Tuition fees

[stoatsrevenge]

So we are to expect a massive increase in university tuition fees, as well as increasing interest ib student loans...

Here is the 6 year plan from the LibDem manifesto:

1
Scrap fees for final year full-time students

2
Begin regulating part-time fees

3
Part time fees become regulated and fee loans become available to part time students

4
Expand free tuition to all full-time students apart from first year undergraduates

5
Expand free tuition to all part-time students apart from first year undergraduates

6
Scrap tuition fees for all first degree students

How are they going to square this one?

[brimfull]

do you have alink?

[stoatsrevenge]

www.libdems.org.uk/education.aspx

[StuckInTheMiddleWithYou]

I don't actually understand that.

But anyway, university should be free but no course with an entry level of anything below CCC should be able to call itself BA/Bsc.

If you cannot get at least 3 C's at A-level, you shouldn't be going on to do an academic course.

[LilyBolero]

I'm more interested in how they will square the following statement (which they all INDIVIDUALLY signed, inc Clegg, Osborne etc)

I PLEDGE I WILL VOTE AGAINST ANY INCREASE IN STUDENT FEES.

Not abstain. Vote against.

[LilyBolero]

link here

[stoatsrevenge]

Yes Lily. No tuition fees was a LibDem final aim after 6 years, after a gradual withdrawal. In black and white.
(I don't think Osborne signed?!)

It will certainly come back to haunt them. Will anyone ever believe another thing they say?

[LilyBolero]

No, you're quite right, I wrote Osborne by mistake, I meant Cable!

[LilyBolero]

I could understand them not being able to follow that aim through, but if they vote for something that will double the fees, how will they ever be able to present policy proposals prior to elections again?

[Xenia]

Quite a few of the libs have said they will indeed vote against it because that is what they had promised. It will still get through.

[LilyBolero]

Presumably Labour will vote against it though? They must need a quorum of liberals to get it through?

[mrsdennisleary]

Predictions in Mail that Unionists will vote for it. They will my ar£e. I fear that you are right though Xenia. Will never get rid of my DCs now.

[stoatsrevenge]

But such a hike in fees will mean that education becomes even more inaccessible to the less well off. Already I'm working with young teachers who owe over £20K each just from loans.
How are these young people going to manage?

A bill of £21000 tuition, plus £12000 accommodation, plus loans for living expenses .... who will be going? And for what? My son's friend has just gone to uni and has 3 lectures a week - which is about £25 per lecture, with 5 days off a week. Next year, that could be >£50 per lecture!

What's going on?!

[LilyBolero]

stoats, you have to factor in the interest as well - the fees will be more like 40-50k once that is added on, as a market rate of interest will be applied.

[AbsofCroissant]

Hm. I agree that raising tuition fees would scare off bright but poor students.

These are my thoughts:

• I don't think a completely free tertiary education is a good idea. IME students who didn't want to get value for their money (because they were paying relatively low tuition fees, a lot weren't really bothered), in comparison to the international students who were paying stupid amounts of money
  
• as the Economist pointed out, the best value degrees in the UK at the moment are things like sciences, medicine etc. at the top tier universities, which are predominantly populated by students from relatively wealthy families - so effectively the poor are funding the wealthy's tertiary education.
  

However, to make tuition fees work (so that poor students are driven out) is:

• lots of means-tested bursaries that cover living costs and tuition fees and
  
• doing something similar to what universities (like Cape Town, Rhodes) in South Africa do - give discounts for good marks. For e.g. 10% off for every A (going into uni) and if you manage to maintain excellent grades, keeping the discount.
  

-

[Xenia]

£12k accommodation is not what accommodation costs . None of my student children spend anything like that on hall fees or rooms in rented flats,

[stoatsrevenge]

You're lucky then Xenia. My ds is in quite normal student flats @ £4.7 pa. Not in London.

[stoatsrevenge]

Yes, interesting idea that Absof. I was talking to a LIthuanian at work the other day and she said that she had no fees at uni because she got good grades, but her parents had to pay for her brother's university course. I suppose the danger there is that really lousy students could get in as long as their mummies and daddies could pay.

[Xenia]

I thought you meant per year. Sorry. Yes, £4k pa etc is not unusual unless they live at home.

[scaryteacher]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8057885/Lord-Browne-review-cost-of-university-tuition-will-hit-36000

Ouch!

[FakePlasticTrees]

Scaryteacher - I was just reading that wondering if there was a thread about it on here!

DS is 9 months old - I've just been thinking about how much it will cost when he gets to that age, how the hell he could pay back that size loan and save for a deposit for a house, and save for a pension and realised the whole "should I go back to work?" debate has been answered and it's now "how the hell can we save enough to mean he won't have that much debt hanging over his head?"

I think the answer is, we can't save enough so he doesn't have to borrow anything without massively compromising his lifestyle as a child, it'll be more trying to take the edge off it for him.

our 20's where hard enough financially as it was, and I'm the last year not to have to pay tuition fees and just had to find the money to put a roof over my head and buy food and wine.

[dreamingofsun]

think uni will be for the children of very rich or very poor parents and anyone in the middle will be stuffed.

[earthworm]

Quite a balanced view from the BBC here with a quote from our very own Justine Mumsnet.