay the most with an ISA. Although interest rates are obviously up, but I assume that raises the overall payment last on ISAs too.
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Yeah ISAs are tricky. Some people see them as a loan where whatever additional cost on top of the "upfront" cost you end up paying is "interest".
Other people view it as an incentive aligned payment option where the better the outcome, the more you pay, and you don't pay anything until you get a job.
We found that a lot of people choosing ISAs don't want to take out loans to pay the upfront cost because they don't want us to get paid the full cost until they get paid and feel better about that.
How you feel might depend on your personal experience with ISAs. The latter only really works if most people actually get jobs.
All the complaints against ISAs I've seen are not the cost, but as a result of people thinking they would only pay if the program worked and then finding out they had to pay no matter what... hence it coming across like a loan with super high interest.