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Top-up fees go through

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Re:

Postby immunodiffusion on Wed Jan 28, 2004 3:38 pm

[s]Pussycat wrote on 15:31, 28th Jan 2004:
If I was considering medicine for example, well that would be laughable. Far too much risk if I decided it wasn't for me, so instead we'l just have more graduates who felt forced to complete a degree that made them miserable just because of financial obligations.


But I think you miss the point - if you studied medicine, decided it wasn't for you, and went into a very low paid job, you would not have to pay so much, because the amount you pay is based on the amount you earn (similar to taxes or NI).

However, if you went into medicine, and liked it, you would earn a lot of money, and could afford therefore to pay for the course.

There is no real risk involved, as up-front fees would be abolished.
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Re:

Postby exnihilo on Wed Jan 28, 2004 3:39 pm

Yes, but the point remains that if you go to university under this system you will end up with a debt. The how and why of the repayment does not make it any less a debt. However, on the how and why of repayment the arguments are dangerously fatuous. I don't go to university, therefore I don't pay for it. Fine. I have private medical insurance, I'll have my NI contributions back please. I have a private pension too, so whatever tax is going towards that, I want back also. I have no children (and never will have), therefore I would prefer not to pay for schools. I don't drive or own a car, therefore I don't care to pay for the maintenance of motorways. I'm a pacifist, so could I not contribute to the armed forces, thanks. And so on and so forth to the level of the absurd. Simply: graduates are not some mysterious entity which is not part of society, they will in the main earn more than therefore pay more tax, their skills will be of benefit to the country as a whole. This is not a system of funding, this is a penalisation of learning. And all too much a part of th trend in this country to fear and hate the more able.
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Re:

Postby Pussycat on Wed Jan 28, 2004 4:27 pm

[s]immunodiffusion wrote on 15:38, 28th Jan 2004:
But I think you miss the point


No I think you do. If your salary drops below the threshold you stop paying, sounds good. But the money is hanging over your head for another 25 years - I belive they call it debt, perhaps you have heard of it. Now add to that your mortgage, maybe a car loan, your student loan and the day to day cost of living and you have a very ugly sum of moeny hanging over your head.

Debt can destroy people, literally, a fact that many students seem blissfully unaware of.

Asides from that you missed the point I was making, it turns education into a commercial farce. Why should people do degrees like English or Astrophysics for example which do not guarantee a high paid job when you can do something more likely to pay well? What about people who want to do research? They are, to put it bluntly, screwed. Instead they will base their choice of degree on money and nothing else and that is a very sorry state of affairs.
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Re:

Postby fluKe on Wed Jan 28, 2004 4:33 pm

The university is saying that the whole reason for this rent hike is to make sure residences "break even" and that "Artificially low rents mean that University of St Andrews residences currently make a loss of £550,000 per year on direct costs alone - a major and unsustainable deficit presently covered by monies taken from teaching and research."

However if you look at the proposed figures for next year, the figure which appears to be for the increase in revenue from rent in university accomodation is approx £2million. Almost 4 times the 550,000 shortfall. Either I am reading the figures wrong or the university has a funny meaning of the term "break even".
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Re:

Postby immunodiffusion on Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:15 pm

[s]Pussycat wrote on 16:27, 28th Jan 2004:
Debt can destroy people, literally, a fact that many students seem blissfully unaware of.


But its not a debt like a bank loan or mortgage - if you never earn enough to pay back the fees, you do not have to. If you get to 65 and have not paid it off, it is cancelled. You only pay fees if you earn enough to do so, and even then, you only pay a certain percentage of your income, meaning you still have enough to live on. It is effectively a graduate tax rather than a debt.

I therefore think that people are not going to choose their degrees based on how much they will earn. If people want to do a degree like English which maybe doesn't lead into high paid jobs, this doesn't matter, because if you are not in a high paid job, you do not have to pay the fees.

I do agree it would be better if the fees were not variable, so that everyone paid the same, no matter what course or university you are at. Otherwise people may choose "cheaper" degrees which attract smaller fees. I think that is a major flaw in the legislation.

However, I think the idea of a graduate tax for university funding rather than the current "up-front" fees that some people have to pay is a more fair system.
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Re:

Postby Mr Comedy on Wed Jan 28, 2004 6:55 pm

Now lets consider the two, opposing, viewpoints.

First of all, university intake is on the up, every year. This is in line with increases in A level, and GCSE passes. Whereas I do not disagree that examinations are hard, there does not appear to be a reasonable distinction at this level any longer, with so many pupils getting A's and A*'s respectively. I think, with an increase in university intake, there is a danger of the same thing happening to the degree, which is the last bastion of education, and is under siege.

Secondly, let us consider my (and to some degree, the Conservatives) viewpoint. If we make exams harder, to maintain a system where there is equal grading (i.e, aiming so that a roughly similar amount get the same grades each year), and abandon the 50% target, we can then produce an education system that produces a better grading of people. Note, this does not reduce access, but regulates access.
So then we can have an education based on distinguishing pupils ability.

Incidentally, with the drop of the 50% target, we can return to student grants, where education is free, and the only pressure on the student is the pressure to perform, not to fund.
And if we teach key work related skills from the age of 13 in school, that are actually useful for employment, we can produce school leavers that are equipped for the workplace.
I think, (Alex) this is closer to the original vision that Smith had, and reinstates the appropriate Smithonian vision that he had, of a society based on ability, not funding.
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Re:

Postby The Cellar Bar on Wed Jan 28, 2004 10:14 pm

The amount you pay back is based on the amount that you earn, so I don't understand where the figure of £30,000 before you're 25 comes from .....

The figure of 30 grand is a rough estimate of what student indebtedness is likely to be. Right now, it's sitting at around £20,000 per student and if you add on these "top up fees", then the figures will continue to rise. And will be even worse if you consider a 6 year course for medics. My point was that, overall, that's the sort of numbers that potential students will have to contemplate, while still at school. And it's likely to deter very many who won't want to even think about numbers like that.
And in terms of repayment, those may well be the conditions laid down just now. But it would take a brave (or foolish) person to believe that those conditions are set in stone for the next 45 years plus. We've seen enough reneging on pensions and NI contributions to know that for a fact.

Overall, the background to top up fees is more social and political than it is economic. It's driven by the petty minded vindictiveness of the middling classes of "Middle England" who have sat in their 19th Holes at their Golf Clubs for decades now, ranting at the injustice of the burden they have to bear. And that vindictiveness has customarily looked on ALL students as long hair hippies, drug users, who always moan about being poor but always seem to find enough to be out drinking every night etc etc etc. They fall into the same category as immigrants, teenage mothers, trade unions etc etc as being the source of all that has ceased to keep "Great Britain Great"

Their views found a home in Thatcherism and the ASI. Who promptly took a grip on all these things and gave us what we have now. But the rest of society has generally accepted the notion of cultivating talent. There have been maybe 20 general Elections since 1950. Not one has attracted a manifesto pledge to abandon education through general taxation. Even the TUC, representatives of these apparently put-upon plumbers, have supported the notion. Not once can I think of a resolution at a TUC Congress calling for anything like this. Even the (so-called) Labour Party we have now expressly stated that there would be no top up fees in their Manifesto. And only just scraped this Bill through Parliament despite an overall majority of 160.

The present "argument" from this Labour Party smacks of the "why should I pay for someone else's .........." But you can't put a figure on the value of a teacher or a doctor so implicitly as to set a price. Doctors save the lives daily of people who go on to pay taxes and make a contribution. No doctor, no life saved. Teachers send others out who go on to own and run large corporations. Without them, there would be no revenue generating companies. Society, INCLUDING PLUMBERS, overall have accepted that fact for more than 6 decades now. If they hadn't, we would have known about it by now.

More than anything else, this is a twitching vestige of the remains of the nastiness and selfishness of Thatcherism. It's not driven by ordinary working class people who feel put upon. Rather it's driven by those, in the background, who despise others in society enough, not to really want to be a part of it.
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Re:

Postby mysterio on Thu Jan 29, 2004 1:36 am

[s]immunodiffusion wrote on 17:15, 28th Jan 2004:
But its not a debt like a bank loan or mortgage - if you never earn enough to pay back the fees, you do not have to. If you get to 65 and have not paid it off, it is cancelled. You only pay fees [i]if
you earn enough to do so, and even then, you only pay a certain percentage of your income, meaning you still have enough to live on. It is effectively a graduate tax rather than a debt.

I therefore think that people are not going to choose their degrees based on how much they will earn. If people want to do a degree like English which maybe doesn't lead into high paid jobs, this doesn't matter, because if you are not in a high paid job, you do not have to pay the fees.

I do agree it would be better if the fees were not variable, so that everyone paid the same, no matter what course or university you are at. Otherwise people may choose "cheaper" degrees which attract smaller fees. I think that is a major flaw in the legislation.

However, I think the idea of a graduate tax for university funding rather than the current "up-front" fees that some people have to pay is a more fair system.
[/i]

One sentence: don't be such a twonk. You sound very foolish indeed, would it be fair to assume you have no financial problems and are going into a high paid job? I think so. But for those of us that live on planet earth this is a bad thing. You continue living in your bubble, I urge other people not to bother arguing as the vast majority of people know that top up fees are idiocy.
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education

Postby whitcraft on Thu Jan 29, 2004 1:42 am

education for those under the age of eighteen is a right. for those of us over the age of eighteen it is a privilage.
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Re:

Postby The Cellar Bar on Thu Jan 29, 2004 4:02 am

[s]Unregisted User whitcraft wrote on 21:17, 28th Jan 2004:
education for those under the age of eighteen is a right. for those of us over the age of eighteen it is a privilage.

Primary and Secondary education isn't a right - it's a legal expectation and responsibility of government, local councils and parents to ensure that all children up to the age of 16 receive an education paid from general taxation. And was passed by Victorian reformers at the end of the 19th century because it was realised that it was a necessity if this country was to compete in the age they lived in.
Tertiary education could just as easily be passed into law as being a legal responsibility of government to provide if the will was there to do it. And for precisely the same reasons - to ensure that we can compete and keep up with other countries around the world who are doing precisely that. It's no different in terms of what can be provided to enable it.

Never, ever trust anyone who inculcates into you the notion that anything you are receiving is a privilege. Those who do tell you that you ought to be grateful or feel privileged because you are able to obtain something are generally the ones who benefit from it even more than you do. It's not a privilege to reduce your own ignorance of the world and extend your knowledge of it- that in itself ought to be a right and an expectation that you have of the government we put in power.
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Re:

Postby maz on Thu Jan 29, 2004 11:08 am

remember tuition fees will if managed right mean, more money for the university therefore more resources for us hopefully for example more computers that work, better library, less students per tutor which should mean better teaching. and hopefully if our universities can afford to pay better salaries we'll see a reduction in the 'brain drain' that is happening because american universities can pay more and offer better working conditions to academics. here in france where education in the state universities is free, they are falling apart, literally. and the "grande ecoles" which are really expensive do give a better all round education. It will all be relative, its kinda like buying clothes, if u want it cheap and to fall apart after a couple of washes, and to not fit u well you go down the market, if you want something better you buy something from a reputable shop, or you pay and get it made for you. this should - if the government dont screw it up lead to a better education for everyone, as long as there are lots of bursaries put in place to let "poor" people attend the university they are capable of attending
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Re:

Postby harmless loony on Thu Jan 29, 2004 12:20 pm

However, the money raised by tuition fees will only generate 1 billion pounds and universities require 10-11 billion. So I wouldn't really go running away with the notion that the tuition fees will suddenly create vast improvements in the higher education system. The idea that the tuition fees will suddenly create smaller classes and provide better facilites is extremely far fetched and better suited to dream land
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