AIBU to think that it would have been fairer to introduce a graduate tax than increase tuition fees

Ok. So maybe we could stop offering History, Literature and Philosophy at degree level and offer them at A level only.

Are these MM degrees, @Tryingtryingandtrying ?

So very few people from UK pay the tuition fees up front. It makes no economic sense.
Overseas students,motoh, generally do pay fees up front

As someone who did literature and have many friends who did the other two, none of us have had any use out of our degrees in our careers.

Part of my role involves writing, but my A levels taught me more than enough for that aspect.

There was quite a lot of direct cross-over between A level and degree, and it was far better taught by my state sixth form college than it was by the Russell Group university I attended.

And 'mickey mouse degrees' comprise?
And what evidence do have have to support your assertion that someone with a 'mickey mouse' degree won't get a job? Is this evidence comparable to that showing the per centage of graduates in astro-physics, classics or 'higher maths with Japanese' with jobs?
Two arrogant , snobbish and dismissive statements one one sentence.

Do you mean that History, Literature and Philosophy aren't useful for careers and they are just for the students' own enjoyment?

Assuming you can encourage people to study engineering or medicine or computer science or anything else at any kind of logical scale,* they'll still emigrate to the US, Canada and Australia after graduating because the pay is so much higher, the opportunities and research so much better, and the working environments so much less stressful.

*someone interested in fashion isn't suddenly going to decide to do engineering if there are no fashion courses available, and fashion lecturers aren't suddenly going to become engineering lecturers.

Ok, fair enough. So which degree subjects are considered mickey mouse subjects? These subjects are mentioned often. I'm just interested to know what they are.

Whilst neither degree is pointless, the numbers taking these degrees is too high and most will end up not being a Psychologist or a fashion designer but will instead end up in an unrelated career (if they are lucky) or a dead end job with thousands of pounds of debt.

I think the bar for entry to university should be set higher, the sector should be smaller and the gap left to service people who want education for enrichment (e.g. to study History, Literature, Philosophy etc.) rather than careers should be served by a well regulated college sector. And they should pay a lot less for these degrees because they are not worth £28.5k.

Ok, so Psychology and Fashion are pointless degrees.
So I guess the first thing to do would be to shut down the London College of Fashion and no longer offer Psychology as a subject. What other subjects are considered pointless Mickey Mouse degrees?

So many people on here in complete ignorance of how the loan system works currently. The current system means that the people who pay least for their degree in total are those whose parents pay it upfront; those who pay next least are the highest earners - so a lawyer or management consultant will pay less in total for their degree than a nurse, civil servant, doctor, midwife etc.

My suggestion is simpler: apply the system for Medicine degrees to everything. There's a cap on total numbers based on job demand, an application system; if you apply and don't make it, you don't do the degree.
Or a slight variation, if you apply but don't make the cut, you can pay the full amount it costs to run the degree, plus 30% or so on top. Combine this with plenty of degree apprenticeships sponsored by employers who get the benefit of workers right away.

It doesn't work like this though does it? I learned this the hard way after getting straight As at A-Level. I work in law but I eventually gave up trying to get a solicitor's training contract because unless you have a Russell Group degree and can afford to do vacation schemes and other work experience for free firms just aren't interested. Now I'm stuck in a situation where I could never afford to self fund the SQE on my wages and my firm have no interest in paying it because I'd cost them more. Sure, there's the odd incredibly low paid apprenticeship out there but not enough to make a difference.

Unless you go to a Russell Group university or at least one that can mingle in the league table like Bath or St. Andrew's a degree is just a waste of money these days. It'll get you nowhere and I speak from experience as someone who tried to "save money."

Sounds like u don’t actually understand the way the payments for loan are calculated or u wouldn’t have done the post.

Parents often forget that they’re supposed to be supporting a child through uni as much as possible if they start fulltime at 18, not encourage them to take student debt they spend their lives repaying. If it’s not affordable at 18 then the advice should be for them to work and do it a bit later or work and do p/t / online study to cut costs. There are so many options now.

Gets on my tits too when people call the existing system a graduate tax. It's not, because a graduate tax wouldn't be something you opted out of if your parents had enough money or you were old enough to have gone before a certain time.

0.3% additional tax on income over the personal allowance for each year of university education, and students receive a low level of grant whilst at university.

This removes barriers to university education (undergraduate and postgraduate).

Obviously current and previous students who have paid tuition fees don't have to pay the graduate tax relating to those years of education.

Are people on student finance Wales not restricted at all from moving out costs as they all get the full loan (be it grant Vs loan)

The only way I see it working is if there is still an element of fees, otherwise students skipping from one course to another wouldn’t contribute a fair amount. Purely a graduate tax would only encourage that sort of behaviour.

Why a graduate tax and not just general tax? Why is it that people who don't have degrees think they shouldn't have to contribute to the costs of the education of those who do? The reason I ask is because last time I checked people without degrees still have children educated by teachers, go to the doctors or might be treated by a nurse, can rely on a solicitor or barrister representing them if they are accused of a crime, have the same access to buy technology at the same price as graduates etc etc. So why shouldn't they pay their share towards living in a society like that just because they chose a different path in life?

Also, given graduates pay significantly more tax than non-graduates on average, I question why they should have to pay again with a graduate tax or tuition fees anyway?

And most of these loans will eventually be written off at the taxpayer's expense.

9% charge on anything above £25k. With a lot of interest accruing. And now you want to increase that? To what? 12%? Would you like it if you had a 12% increase on your income tax?
If the current tuition amount is not sustainable then an increase has to happen either at the 'point of sale' or, as you suggest, they pay retrospectively over much longer time period. The government still has to pay the universities up front for it though. So how does increasing the repayment amount help that? Give people the option of paying it up front or off earlier if they can. Sure some will be able to do this more readily than others. That's how life is though. Adding extra burden to all graduates without giving them the option to get out of that debt is just wrong.

And lowering the outrageous pay of the top teams in universities.

I'm surprised they need such a large estate, given the amount of online work carried out these days, including on the most unlikely courses .

I’m not sure how I feel about it really.

I agree it’s not fair that the wealthier students and graduates effectively pay less than those that can’t afford to repay the loan quickly.

But then plenty of graduates will never repay their loan. And their degree still cost the same amount of money as someone who went on to be hugely successful. I’m not sure why it’s fair they pay less than someone that paid it off in full quickly?

That is how loans work. If you can afford to pay upfront or pay it off quickly then it will be cheaper than paying it over the full term. House, car, business, credit card. Loans are everywhere. Only most loans don’t allow those with low incomes to just not pay!

A graduate tax would be another costly program to administer, and those high earners already pay a lot more in income tax and lots of other tax.

The system probably does need looking at - I’m just not sure what exactly the solution is. Reducing university places, reducing fees and funding universities more through the tax system maybe?

The issue is that wealthy families are able to pay the least for university education by paying the fees straight up and avoiding the repayments and interest for their children. Some people pay many many thousands more than others and not because they earn the most money

I think what the OP really wants is for U.K. students to have to take the loan and pay it for its full term.

If you mean a retrospective tax, the costs of administering it would be astronomical; unless you relied on self-declaration.

Universities having to supply lists of everyone who graduated in, say, the last 50 years. Then HMRC having to trace them all - without any up to date address details to go on, and when many will have changed their names.

Even if you overcome that hurdle, it's still not going to be 'fair' because someone who graduated in 2022 will end up having paid much more tax by the time they die/stop working/whenever it ceases than someone who graduated in 1982.