MSE News: Tuition fees to hit £9,000 as Government wins vote

setmefree2

gauly wrote: »

I've seen two separate calculations on how much you will have to pay back - they weren't the same but they did agree that over half of students will not pay back the loan over the 30 years and this was based on fees of £6k and £7.5k.

OMG - imagine not being able to pay back £18k in 30 years. See my signature

setmefree2

gauly wrote: »

This is the fundamental flaw in trying to get universities to compete on price

I can't see how this makes the slightest dent on the deficit either. My son will start uni in 2012 and it will be years before he contributes a penny. The UK will be bankrupt by then

melancholly

setmefree2 wrote: »

OK so we've established they don't know anything.... so if they don't - know why so you keep saying they will charge £9k?

because i know the kind of drop in funding that was expected and planned for.... and it wasn't anywhere near the 80% drop in teaching budget that was announced! uni research funding is also taking a 40% hit and there are plenty of people in research posts taking on teaching responsibilities. that's a very quick change in policy and a massive change in how much money will be provided. if uk unis are going to able to compete internationally, they need money and a lot of it. charging higher fees is the only option on the table (unless there are big donations from alumni - and there can't be many graduates that haven't already had begging phone calls or letters in the last few months - i've had three from three different unis!)

harryhillys

I have been looking at a few posts on here where people are ranting on about their taxes and how students should pay their way.

Fair enough there is an argument to say that some of the costs should be passed onto the student, however a lot of people in this country are missing the bigger picture.

The fact of the matter is that Higher Education is promoted and funded much more than any other education or training because there is this misguided belief from all political parties that a high level of degrees per population is a good thing.....not necessarily.

Apprenticeships and other practical alternatives are not there in sufficient numbers for young people, why?.........well it is simple really, government cannot pass on the costs to fund alternatives as easily, as they are dealing with businesses, not students. For example, in order to encourage a major company to start taking on apprentices the government has to pay them and they know they won't get the money back like they can from students.

We now have the tradesmen and women we deserve......a lack of them and unexperienced university graduates going straight into jobs without the sufficient flair and understanding that experience brings.

We as a country need to forget about this blinkered drive towards degree education and start concentrating on what skills we need and alternative routes better suited to the economy. Don't blame university students who are rightly miffed about this fee rise, they are not given sufficient options to higher education.

By the way I am not a student but a 34 year old working for a local authority.

melancholly

setmefree2 wrote: »

I can't see how this makes the slightest dent on the deficit either. My son will start uni in 2012 and it will be years before he contributes a penny. The UK will be bankrupt by then

on that one, we can agree!

bristol_pilot

Foreign students are happy to pay a small fortune for a British University degree becasue back in their home country it is a passport to a good job and well-paid career. It is worth the investment, to the point of being a 'no brainer'.

As around half of British school leavers now go on to higher education it does not buy the same advantage. With tuition fees and living costs students in the next few years will be building up around £60k of debt by the time they complete their degrees. In Britian's high-tax economy and swamped graduate job market this is simply not going to be worth it for the majority. Sure, those few that go to Oxbridge and on to a lucrative carrer in investment banking or those that study law/medicine will be OK. But I'm afraid graduates are very often going into jobs that any non-graduate can do and will take decades to pay off their debt. A grown adult with life experience can weigh up the pros and cons of the situation and make a judgement on whether this investment is worthwhile, but at age 16-17 I think that's a bit much to expect.

We have a debt crisis and the govt had to make cuts in education somewhere but there was a much better option than raising tuition fees and this was to have cut the numbers of students doing degrees from 50% of school leavers back down to say 15%. There would have been an enormous row of course. The govt just didn't have the guts to do it.

setmefree2

melancholly wrote: »

unless there are big donations from alumni

There needs to be tax relief for this to happen.

The_One_Who

As far as I am aware all Scottish universities are registered charities. I have no idea about English, Welsh or NI universities though. In the UK we do not have a culture of the alumnus. The vast majority of people stop caring about their university once they hand the gown in at the end of the graduation ceremony.

harryhillys

bristol_pilot wrote: »

We have a debt crisis and the govt had to make cuts in education somewhere but there was a much better option than raising tuition fees and this was to have cut the numbers of students doing degrees from 50% of school leavers back down to say 15%. There would have been an enormous row of course. The govt just didn't have the guts to do it.

That would have been an option, however it would have cost money as the government would have to invest money in areas it knows it wouldn't get the money back...to employers. This whole fees thing is a very clever move by government as despite putting in the resource upfront it has a guaranteed repayment for years to come from students to balance this out. Make no mistake this is a long term tax on a large proportion of an upcoming generation.....a tax by stealth, and I personally believe this is to help offset the upcoming explosion of funding an ageing society.

Oldernotwiser

harryhillys wrote: »

Make no mistake this is a long term tax on a large proportion of an upcoming generation.....a tax by stealth, and I personally believe this is to help offset the upcoming explosion of funding an ageing society.

Which would have been why a proper graduate tax would have been a much better option.