to feel sad that 3yo dd might never be able to achieve her potential due to tuition fees?

[bytheMoonlight]

I look at dd, who is due to start nursery in January and wonder what is going to happen if one day she decides she wants a career that means going to university.

I feel so upset that her chances are being blighted before she has even entered education. We could offer her little financial support and the thought of her leaving with all that debt is beyond comprehension and would not qualify for help.

I feel so sad about this.

Riven - I know you have it hard but sometimes you look for crap before it even happens ie'' how long before they decide not to lend to older people or disabled.'' No where has this even been proposed and with 3 kids with SN I am crapping myself over general education cuts but why talk crap when there is enough to worry about?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou - I'd like to say thankyou to those that paid for my education and the escape from the dull hard working, hourly paid & debt free life my parents led and the chance to do something creative and suited to my talents.

DH & I stayed in this country, work in science research and engineering - both amazingly low paid for the first 10 years. I've worked since I was 15 and have paid full NI contributions every single year.

We are happy to continue to fund the future generations of kids who we trust will in turn be gratful and pay their taxes.

See us science/engineering typos can't smell.

larrygrylls,

I wonder whether you're just trying to be controversial, just for fun? Anywy, can you clarify what you mean by the students who will really contribute to the nation (top 25%) Do you mean, for example, 'contribute money to the exchequer'?

RRocks

Worrying about a 3 year old's future University education is pointless and ever so slightly ridiculous.

My DD isn't worried that she will have £25-30k of student debt when she finishes her Maths degree, followed by a year's PGCE - she will hopefully have a decent career as a Maths Teacher and the repayments will be negligible.

I would rather help her out with a money towards a deposit for a house than help with Uni fees.

Inflated house prices are the real enemy of the young, not Uni fees.

Riven/Alpine - you just need to take the 'mickey mouse' rhetoris out of it. Those who earn more money will subsidize those who make less.

That could mean an Economics graduate who buggers off to live on a commune for 40 years is subsidised by the Travel and Tourism graduate who founds a multinational.

That way you don't have to device upfront what degrees may or may not be financially rewarding and the option to do those that aren't is still there.

Same as now.

Acinonyx - You say "Universities - here's how much money you can have. It's much less than before but you only need to have 50% of the students"

Coalition, Why isn't the Coalition Government proposing to cut uni places (and therefore funding), restricting them to the more academically able rather than notionally accepting Labout's 50% target and making individual students pay? That would be more honest than saying that individuals have to pay because the country can't afford it. There is no way that the Tories believe that we should be putting 50% of the population through uni.

RRocks

How would I know? I think cutting places rather than funding is the right thing to do though.

Sorry, Coalition. I didn't mean to imply that you have a direct line to Messrs Cameron and Clegg. To express myself differently, I have not heard anyone on radio or television discussing the issue of tuition fees and suggesting that we should go back to the old system of fewer students and lower costs. Perhaps they think that is politically unacceptable, but someone should be making that argument. Do you know of any politician making that argument?

RRocks

Riven - fine. It's a tiny salary . I personally think that 40k is a good salary and that at that level if you have had a uni education you can pay that amount back.

worthy subject will be rewarded financially in the real world and pay taxes. '

you seen how little science pays?

erm - in a lifetime the earnings of science graduates outstrip those of arts graduates by a vast amount. see here

basically, the comic who points out that arts students will be flipping burgeres for their science subject fellows after graduation is not that far from the truth.

Inflated house prices are the real enemy of the young, not Uni fees.

yep malificence hitting the nail sqarely on the head there. 27 k is nothing considered against the posibl increase in housing vvalues

EdgarAllenSnow - It depends what you DO with a Science degree. If you do Science then you may well earn very little. If you go into Finance you earn a lot.

Quite, or apply science through working for a pharma or biotech company.

my sister teaches science. good wages.

she used to do research abroad . also good wages.
her ex-h is also well-paid and works science.

are you suggesting engineers have to go into finance to earn money too?

there are many well-paid jobs in science.

i on the other hand work in finance with an arts degree - not great wages!

As far as I know NONE of the people I know who did Biology PHd's are rich.

One or two pretty well paid in publishing.

One guy I know who did particle physics is a hugely paid banker.

Astrophysicist - reasonable money in IT.

Maths - Teaching.

I think the Govt is setting things up so "the market" sorts it out. Maybe unis will be able to choose to cut places rather than increase fees? And the more intelligent young people out there - ie not those jumping on the current bandwagon - will weigh up the costs/benefits and shun the useless degrees from the University of Little Nothington.

Engineers make more money in Finance than in Engineering. This is one of the problems with Finance Salaries - it gets people doing that instead of more directly useful things (not that Finance isn't useful).

It's not that you can't get a well paid job with a science degree. It's just that most well paid jobs that you can get with a Science degree don't involve actually doing Science.

Science graduates are paid well. Scientists - not so much.

thats because a phd decreases your lifetime earnings.

science pays - it is easier to gain 'arts' skills after graduation, picking up science skills as an arts grad is v. hard OTOH.

compared to the money i could make as a 'working philosopher', a lab tech would be doing well...

EdgarAllenSnow,
worthy subject will be rewarded financially in the real world and pay taxes.

By 'worthy', I presume you mean having worth or value? Are you counting only taxes paid to the Exchequer? Do you see no value in anything else? (I wonder whether all the taxes paid by the bankers and hedge fund managers make up for all the debt they have landed the rest of us with?)

A person's value to society is not measured solely in what they contribute in taxes. Some of the most valuable roles in society do not pay much and some of those that pay huge amounts are least valuable.

If a history or philosophy graduate can't get a job other than flipping burgers does that mean that the study of history or philosophy has no value? I don't think so.

There is much more to life than earning money and those who learn for the sake of learning, or who work in creative roles, preserve and develop our culture just as much as those who learn for the sake of furthering science or engineering and probably a lot more than those who learn only for the sake of filling their bank accounts.

The article you referred to also says:

In contrast, opting for a degree in history, linguistics, English or Celtic studies adds a premium of less than £100,000 to lifetime earnings.

Taking into account the loss of earnings while studying for three or four years and the loan plus interest to be paid back, no-one would make an economically 'rational' decision to study that kind of subject. Should they, in your view, therefore disappear? That would be a huge loss to our civilisation. The idea that a subject is not 'worthy' because it doesn't figure in (current) job markets is blinkered to say the least.

EdgarAllenSnow - That's as may be - it's still the case that working in Science doing Science is not paid all that well.

PHd's presumably reduce lifetime earnings due to the percentage of people doing them who actually go on to do research.

erm rrocks, that bit was c&p.