Student Fees

[beige]

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?

I don't know, there may well be safeguards on the variety of disciplines available to people, but somehow I doubt it.

It's likely that the reduction in "useful" education will go largely unnoticed by any regulatory bodies. It's not really something that's particularly easy to measure objectively.

[Trolldor]

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.

The loan is for subjects.

Further benefits only apply depending on your economic status or that of your parents if you are under 21.

[Coito ergo sum]

...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).

I think devogue's point is the reverse - the numbers show that those with the extra education do - in fact - gain a financial advantage. It's not that it's the the only point to the education - it just so happens that the numbers show that those getting college educations earn far more than those who don't. That being the case, those folks ought to pay more.

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.

Except that anytime you're talking about spending money on something, it's important to determine if what you're spending the money on is worth the money. Many things nave a non-monetary value. Art, for example, and beauty and poetry and all that sort of thing has immense human value. That doesn't mean that any amount of spent on it is justified.

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.

I'm not sure it was much different pre-Thatcher. When would you say was the high point, where society subsidized the higher goals in life, and truly valued things that could not be made to pay its way?

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:

I don't think that's the case at all. If things don't have a market value, then they don't have a market value. Plenty of things have value, though, that don't have market values. The problem with these kinds of things, though, is that there are as many opinions on what things are of this non-market value and how valuable they are as there are people. Some folks, like myself, think there is great value in a classical liberal arts education, where one is schooled in basic philosophy, science, history, literature, mathematics and the like. Some others think that sort of thing is worthless. Some others place a higher value on art and abstract learning. Still others place a value on other things.

Education is an end in itself, that is true. But, that doesn't mean that college should simply be free. Plenty of education can be had for free at a local library - the education for education's sake is in everyone's grasp already. With the correct reading list, I can guarantee you I could make a reasonably intelligent high school graduate smarter than the AVERAGE college graduate pumped out by today's universities.

[Trolldor]

Universities are being treated as businesses, and students are now clients, thanks to the introduction of fees.
And yes, we are officially referred to as clients.

The fees aren't a problem, but the prevailing attitudes are.

[Coito ergo sum]

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.

That's a good thing. It teaches industriousness and how to overcome adversity. Most students take light enough course loads to warrant having a job while in school.

You blokes already pay what 3,000 pounds - which is what? $5,000 - $5400 a year? Don't kids have to work for that? Plus, what about books and whatnot? Food?

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.

That's more of a function of the economy taking a tumble, and going right down the shitter. Even if the tuition rates didn't go up, they'd probably not afford their own homes.

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?

Wasn't right. How did this happen in one generation? The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

It's a fact that some folks just won't or can't accept: the economic system is real, and there isn't enough money. You can't just wave a wand and make it all better, and say, here, have this free education. Schools must be built and maintained, teachers must be educated and hired and paid, supplies must be purchased, materials must be purchased. This shit costs money, and there isn't enough money to pay for it. Just printing money isn't the answer, since that will cause massive inflation (if you print as much money as we would need to make up the shortfall) and the problem would be exacerbated and everyone's life savings would be ruined (but, don't worry - governments are starting the "print money" phase of things as we speak...so...all you with retirement plan savings, watch closely as 25 years of interest gets wiped away in five years of inflation...soon to come...)

[mistermack]

I think devogue's point is the reverse - the numbers show that those with the extra education do - in fact - gain a financial advantage. It's not that it's the the only point to the education - it just so happens that the numbers show that those getting college educations earn far more than those who don't. That being the case, those folks ought to pay more.

After all that debating about syllogisms, you should see a potential fallacy in that argument.
The fact that graduates earn more does not automatically mean that the extra earnings are the result of the extra education.
Those people would probably have been high earners without it, because of their extra ability.
And they would have had three years extra to climb the promotion ladder, if they hadn't gone to university.
So you can't directly compare graduate earnings with people who didn't make university. You're not comparing like with like.
.

[JimC]

Coito, what you are failing to grasp is that this is a change in the UK. Not the US.
It's a tripling of tuition fees IN THE UK. It's going to hamper social mobility in the uk. It would have no effect on social mobility in the US, but that's not the point.
It will in the UK because it will have little effect on the rich, but will deter the poor from going to University.
That''s the effect, and that's the intention.
.

I'm fully aware of that. It's still a loan-pay-back program.

I didn't say it would have any effect on social mobility in the US.

Why would it deter the poor from going to university? They can go, and they can pay the tuition back. Millions of people all over the world have done that. What the fuck? They won't go be engineers because they have a long term expectation of having to pay back the money? That's ridiculous.

I agree in one sense, because the existence of deferred fees does not change their current circumstances. However, it is still true that the children of the wealthy will have a much easier path to gaining their degrees. It is the money they need to support themselves that is the issue, not the deferred fees. Rich parents can support their children through Uni, so they don't have to work part time jobs, and struggle to find the time to study. I know, CES, that this is what you did yourself, but in the current UK circumstances, part time jobs themselves may be very hard to find... In addition, the wealthy can pay their fees up-front, thus saving any pay back whatsoever...

Pointing out this does not mean that I have an answer, by the way. In the current financial circumstances of the UK, perhaps it was inevitable that the government needed to reduce their expenditure in this area. If not, are we suggesting even more cuts to health and education? Even deeper reductions in vital services like Rum's?

At the same time, it is vital that a careful look be taken at all the factors which may reduce the chances of the children of the poor getting a Tertiary education; otherwise, there will be some truth in the charge that the political direction in the UK at the moment is one that helps to entrench the rich in their positions...

[Coito ergo sum]

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.

Unfortunately, I think the key problem is that maintaining the current level of education costs more money than exists to pay for it, especially given other priorities within the government.

Analogy: a family comes upon hard times via a pay reduction of the main breadwinner. They lose 25% of the monthly income. In order to make up the shortfall, part of the family's plan is to eat less expensive foods - cheap pastas and red sauce out of a can, store brand hot dogs, cheap white bread instead of nice multigrain - those kinds of choices are made. Because of the bad economy and inflation, prices are going up at the food store, so the family "will likely have to pay more for crappier food which benefits them less. This does not sound sane. Yet, it is a reality. The money can't be invented or manufactured out of thin air. The solutions that would allow more money to be generated are too long term to help the situation now....so the family and its food, and the schools and their education...have to make due, bite the bullet, overcome, improvise and adapt.

"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.

I'm not sure what the system is like in that regard in Britain, but in the US students can, and do, comparison shop schools. There are about 4100 colleges and universities in the United States. That's 1 college/university for every 10,250 people between the ages of 15 and 24. That ratio results in a huge competition among colleges/universities to attract students, and also results in the reality that if you want to go to college, you can. People heavily research the colleges they look at - they visit them personally in the year before college - they research what subjects the school is reputed to be best in - they look at how graduates are viewed, etc. The choice is quite often a very intensively studied one.

It seems to me that a free market in education has been shown to work smashingly. The United States has had some of the best universities in the world for as long as records have been kept. Three of the top five universities in the world, Harvard, Yale and MIT are in the US - http://www.topuniversities.com/universi ... kings/home This year's top 20 schools in the world contain 13 schools which are in the United States. So, if the US "free market" system sucks so bad at providing education, one might wonder why such a disproportionate number of great schools are in the US. The UK, of course, is no slouch with 2 in the top 5 (Cambridge and University College London) - so, one things for sure, we know that the smartest folks are the Brits and the Americans, no matter how you slice it....

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

Only the student could ever guarantee that. College is what a student makes of it. If he wants a party, he'll get a party. If he wants to learn, he'll learn.

[Coito ergo sum]

Coito, what you are failing to grasp is that this is a change in the UK. Not the US.
It's a tripling of tuition fees IN THE UK. It's going to hamper social mobility in the uk. It would have no effect on social mobility in the US, but that's not the point.
It will in the UK because it will have little effect on the rich, but will deter the poor from going to University.
That''s the effect, and that's the intention.
.

I'm fully aware of that. It's still a loan-pay-back program.

I didn't say it would have any effect on social mobility in the US.

Why would it deter the poor from going to university? They can go, and they can pay the tuition back. Millions of people all over the world have done that. What the fuck? They won't go be engineers because they have a long term expectation of having to pay back the money? That's ridiculous.

I agree in one sense, because the existence of deferred fees does not change their current circumstances. However, it is still true that the children of the wealthy will have a much easier path to gaining their degrees. It is the money they need to support themselves that is the issue, not the deferred fees. Rich parents can support their children through Uni, so they don't have to work part time jobs, and struggle to find the time to study. I know, CES, that this is what you did yourself, but in the current UK circumstances, part time jobs themselves may be very hard to find... In addition, the wealthy can pay their fees up-front, thus saving any pay back whatsoever...

Well, taking the tuition off the backs of the students up front should be enough. The money needed to support themselves will be needed even if they don't go to school. They still need food, clothing and shelter. Work full time and go part time at night. I don't know what to tell you, but for fuck's sake, there's only so much "leading a horse to water" that ought to be done here.

[Trolldor]

Will the introduction of fees diminish the quality of education provided? If the only way the University can operate is to cut back on unpopular courses, then yes.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think devogue's point is the reverse - the numbers show that those with the extra education do - in fact - gain a financial advantage. It's not that it's the the only point to the education - it just so happens that the numbers show that those getting college educations earn far more than those who don't. That being the case, those folks ought to pay more.

After all that debating about syllogisms, you should see a potential fallacy in that argument.

There is no "fallacy."

The fact that graduates earn more does not automatically mean that the extra earnings are the result of the extra education.

the fact that you take issue with the correlation between education level and income, and that you suggest that the income is not the result of the higher education does not make my argument "fallacious." It could make my argument wrong, but that's not the same as saying it's a fallacy. However, you'd have to provide some evidence for your assertion. The studies I've seen correlate education to income and infer causation. People who are degreed get hired into higher paying fields, because fields that pay more tend to require degrees. This makes perfect sense and accounts for the correlation.

Those people would probably have been high earners without it, because of their extra ability.

There is no indication that people who go to college have "extra ability."

And they would have had three years extra to climb the promotion ladder, if they hadn't gone to university.
So you can't directly compare graduate earnings with people who didn't make university. You're not comparing like with like.
.

Those proposing that it's important to get the poor into college are doing so in part because they say the poor are denied economic advancement because it's harder for them to get into college. If there is education in college doesn't cause higher income levels, statistically speaking, then why would anyone care if the poor are left out? They could get the literature, art, and other "knowledge" from their local public library, and if going to college does nothing for them financially, then why are so many folks waxing tragic about the poor being denied access? I think you know as well as I do why they are waxing tragic about that - it's because the poor's financial position is improved overall by getting them college educated because statistically speaking college graduates make more money.

[beige]

Unfortunately, I think the key problem is that maintaining the current level of education costs more money than exists to pay for it, especially given other priorities within the government.

Analogy: a family comes upon hard times via a pay reduction of the main breadwinner. They lose 25% of the monthly income. In order to make up the shortfall, part of the family's plan is to eat less expensive foods - cheap pastas and red sauce out of a can, store brand hot dogs, cheap white bread instead of nice multigrain - those kinds of choices are made. Because of the bad economy and inflation, prices are going up at the food store, so the family "will likely have to pay more for crappier food which benefits them less. This does not sound sane. Yet, it is a reality. The money can't be invented or manufactured out of thin air. The solutions that would allow more money to be generated are too long term to help the situation now....so the family and its food, and the schools and their education...have to make due, bite the bullet, overcome, improvise and adapt.

And to complement your analogy, now imagine that cheaper food poisoning the working adults in the family, they can no longer work and that 25% income loss becomes 100% because they can't work at all.

The solution to education (allegedly) costing more than it's worth isn't creating an uncompetitive workforce. That is insane. Sure, things need to be made viable, but doing so in such a short-sighted manner isn't particularly a good idea.

[mistermack]

There is no indication that people who go to college have "extra ability."

Now you've absolutely stunned me.
All I can say is, they do in the UK. Maybe all you need in the US is the money. In the UK, it's all about "A" level results.

[Trolldor]

Acadmic Achievement only applies if you're coming straight from school.

[Sælir]

I really didn´t expect to ever say this but... I mostly agree with Coito!

What the hell are you all whining about? Yes, I understand Clegg broke a promise and that really sucks but there´s really nothing you can do about it now, is there? Rioting and damaging property is not going to change this, is it? No, it will just cost a lot to fix so people have to pay for that as well!

Yes, it would be very nice if you didn´t have to pay for your university. I wouldn´t mind that
But it´s completely understandable that people have to and by providing loans the government is giving everyone an opportunity to do so. If you are poor you can take a loan and get the education you want. I really don´t see why people aren´t happy with that

AND you don´t even have to start paying until you earn more than a certain amount of money???? That sounds really nice

I really don´t understand why you expect to get everything for free. This seems agreeable to me