I truly think Uni fees should be scrapped.....

[debbs77]

....for certain subjects.

Such as education, health and welfare degrees.

Surely the cost of University (I know of the loans etc) and family income tested funding is the reason so many people DON'T go to university any more?

Or, that fees get refunded if the graduate DOES go in to the field they qualified for.

I graduated in 2000.....no Uni fees, I got a student loan, and a grant (lived with my mum and step Dad and his income wasn't taken into account).

My son wants to go to Uni and due to low household income he would get the full loan amount I believe, but if that wasn't the case, then he couldn't afford to go and move away (he is planning to go to a local Uni anyway). And as a single parent with other children, I couldn't help him financially either way!

I work at a uni, we make a £3k loss on each home student. Something needs to happen but I suspect it'll be fewer places for home students and graduated fees.

This!! But it was ludicrous of Labour to have a target that 50% of people go to uni...

The Lib Dem's got a bit of power and instead of pushing their promise to scrap tuition fees helped to ensure they rose even higher! Also oversaw Gove destroy education...

It was sustainable when 10% of people attended University, the target changes by Blair have made that impossible. It also skewed people wanting to go in to trades.

There has been no substantial increase in graduate jobs, think generic no specific degree needed, nice well paid graduate schemes. One of my friends got on to one of these and is a massive high flier in London now. She was from a very regular background and went to an awful comp that had the police round every week arresting pupils. DH Father and one of my colleagues both went to Oxford in the late 1950’s both from council estates. But they were truly gifted individuals.

I worked in higher education for almost 30 years and worked for a couple of years before fees were introduced, it’s a lot more complex than just do not charge anyone. The entire model for HE was changed. In theory a graduate should earn 250k more over a lifetime.

I would agree that education and medical degrees could be free but with a caveat that you have to work within the state sector for x years otherwise you are paying it back.

My personal belief is that education should be free for all to study, learn and enjoy. Education makes for a more mobile, inclusive, cohesive, civilised society. I also think that education builds robustness into individuals and society as a whole. I wish there were more adult education / night school courses across a much wider curriculum than there currently is.
Having said that, I do think that there are too many silly degrees about and they should be culled.

Universities are scrapping courses, making lecturers redundant and in danger of actually going bankrupt left right and centre. This is all seriously affecting the quality of courses currently being taught. Hours per course are being slashed.

Fees need to be put up and urgently. I don’t know any other “business” where the govt gets to dictate charges and expect them to run at a loss for all home students. Especially with the added problem of the govt making it so unattractive for overseas students to come that applications have nosedived.

im on the fence about healthcare students. They’re actually one of the most expensive courses to provide so it could be said the students are getting a bargain. I agree that qualified medics, nurses, midwives, etc are desperately needed…..but there seems to be no shortage of applicants (apart from maybe nursing applications where numbers have dropped slightly). So the issue with staff shortages isn’t due to people not starting university and qualifying.

I guess there’s a different argument in that should we reward students who go into public sector careers (inc education) with generally lower salaries with lower fees? But the govt will have to make up the shortfall.

I don't think they should be scrapped.

If you get a decent degree that leads to a well paid job you'll have no problem paying it off. If you get a degree for the sake of getting a degree and you struggle to pay it off then it wasn't a very useful investment. Why should the tax payer pay for someone to get a degree in media studies and then never use it at any point in their working life?

I say this as a single parent whose children have decided to work/get apprenticeships because I can't afford to send them.

Degrees that lead to doctors, dentists, vets etc worth every penny. Degrees in surf studies, not so much. If the government hadn't 'dumbed down' the degree and insisted that everyone got one, maybe the 'useful' degrees could have been a bit more affordable.

Here

There's no such thing as "free" education unless it's being delivered entirely by volunteers. All education costs money, the question is, who pays? The individual? The tax payer? What's the limit of "free education" for an individual? Undergrad degree? Two degrees? PhD? Who decides what's "silly"? The UK has world leading arts, are drama and film and choreography degrees less worthy than nursing or engineering?

If the answer was simple it would have been done by now.

I do think it's all a bit ridiculous nowadays. I'm probably biased because I never went to university. I've worked in admin most of my life. Last year I was made redundant and when job searching a lot of admin jobs were asking for a bachelor's degree! You absolutely do not need a degree to do a £22k admin job and I think it's ridiculous to ask for one, it's pushing people to get degrees just for the sake of it.

I agree OP. And yes, it's perfectly possible to fund these places. Plenty of other countries seem to manage.

@GinForBreakfast would be very happy to see my taxes go on education and health care, both for the reasons I’ve already given. Better choices than some of the governments and local councils choices. They are needs that everyone in society benefits from both as a group and individually. We used to be able to do it and it’s been dismantled over the decades. The only barrier and rightly so was ability.
Faddy degrees which cost the individual tens of thousands benefits no one.

Fees should be scrapped and grants returned but make it harder to get in, so only the people who are likely to actually do well in their studies go to university.

I had the max student and maintenance loan + grants.

Now over the threshold for repayment. I get £13 taken out of my pay each month. And what did I get in exchange? A degree and a career.

Nobody is going destitute because of it. It's cancelled after what, 30 years?

Who would pay if we scrapped it? It's still coming from our pockets.

I agree, it's a disgrace that the poorest students end up owing the most.

I don't know if my dd will go to uni but the thought of how much debt she'll come out with makes me feel sick.

Funding of university places (or not) is a choice
Paying £113 million for Charles coronation is a choice
Paying £3.2 billion a year for nuclear weapons is a choice
Paying more to administratively means test / for prescriptions than give free at point of use is a choice
Paying £87,000 a year to incarcerate a woman who stole two jars of baby food from boots is a choice

We vote for governments who make choices with our taxes.

The English government chooses to charge people to be educated.

They do this while they spunk billions on bombs or millions putting a diamond hat on an old man.

Choices

No need for a magic money tree
Vote for someone who will make better choices or move somewhere they have already made better choices.

My degree was funded by the NHS (Speech Therapy) so I didn't pay any fees. They also offered means tested bursaries. I think they have stopped this now sadly.

What fee increase? Fees haven't increased in over a decade, despite high inflation.

Everyone here who says they will pay more taxes for better funded higher education, tell that to candidates at the next election. There isn't a single party with any answers to the current crisis. And it is a crisis. Maybe not as deep as the social care funding crisis but universities are making staff redundant, closing courses and generally faring pretty badly right now.

I don’t believe a tertiary education should be funded by the taxpayer. My eldest’s first grad job, post master’s, pays £35k. His loan repayments are minimal. Why should a school leaver in an unskilled job on minimum wage be funding his education through tax? He has the potential to be a high earner.

What I resent is that the poorest students accrue the highest debts. Scrap the maintenance loan for the low income families and revert to a grant.

What needs to be tackled educationally are poor literacy rates, which are still running at around 16% for adults. Poor literacy rates are linked directly with crime. As a society that is a far more important issue.

There is a ‘need ‘ for a magical money tree, because the tax payer can’t pay for everything. Moreover, there’s still hundreds of billions to be paid back because of Covid.

I completed my teaching post grad through a bursery…sadly I don’t think that’s an option anymore.!I now have 3 degrees…none of which I paid for.

Absolute codswallop.

See, I would do something like this in health care but like you say, they don't do that now

I do think it's idiotic to make people pay fees for degrees in medicine,

DD is studying medicine... she'll finish with big debts.
She will earn a stonking amount of money eventually.
A well-paid career was a top reason or her to choose medicine.

She can afford the debts. We can afford to subsidise her accommodation. It would be supremely socially immoral & outrageous if she got her degree for free.

if there are subsidies for medical degrees, they should be at least in part if not entirely means-tested.