Student Fees

[Pappa]

When I was in uni, the fees were paid for me, and I had a student grant and student loan available to help pay for some expenses. I also worked each summer to pay back as much of my overdraft as possible and got a bit of money each month from my parents. The student loan system has changed significantly over time, but all students are bound by the rules that governed their loans when they took them out (none have ever been changed later). I don't have to pay back any of my student loan until I am earning the national average (currently something like £28,000). If I defer payment every year for 25 years, the debt is written off (essentially the loan becomes a grant for those who don't end up earning enough). While the current system will leave students with perhaps 3 times the debt I had, the principle is basically the same. Those that can afford to pay their debt back in the future will have to do so... those that cannot will not.

I think that a university education should be free for those that cannot afford to pay for it themselves, and the system the are to put in place seems (on the face of it) fair to me.

[devogue]

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.

I got no grant and I left university with about £10,000 of debt in the late 1990s. I've nothing to be ashamed of, except my hairy arse.

[mistermack]

While the current system will leave students with perhaps 3 times the debt I had, the principle is basically the same.

Fuck me, the principle might be the same, but three times the debt is three times the debt.
If your house was three times the price, the principle being the same wouldn't help much.
If they increased fees by ten percent, I don't think you'd have seen much objection to the principle.
.

[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.

I got no grant and I left university with about £10,000 of debt in the late 1990s. I've nothing to be ashamed of, except my hairy arse.

I do not want to think about your hairy arse thank you very much, I have enough problems as it is. :sighsm:

[Coito ergo sum]

Lozzer, I fear your wasting type on Coito. He sees nothing but markets, and always will.

That's untrue, and has nothing to do with the issue even if it was true.

And the problem is that markets do work. BUT, they work by inflicting pain.

Nobody is talking about markets here.

That's ok for speculation of capital, but not for a whole heap of other things.

When did this debate become about the free market? You don't have a free market in college education in Britain. What we've been talking about is the increase in fees applicable to colleges in Britain.

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?

....still seems a bit vulgar to get something for free, and then start turning over cars when the suggestion is made that you get less for free because of dire economic circumstances...

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.

It is. But, there has to be a limit somewhere because of certain key factors: 1. there is not an infinite supply of money, 2. people eventually have to stop their educations and go to work (or be left to their own devices), and so at some point an upper limit on the number of years in school a State is going to be willing to subsidize.

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.

Those numbers are calculable. Someone ought to do an analysis to place real numbers on those general statements and see where it all shakes out. At some point, it's better to get people working than continue education on the premise that later incomes will be higher. Your point is valid, though - it just needs numbers attached to it.

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.

Can't say I disagree with this.

[Pappa]

While the current system will leave students with perhaps 3 times the debt I had, the principle is basically the same.

Fuck me, the principle might be the same, but three times the debt is three times the debt.
If your house was three times the price, the principle being the same wouldn't help much.
If they increased fees by ten percent, I don't think you'd have seen much objection to the principle.
.

The fees are only to be paid back if the student is ever in a position where they are earning enough to afford it, and at an amount determined on a sliding scale too. This seems fair IMO.

I'd like to see some real development of genuinely useful vocational qualifications and encouragement for people to get them. We have far more graduates than we will ever need, and most of them end up working in call centres or similar after they graduate (or they did a few years ago, now they're probably on the dole or working in supermarkets). The money that paid for their education was thrown away. How many Geography graduates could a country possibly ever need??? If bright students were able to study non-academic subjects and gain useful qualifications from them, we might have a far stronger skills-based economy than we currently have. Throwing kids at university indefinitely isn't a sustainable solution to our problems.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...if anything they are a retrospective tax, a small percentage of the huge financial leap that all graduates from all backgrounds will make...

Will make? I never have.

...that section of society should pay more for the finanical advantage they will gain through their lives becuase of their extra education.

That all very fine I you are someone who takes the view that the point of higher education is for individuals to gain a "financial advantage". However some of us still cling to the admittedly (and regrettably) old-fashioned view that education at all levels should not be the means to an end, but an end in itself (for both the individual and society).

In my opinion once you reduce a discussion on education to a narrow purely financial 'cost benefit' analysis, you are straight away missing the point.


Unfortunately in our post-Thatcher era anything that cannot me made to 'pay it's way' is assumed to be of no value to society and not worth subsidising, as if the free market is not only the ultimate arbiter of a things value (which would be bad enough), but the only one.

In our modern political discourse something either has a market value or has no value. Which sadly makes an opinion like mine all but incomprehensible to our political classes (and to vast swathes of the general public as well). It's hard to win an argument when everyone's on a totally different wavelength to you. :sighsm:

[Pensioner]

...if anything they are a retrospective tax, a small percentage of the huge financial leap that all graduates from all backgrounds will make...

Will make? I never have.

...that section of society should pay more for the finanical advantage they will gain through their lives becuase of their extra education.

That all very fine I you are someone who takes the view that the point of higher education is for individuals to gain a "financial advantage". However some of us still cling to the admittedly (and regrettably) old-fashioned view that education at all levels should not be the means to an end, but an end in itself (for both the individual and society).

In my opinion once you reduce a discussion on education to a narrow purely financial 'cost benefit' analysis, you are straight away missing the point.


Unfortunately in our post-Thatcher era anything that cannot me made to 'pay it's way' is assumed to be of no value to society and not worth subsidising, as if the free market is not only the ultimate arbiter of a things value (which would be bad enough), but the only one.

In our modern political discourse something either has a market value or has no value. Which sadly makes an opinion like mine all but incomprehensible to our political classes (and to vast swathes of the general public as well). It's hard to win an argument when everyone's on a totally different wavelength to you. :sighsm:

[devogue]

That all very fine IIn our modern political discourse something either has a market value or has no value. Which sadly makes an opinion like mine all but incomprehensible to our political classes (and to vast swathes of the general public as well). It's hard to win an argument when everyone's on a totally different wavelength to you. :sighsm:

That's not true. As I have said repeatedly, in my opinion primary and secondary education should be an absolute right, and every child should be given an equal opportunity to reach his or her potential. Some children have more potential than others because they are naturally brighter than others - those children are lucky (yes, lucky) enough to be in a position where they can make a choice about going to university or not. A solid, rigourous, primary and secondary education should be completely protected from market forces.

Like most people I also believe in a completely government funded National Health Service completely protected from market forces. I also happen to think that private health care should be prohibited - it's disgusting that certain humans can get better treatment, pain relief etc. purely because they have more assets. If I was a dictator for a day I would divert every single premium paid in to private healthcare in to the NHS for the betterment of everyone - it annoys the shit out of me that the NHS is still reliant and charity and the good works of fantastic people - the whole bloody thing should be paid for by government.

There are countless other areas where I think that public facilities and social assets should be protected from market forces. Third level student fees just isn't one of them.

[M]

By the time my kids get to the point where they've to chose whether or not higher education is for them, this will be long forgotten. They will be the generation of UK kids who have to do what US students do - work to fund themselves through college. What irks me is that of course it makes not a shite of difference to anyone with kids in private education; they are used to paying for their kids' education and another 3/4 years won't matter a jot to them. Equally, the few who escape the benefit trap to go to college won't have to pay for it themselves.

The whole agrument about repayment of fees compared to home ownership costs is moot too; this same 'band' of children are unlikely to be able to afford their own homes, the exception being only children inheriting dead parents' properties.

Thing is, my brother (only a couple of years older than I am) had his fees paid in full, a full grant, housing benefit and dole in the holidays. How was that ever right? And how the fuck do we screw up so massively in just one generation?

[mistermack]

The politicians are constantly making untrue claims about how much better-off graduates will be.
On top of the debt of about £50,000 that most of them will run up, you have to add another £50,000 that they forgo in wages, which is a mimimum figure, if you count all the hours of study they do.
So they have to make up £100,000 extra, ( plus inflation and after tax ).
Then there is three years house-price inflation on top, because they'll be that far behind the ones who got a job straight from school. ( not so bad at the moment, but a serious consideration under normal circumstances ).

And the cost to the government is exaggerated, because a lot of school leavers will be claiming benefits, if they don't go to University, but can't find a job.
You can expect an attack on benefits for school leavers to come from this government, in the wake of this. A years housing benefit could easily cost as much as a years fees.
.

[Trolldor]

...and can you prove any of these claims?

[Trolldor]

MCJ:

Because it only takes one person to screw up.

But:
Paying for further education at University is no trouble to me, and I only repay the debt when I have a full time job which earns over a certain amount.
And there are no upfront fees for subjects, just text book costs, which can now be used as tax deductibles for anyone on a student benefits scheme.
I'm not on one, so I bear the full brunt of the several hundred dollars a year in once-only-books. A right cockup really...

That said, the debt simply isn't an inhibitor to my life. It plays no part until I'm earning enough to pay it back.

[beige]

Paying for further education at University is no trouble to me, and I only repay the debt when I have a full time job which earns over a certain amount.
And there are no upfront fees for subjects, just text book costs, which can now be used as tax deductibles for anyone on a student benefits scheme.
I'm not on one, so I bear the full brunt of the several hundred dollars a year in once-only-books. A right cockup really...

That said, the debt simply isn't an inhibitor to my life. It plays no part until I'm earning enough to pay it back.

Really?

Do the loans over there actually cover the full living/accommodation costs while at uni?

I get the maximum amount of support and am in some pretty cheap accommodation and the loan + grant still barely covers it.

[Ronja]

...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.

So, the students will likely have to pay more for a crappier education which benefits both them, the industry and the country less? This does not sound sane.

"Clients" usually get to choose based on some kind of "product comparison", i.e. value/money. Education isn't like that - it is nowhere near a free market, where the client/customer has enough information to make a good choice.

Who or what will guarantee that the student gets her/his money's worth?