Student Fees

[devogue]

Up to the point when a person leaves school, yes. After that he has choices to make. If he decides not to go to university he is not going to starve to death - he will find other options, other opportunities. If he wishes to avail of a university education, and the fruits that will follow from it, then the responsibility for financing it should fall on his shoulders.

Why should it?

I have already explained why in great detail.

And yet again - there are no up front fees for full time students.

But up front fees for over 100,000

Part Time Students.

Hmmm...an average working week is forty hours, so they are spending a gigantic 10 hours a week studying.

Yes, over a numerable amount of years. Believe it or not, but that's quite an extensive amount of input and time.

No it's not. The average Briton watches four hours of TV a day, 28 hours a week, and most of that is probably complete shit. Just cut back to 18 hours a week of X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing and you can have it all.

What's wrong with working in a full time job for 40 hours a week, then studying or an hour and a half in the evening for a distance learning course?

Because it's not what students have shed blood, sweat and tears for in attaining A levels. University is more than just education, it's an experience which all students should be entitled to.

Aw poor diddums. Blood, sweat and tears, eh? 9am until 3pm at school and then a couple of hours of homework for two whole years (less the huge swathes of summer, Easter and Christmas holidays). Actually, now I think about it you are absolutely right - the taxpayer should foot the bill for what is more than just an education: we should fund the experience of the "student lifestyle", that sacred state of adolescent bliss, that wonderful bank of eternally youthful memories of high jinks, rag weeks, parties and floppy hair. What could our hard earned money possibly be better spent on than such an entitlement? In fact it should be enshrined in human rights legislation.

Oh, and by the way, I studied music full time for three years. I maxed out my student loans and overdraft, I had no grant and no parental support - so I worked full time in a bar to support myself and did a full time degree while 99% of those around me pissed every penny they had up against the wall and then some. I paid my £10,000 overdraft and student loans off eight years after graduating, even though I didn't once pass the £15,000 income threshold which would have forced me to pay it. It was a piece of piss, but if it had been £30,000 to be honest I would have lumped it in with my mortgage.

Most students need to wise the fuck up and grow the fuck up. The world owes you nothing.

[devogue]

Oh this is irritating. Nothing is a natural born 'right'. We all have to work our little tits off for what we want, Lozz.

Yes, I guess children should begin saving their pennies for primary school education then.

[stripes4]

Oh this is irritating. Nothing is a natural born 'right'. We all have to work our little tits off for what we want, Lozz.

Yes, I guess children should begin saving their pennies for primary school education then.

I mean as adults. I do believe we have a responsibility to give all children as best an education as possible, to give them all that opportunity is very important, but at 18 you're an adult, and need to face up to paying for what you decide you WANT.
It would be lovely if we could give any 18-21 year old the higher education they have chosen, but it's a choice, because they want to gain something - as ADULTS. Whether it be serious qualifications, or a few years without having to work yet, it's what they as adults, are choosing to do, so they need to realise that it might not be free.
I got a good degree and worked fairly hard for it, and didn't pay much, granted, but that was when not so many opted for further education, so it wasn't so difficult to fund, I presume. Now there are a lot of students that want to continue on to university, and that's great - but they need to commit to working hard so they can get decent employment and pay it back.
Sorry if you were born 20 years too late, but look on the bright side - I'm 41 now, and you're not. :sighsm:

[Trolldor]

Actually, public education isn't free. Your parents pay for it. We not only had public school fees - partly subsidised - but also had to pay for uniforms, for textbooks, for excursions and extracurricular activities etc. etc.

Lozzer, my position is what - as far as I understand - your position will become.
And quite frankly it ain't that bad. It's easy.

If your debt accrues interest then I think that's absurd, but if it's like the OZ system, it won't.

[beige]

Heh, in an ideal world this might cut down the amount of people entering university courses where there are only 1 or 2 jobs for every thousand graduates, because people might realise they're wasting both their time and money.

Sadly, courses like mine which are fairly complicated and have more industry interest than they can pump out graduates for (because no one can be arsed to do a halfways difficult degree) are likely to be dropped as they're "less economical".

I technically work for my university as a peer mentor of sorts, and the kind of things that are coming down from on high don't sound too promising. The cut in funding means that the Uni is going to start going into super cash saver mode and focus resources on the degrees that make them the most money for the least input.

In other words, the ones where you can jam 200 people in front of a single lecturer and let them be done for the week, rather than the ones you need to fork out for JTAGs, development boards /whatever other materials and possibly learn some useful fucking skills in the process.

They have their funding cut before the fees are set to rise, so that money is going to have to come from somewhere.

My worry isn't so much the financial state of future students, but more what effect these changes will have on the higher-end workforce we're producing. A workforce that's simply incapable of even trying to compete in the global environment.

[Trolldor]

Aye, seen that first hand.

15 classmates will have to do distance because they're one short.

Just one.

They only need one more student to do internal, but because I transferred they don't have that one student.

[Coito ergo sum]

Oh this is irritating. Nothing is a natural born 'right'. We all have to work our little tits off for what we want, Lozz.

Yes, I guess children should begin saving their pennies for primary school education then.

Children and adults are two different things, don't you think. College students are not children. Different things are appropriately treated differently, are they not?

[Coito ergo sum]

Protesters erupted in anger after legislators in the House of Commons approved a plan to triple university fees to 9,000 pounds ($14,000) a year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101209/ap_ ... ion_tangle

Another group ran riot through the busy shopping streets of London's West End, smashing store windows and setting fire to a giant Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

As thousands of students were corralled by police near Parliament, some strummed guitars and sang Beatles songs — but others hurled chunks of paving stones at police and smashed windows in a government building.

Many in the thousands-strong crowd outside booed and chanted "shame" when they heard the result of the vote, and pressed against metal barriers and lines of riot police penning them in.

LOL - "shame?" It appears that those who ought to feel some shame are those "running riot" - "hurling chunks of paving stones" and "smashing windows." Big babies. A crying shame is that that THIS is what wakes young people up to be enraged and politically active. Sodding selfish little tits. Sitting there with your grubby hands out, demanding to be given what you want, and then when you don't get it you hurl rocks, rant, rave, threaten, burn and run riot. Pathetic tools. Nothing more off-putting and vulgar than a crowd of people rioting over not being given a handout.

[Lozzer]

Protesters erupted in anger after legislators in the House of Commons approved a plan to triple university fees to 9,000 pounds ($14,000) a year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101209/ap_ ... ion_tangle

Another group ran riot through the busy shopping streets of London's West End, smashing store windows and setting fire to a giant Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

As thousands of students were corralled by police near Parliament, some strummed guitars and sang Beatles songs — but others hurled chunks of paving stones at police and smashed windows in a government building.

Many in the thousands-strong crowd outside booed and chanted "shame" when they heard the result of the vote, and pressed against metal barriers and lines of riot police penning them in.

LOL - "shame?" It appears that those who ought to feel some shame are those "running riot" - "hurling chunks of paving stones" and "smashing windows." Big babies. A crying shame is that that THIS is what wakes young people up to be enraged and politically active. Sodding selfish little tits. Sitting there with your grubby hands out, demanding to be given what you want, and then when you don't get it you hurl rocks, rant, rave, threaten, burn and run riot. Pathetic tools. Nothing more off-putting and vulgar than a crowd of people rioting over not being given a handout.

Actually they were chanting 'shame on you', least according to all British media sources and overwhelming majority who were there. Loans aren't a ‘handout’; they're a 'bail' which recipients are contractually obliged to pay over the period of their life. I love how naive you Americans are, you really are a simple people, aren't you? Had you known anything about the unfolding of events here, you would have realised that the angst is primary fuelled by a major betrayal. See child, these students were the main demographic which voted for the Liberal Democrats, and regrettably, Nick Clegg has broken the promise under which millions of students had voted for him.
So, now that you’re enlightened as to what they were actually chanting, shall we explore why they were shouting so? Well, you see, Nick Clegg has not only dismissed a fundamental policy in his own party’s manifesto, but he’s contemptuously broken a pledge to which he was the main signatory.
The terms of the pledge were that the Liberal Democrats would never vote in favour of an intuition fees increase. So far as I’m aware, all party members signed the pledge. And it’s not only this, but it’s been revealed that Clegg had no intention of honouring it. Perhaps his manifeso wasn’t maintainable, but when you sign a pledge and fail to oblige by it, voters and entitled to ‘whine, kick and scream’ as you may have put it.

[Coito ergo sum]

Protesters erupted in anger after legislators in the House of Commons approved a plan to triple university fees to 9,000 pounds ($14,000) a year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101209/ap_ ... ion_tangle

Another group ran riot through the busy shopping streets of London's West End, smashing store windows and setting fire to a giant Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

As thousands of students were corralled by police near Parliament, some strummed guitars and sang Beatles songs — but others hurled chunks of paving stones at police and smashed windows in a government building.

Many in the thousands-strong crowd outside booed and chanted "shame" when they heard the result of the vote, and pressed against metal barriers and lines of riot police penning them in.

LOL - "shame?" It appears that those who ought to feel some shame are those "running riot" - "hurling chunks of paving stones" and "smashing windows." Big babies. A crying shame is that that THIS is what wakes young people up to be enraged and politically active. Sodding selfish little tits. Sitting there with your grubby hands out, demanding to be given what you want, and then when you don't get it you hurl rocks, rant, rave, threaten, burn and run riot. Pathetic tools. Nothing more off-putting and vulgar than a crowd of people rioting over not being given a handout.

Actually they were chanting 'shame on you', least according to all British media sources and overwhelming majority who were there. Loans aren't a ‘handout’; they're a 'bail' which recipients are contractually obliged to pay over the period of their life. I love how naive you Americans are, you really are a simple people, aren't you? Had you known anything about the unfolding of events here, you would have realised that the angst is primary fuelled by a major betrayal. See child, these students were the main demographic which voted for the Liberal Democrats, and regrettably, Nick Clegg has broken the promise under which millions of students had voted for him.
So, now that you’re enlightened as to what they were actually chanting, shall we explore why they were shouting so? Well, you see, Nick Clegg has not only dismissed a fundamental policy in his own party’s manifesto, but he’s contemptuously broken a pledge to which he was the main signatory.
The terms of the pledge were that the Liberal Democrats would never vote in favour of an intuition fees increase. So far as I’m aware, all party members signed the pledge. And it’s not only this, but it’s been revealed that Clegg had no intention of honouring it. Perhaps his manifeso wasn’t maintainable, but when you sign a pledge and fail to oblige by it, voters and entitled to ‘whine, kick and scream’ as you may have put it.

A loan which you otherwise would not be able to get in the free market is a handout. However, the handout I was referring to was the portion of the university bill that is paid for out of the State's general funds. You don't think the 9,000 pounds is the sum total of all university costs do you? The rest is paid for by the State. The part a student doesn't have to pay is the handout.

I'm fully aware of what they were chanting and why. They're still, at bottom, pissed that they have to pay more of their own way through college, and their reaction is to riot. And, even the fact that there has been a broken promise involved here, the reaction of rioting and throwing rocks through windows and setting fires is still inappropriate. The babies running riot don't give a shit that someone has to fix their damage.

Whine, kick and scream all you like. It's the rock throwing, rioting, fires, and window smashing I took issue with. I realize that distinction may be too complex for your pee brain to keep up with, but do try and put your mind to it. (See - two can play at the game of turning matters into personal attacks - I know it's difficult for you to keep from doing that, so I'll just respond in kind. I know you have, as a Euro with an inferiority complex, a need to feel superior to the "simple, fat, and stupid" Americans....probably gives you some solace in the fact that we've been kicking your sorry assess in just about every way for a couple centuries now... so if it makes you feel better, do keep hurling insults).

[Lozzer]

A loan which you otherwise would not be able to get in the free market is a handout

According to the American perspective, yes, but this is how relatively fair societies function.

You don't think the 9,000 pounds is the sum total of all university costs do you? The rest is paid for by the State. The part a student doesn't have to pay is the handout.

I'm quite aware chap, but students do have to pay. Unless, of course, they escape abroad.

I'm fully aware of what they were chanting and why

And decided to essentially manipulate it so as to characterise thousands of them?

They're still, at bottom, pissed that they have to pay more of their own way through college, and their reaction is to riot.

This is Britain, we embrace a stringent socialist tradition on education and healthcare.

And, even the fact that there has been a broken promise involved here, the reaction of rioting and throwing rocks through windows and setting fires is still inappropriate

How? Suppose you were to canvass, persuade and volunteer for a said party only to them have reject the policies under-which you exerted and voted for? Suppose you voted for Obama, how would you feel if the gent pulled off a mask at his inauguration only to reveal that he's John McCain? You could potentially have respite from that, but we can't. He could be denied premiership, but deceit is deceit.

I know you have, as a Euro with an inferiority complex, a need to feel superior to the "simple, fat, and stupid" Americans....probably gives you some solace in the fact that we've been kicking your sorry assess in just about every way for a couple centuries now

I think I just jizzed

I'll just respond in kind

so if it makes you feel better, do keep hurling insults

You're really sexy

[Pensioner]

All you guys from the UK who went to university with grants that were paid by taxes from folk like myself, and left your university without any debts and support the fucking Con-Dems should be ashamed of your selves, fucking hypocrites.

[Coito ergo sum]

A loan which you otherwise would not be able to get in the free market is a handout

According to the American perspective, yes, but this is how relatively fair societies function.

We have federally subsidized and guaranteed student loans here in the US too, along with lots of grants that don't need to be paid back. We just recognize them for what they are. You prefer to pretend it's something it isn't.

You don't think the 9,000 pounds is the sum total of all university costs do you? The rest is paid for by the State. The part a student doesn't have to pay is the handout.

I'm quite aware chap, but students do have to pay. Unless, of course, they escape abroad.

Not for all of it. The part they don't have to pay is a handout. I know you're young, but let's use a simple example so you get it. If you go out to buy a car, and you find one that costs 10,000 pounds. You can only afford 5,000 pounds. Your dad pays the balance. You got a handout. Get it? You should say "thanks", rather than start throwing rocks because you had to pay half, instead of only 1/3 of the cost.

I'm fully aware of what they were chanting and why

And decided to essentially manipulate it so as to characterise thousands of them?

My characterization was appropriate and on target. You're the one manipulating it to pretend that all they were doing was "whining and crying." They were doing that and more. It's the "and more" that I focused on.

They're still, at bottom, pissed that they have to pay more of their own way through college, and their reaction is to riot.

This is Britain, we embrace a stringent socialist tradition on education and healthcare.

...so....give us what we want, or we throw rocks and set fires.....

And, even the fact that there has been a broken promise involved here, the reaction of rioting and throwing rocks through windows and setting fires is still inappropriate

How?

Because rioting in the streets and doing violent acts like setting fires and breaking windows is not an appropriate reaction for not getting what you want in the political process. I want my car paid for by the government - I want my food paid for by the government - those are necessities far greater, to me, than university fees. If I don't get what I want, I should riot and throw rocks through the windows downtown?

Suppose you were to canvass, persuade and volunteer for a said party only to them have reject the policies under-which you exerted and voted for? Suppose you voted for Obama, how would you feel if the gent pulled off a mask at his inauguration only to reveal that he's John McCain? You could potentially have respite from that, but we can't. He could be denied premiership, but deceit is deceit.

Vote him out next time. Sometimes changes in circumstances require a change in policy. I've read some of the things Clegg has been saying in his own defense. He sounds pretty reasonable, actually.

I know you have, as a Euro with an inferiority complex, a need to feel superior to the "simple, fat, and stupid" Americans....probably gives you some solace in the fact that we've been kicking your sorry assess in just about every way for a couple centuries now

I think I just jizzed

Good for you. That's always fun.

I'll just respond in kind

so if it makes you feel better, do keep hurling insults

Hey - you like to hurl insults. Have at it. I'll play that came if you like.

You're really sexy

Thanks for the compliment! You're such a nice boy.

[mistermack]

Lozzer, I fear your wasting type on Coito. He sees nothing but markets, and always will.
And the problem is that markets do work. BUT, they work by inflicting pain.
That's ok for speculation of capital, but not for a whole heap of other things.
A market is like evolution. They both work by a system of winners and losers.
A few winners, and lots of losers. But you of course end up with a system that works for the winners. The losers don't matter, so long as enough winners survive to keep going.
If I am paying for a govornment, I want something better than that.
We are intelligent creatures, we should be able to DESIGN something that works, and eliminate the huge waste of evolution. A kind of INTELLIGENT DESIGN would be nice. We have brains, why not use them?

That's why I don't want to see education treated as a commodity to be bought and sold, I want it planned and provided through taxes.

The govornment just concentrates on what the more successful graduates gain financially. They ignore what THEY gain financially, through higher taxes on higher earners. And they ignore the fact that we all benefit if someone qualifies as a doctor, or dentist, or vet.
Because we end up paying less for the services of highly skilled professionals, if there are more of them about.
So the taxpayer gains tremendously from higher education, IF IT'S PROPERLY TARGETED.
Thats what needs changing, the targeting of education funding towards professions that actually financially benefit the taxpaying public.
We should aim at increasing the supply of engineers, chemists, doctors, dentists lawyers, vets, etc etc etc, so that we don't pay through the nose for these essential services.
And forget degrees in politics and journalism etc.
Any fucker can do that shite.

[Lozzer]

Thanks for the compliment! You're such a nice boy.

Now you're enabling me.

Though, I take my hat off to you, it's apparent that I'm wrong.