Want your children to be able to go to uni?

huddspur, out of general tax as it was for "Dave" Gideon and the liar Clegg and a large number of the Tory MP scum.

Did the Browne review not find that a graduate tax would not start bringing in enough revenue to fund universities until the 2041. How would we fund universitys in the meantime?

Yes, I only have one, I couldn't have more.

i too would have preferred it to be more staggered. my oldest is planning to start in sept and whilst he escapes the fee increase he's competing with all those students trying to get in before the fees rise and all those who didn't manage to get in last year.

you sound as if you only have 1 child to put through uni. we have 3 and that is way beyond our means

i could stomach all this if the fees were increasing to say 4k

I would much rather know what it is we have to pay than have an open ended commitment to HMRC. I don't like the fact that the fees have risen, but it was inevitable once their introduction was generally accepted. It was always after that point a question of when, not if, and how much they would rise by.

I would rather they had staggered the rise, so those going in 2012 had more time to plan. I think we will see more people living at home and studying, which may not be a good thing, but if it is the degree that is important, rather than the uni experience, then perhaps more will be willing to do that.

scary - under a graduate tax i would pay a higher tax rate than my husband who earns loads more than me but got his degree in Wales; and more tax than some of my work colleagues who do similar jobs but don't all have degrees. I don't think this is fair and would put me off studying for a degree. not that i agree with a loan for 30k either.

Graduate tax:

(a) because it affects all graduates equally - those with rich parents can't buy them out of it, (but they may choose to help them in other ways, which you would still find objectionable)
(b) because it means those who can afford to pay most pay most, (so how are you going to ascertain how much 'x' degree is worth in tax as opposed to 'y' degree, or are all degrees and institutions equal? Will you pay more for a First than a pass?)
(c) beause thereare no upfront costs to put people off, (just unending higher rates of tax, which is equally off putting, and the question will be raised that those of us who went through in the 80s/90s or earlier should also pay more in tax as we benefitted too?)
(d) because it means those who are going into low-earning but socially vital careers like teaching are not put off, (see above)and
(e) because there is no fixed amount of 'debt' that graduates face, which I think is the real problem with the currently proposed system; instead graduates will just face a slightly higher rate of tax. (No fixed amount of 'debt', just an open ended commitment to paying HMG whatever they like for as long as they like, at whatever rate band they like via your tax code, which you are powerless to prevent unless you give up work. They could decide to tax grads at 60%; they could decide to lower the point at which you start repaying if it wasn't coming in fast enough. A 'slightly higher rate of tax' could be as much as 20% if the coffers were low. How will HMG track the grads anyway? Will unis be able to have their NINOs for instance to hand over to HMRC so they can instruct the employer on the PAYE code om employment after graduation? Will the grad be honest and say I need to pay more tax, I have a degree?)

mrsguy - and if they decide they don't want to incurr a mortgage they rent instead - ie there is an alternative.

a better comparison would be to say that if people want hospital treatment they should take out a loan to cover the cost of it. Or that if they don't have a job they don't get financial help, they have to have a loan and pay it back when they do find a job.

if there was an alternative way of getting a degree (in the way there is for education at a lower level - ie private or gov provided) then the tuition fees might be acceptable

I will try to attend as by the time I send my children it will be £60.000 for the two of them. I don't think we will be able to afford that.
I will not be taking my children as I feel it may be too dangerous and there is always the prospect of violence breaking out.
Hope to see other mums there.

Yawn, now we are comparing an education to buying a house, what next buying a car?

BoffinMum - what do you make of the NUS graduate tax proposal? Do you think the LibDems should be supporting this, instead?

granted - no major political party is proposing funding student tuition by raising income tax? Don't you wonder why?

Free houses are not available for all who want them, so most people have to take out a mortgage, which is amuch bigger outlay than a university education. So people think carefully before taking on the mortgate debt, and decide on balanace it if is worth it (and the interest). Why should people not be prepared to do the same calucuation regarding a university degree - a much smaller debt.

If I had had to pay my own way, I would have done law, not education. And my colleagues well know it. I still haven't ruled this out.

I tell you who annoys me, and that's Malcolm Grant, Provost of UCL. Sat in many meetings in the past keeping quiet about how pro-fees he is, but when asked outright in a senior level meeting at Cambridge in 2002/3, admitted he had benefited handsomely from a free selective education himself. Watch him get his peerage on the back end of all this money grubbing. He currently earns £376,190 by the way (gets free central London accommodation, too).

boffin - co-incidently, i was just thinking would i become a teacher and incur these huge debts on a not massive salary and wondering if that would affect the quality of teachers in future. guess the same could be said of other lower paid professions such as nurses.

why would you take on 30k of debt if you were only going to earn 30k per year? i think i'd do something potentially better paid that you didn't need a degree for

A point nobody has made yet is that we seem to be running out of academics as the older generations retire, and the way things are going, there is a real question about who is going to be staffing universities in the future if people are going to have to acquire huge debts in order to train for a decade to do this job.

This concern dates back to a demographic panic in the 1990s as it was realised the 30 and 40 something group were almost entirely missing from the university teaching ranks, meaning than we would quite literally run out of people to staff certain courses within a generation. This was remedied by rapidly offering studentships for UK people to study for higher degrees.

However one strange thing we have noticed is that we are having trouble giving these studentships away to potential future academics now, as they invoke undergraduate debt and poor future salary prospects.

It's a major problem looming and the Government seems to be ignoring it completely.

Well said Dreamingofsun, also Bluenordic, don't you think that society as a whole benefits from educating and training professionals.

bluenordic

there's no such thing as free medical treatment and I'd prefer the beneficiaries to pay for it rather than me. And the dole too.

There's no such thing as free education, somebody has to pay and I'd prefer the beneficiaries of the education to do that rather than me.

I take your point about intensive courses. However, it's worth pointing out that a university's place on the league tables and, to a large extent, an academic's pay, is determined by their research output, not their teaching. If you teach intesitive courses thisleaves the academics no time to do their research (and boy will the moan about that) and the university will slip in the ratings making it less attractive to students.

Most (though not all) of the academics I work with consider teaching an imposition.

A graduation tax can be ringfenced with ease, if they want it to be.

I would love to see a return to free higher education, but that won't ever happen. Something will have to change, so we are told, I don't want this to go through. It's not only the free market aspect, bad enough though that idea is, it's the sneaky way they are withdrawing help that is there in the current system. Most people don't realise as it doesn't apply to a normal income bracket family. It captured all students on FSM and from disadvantaged households. The proposed replacement cuts that to the bone.

Scrapping EMA won't help students from FSM families in any way. Also the timings, bringing this in 2012, scholarships 2014.

ampere

Think you've summed it up well, especially your assessment that employers are asking for degrees when previously they did not.

However, there are some good apprenticeships getting going out there. EDF energy will pay £9000 a year for two years plus your living expenses, rising to £17000 at the end of four years. You would know where you are with that.

However, with a degree, you have to take out these loans with no feel for whether you are employable by the end.

Universities could do there bit too - why are some degrees so long. It would help students if they got rid of the holidays and taught intensively for two years.

And, is it worth it? I discovered how much doctors two years away from being consultants earn - about £36k. This is after a six year degree and 8 years or working.

granted -

I see you were referring to the NUS money fund .

Worth noting that one of The Browne report's issues with the graduation tax is, the problem in making sure the money ends up going to the Universities.

Whilst the tuition fees method guarantees that the Uni's get the money.

I did a 'vocational degree' at what was to become a 'new university'. It was great for me - they used to be called 'sandwich courses' . Most of us used our work placements as a springboard for our careers .

Btw - there were apparently 11095 students who had been in receipt of free school meals who started university this year. It's the government's objective is to raise that to 18,000.

Agreed, christmaseve.

Ideally, I'd like to keep (well, return to, actually) free funding available to all. If that is too expensive, then ideally I'd prefer rationing based on merit.

ie free funding for the brightest, whatever their parent's income level, and extra places available, but on a paid-for basis, as discussions above.

I would prefer the system to stay the same, with adequate funding from central government and the requirement of bursaries from the universities. If cost need to be cut then to look at trimming courses and increasing part-time study for those courses that don't need 3 years full time at university.