To think scrapping tuition fees is a terrible idea

[bumbleymummy]

Just that really. Corbin saying he's going to scrap fees from September. Bloody stupid idea and something else that we can't afford to pay for.

Corbyn* . Not sure why that autocorrected.

It's been costed. There are plenty of fairly august organisations that state that the figures add up.

Why should we charge our young people to be teachers, nurses, doctors? Why should we exclude people who are capable of doing these things but who are afraid of the debt?

Same, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to contribute something to optional further education after mandatory education has ended. I have to pay for my training courses to stay relevent in my field, I don't get to spread the cost over 30 years with the repayments linked to my earnings, and written off if I never pay it all back.

Why is it a stupid idea? Genuine question. It might not work, but I think it's a good policy to trial out.

YABU

We pay them already. It's just we'd be clawing it back in a different way from the current one, which is unlikely to work out anyway and will quite likely end up costing more (since huge numbers of students will never do much more than pay off the interest).

Also scrapping tuition fees would go a long way to changing the transactional atmosphere in universities - students could learn, be part of a knowledge-producing environment and the community of academia, rather than seeing their degree as a transaction whereby they get into a certain amount of debt and are magically made employable, plus consistently 'satisfied'.

I think it's a superb idea. Particularly for NHS workers and teachers.

Students of robust subjects that will lead somewhere should be supported. I'd favour scrapping of tuition fees if it were allied to a decline in pseudo degrees and an increase in apprenticeships.

We'll get loads of people going to university 'just because'. It devalues tertiary education. He's just trying to win the young people vote. I'm still paying off my student loan (one of the first years to pay fees -introduced under labour) It's really not that big a deal.

It's actually one of the few things I do agree with Corbyn on. If we could afford to pay for our young people to do a first degree until 2010 why the hell can't we do so now? That is particularly true for degrees in subjects like medicine and nursing, which face desperate shortages, particularly since bursaries and other things that helped people train have been removed. However, if young people can't be arsed to go out and vote I really think the rest of us shouldn't get too aerated about it. There was a piece on the Today programme this morning as today is the last day for registering to vote in the GE. Get out and vote young people! Get engaged with politics. It may not excite you, but it most certainly affects you, so do your civic duty and maybe you'll do yourself some good as well.

No, I think it's a bloody brilliant idea. How on earth do you think Scotland afford free university courses or Wales? This is bringing England into line with the rest of the UK and ensures our young don't start their working life with thousands in debt hanging over them. If this means my paying an extra few quid in taxes then I'm happy to do so. Ditto for NHS, school meals etc and I'm by no means well off. I've never understood this "we can't afford to " mentality. We can't afford not to- every man, woman and child in the uk deserves the same opportunities regardless of their economic background and in 5 or 10 years when we have highly educated, well trained professionals entering the labour market they will more than repay the investment back in taxation.

Good point treetop

i would be in favour of a graduate tax code
i think if administered carefully it could be fairly similar in terms of money in the coffers, but psychologically feels very different to starting your adult life with enormous debt.

And social workers, basically any role that's considered vocational where a degree is required. I've paid an obscene amount for higher education over the years and have been fortunate to be able to do so but if young people can make choices based on their interest and competence rather than their ability to pay that can only be. Good thing.

'Do yourself some good' while a few people pay for it 😐

I read a while back that they only need another 3% of all students to not pay their student loans back and it would work out cheaper to offer university education for free.

Currently theres a massive gap between those students who earn enough to pay them back in full and those who never earn enough to start paying them back or just disappear into the system and cant be found to pay them back.

I do think if you work in the public sector you shouldn't need to pay your tuition fees back. If you work in the private sector then you should pay them. So if you change jobs between public and private then it should be changed accordingly.

TheTurn - it didn't feel like starting with 'enormous debt' to me. I didn't really think about it. It comes out of your salary when you earn over a certain amount and it's never stopped me from getting another loan or mortgage etc

Who decides what is a pseudo degree that won't lead anywhere? Academics in science might think that applies to any humanities subject! Or you might do Maths at Cambridge but end up busking.

My DD is at uni studying paramedic science. She will have £27,000 uni fees to pay back plus another £27,000 in loans to pay back.

She already has to pay out for travel to and from the ambulance station she is doing her placements on (yesterday she did a 15.5 hour shift plus 1.5 hours travel unpaid). She is going into a profession which is not the best paid in the world but will have debt of well over £50k.

I would love to see fees abolished for students studying anything to do with the NHS (nursing, midwifery, doctors, paramedics) and all teaching roles. These are essential roles which need to be filled and it's hard enough getting people to want to do these jobs without having a lovely debt of £54k hanging over them for life.

I'm not sure about it. I was lucky enough to go to university at a time when tuition fees were fully paid and we had student grants that covered our living costs. We were even able to claim benefits during the long summer holidays!

But in those days about 15% of 18-year olds went to university. Today it's something like 32%. It's expensive. If you want to encourage working-class kids to go to uni, then you're better off pouring that money into primary and secondary education, which is where you have the hope of doing most good. At the moment it doesn't look as if tuition fees actually put working-class kids off going to uni - the numbers are going up. (About 13.6% of those from the lowest socioeconomic group went to uni last year, a rise of 0.1% from the year before.)

Mycats, it's an interesting idea but wouldn't that then risk people potentially choosing a degree 'because they don't have to pay for it' rather than as a vocation?

But your debt was £1k a year, not £9+k, wasn't it? It hardly compares.

We should, as a society, educate our populace as well as we can. Everyone benefits from a well-educated population. Are GCSEs devalued because everyone does them?

Phil, mine was around 3.5k a year for 5 years. Yes, I understand that fees are higher now but there's a big difference between 'let's bring these fees back down a bit' and 'let's scrap them completely'

My loan was.

awful idea - why should people without degrees pay for the middle classes to get degrees?

Why has it suddenly become necessary to charge? I get that more people are going, but maybe there needs to be a tighter grip on what courses are allowed to be established as degrees in the first place.

When I went it came to around £3 a year, so I left uni after 4 years with circa £14k debt. Which isn't too unreasonable. But it is bonkers now. And does put the 'working class' demographic off more than the traditional middle class university goer.