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.

I agree with OP. The state of some of our primary and high schools. Let's sort them out before throwing money at people for going to uni because it's "free" - I know an 18 year old me would have gone to uni to piss around for 3 or 4 years if the course was free. It wasn't for me at all - glad I didn't go, but the system weeds out the ones who probably arent suitable. I am for scrapping fees for medicine and nursing though, providing they contribute a minimum service to the NHS and not bugger off to Australia after 2 years practice like most of my nurse friends have done...

Taxes Donki. France and Germany have higher taxes, free higher education, much better funded national health services, better transport infrastructure. You get what you pay for...

France interestingly has a slightly different philosophy of higher education. In the UK it's all about competing internationally with other institutions, keeping Oxbridge, Imperial College etc in the top bracket worldwide. In France it's not about turning out a small elite of research students to compete worldwide, so they don't spend so much on research, but about giving as many people as appropriate a good degree education and masters too if relevant. That said, they do have their elite institutions as I mentioned before.

It's a waste of resources to have too many people going to university when as a society there aren't enough good quality graduate jobs for everyone.

That is the fact of the matter. Education should be worked backwards from real life requirements. If 25% of all jobs require a degree, then 25% of students should go to Uni. If 25% of jobs require manual/technical skills, then 25% should go to technical college to learn the skills required.

But, even then, a lot of degrees don't actually prepare you for a job in that field. Take my profession, accountancy. An accountancy graduate isn't an accountant. They still have to take a trainee position to get the required supervised work experience and take further professional exams. There's not actually much difference between an 18 year old school leaver and a 21 year old graduate when it comes to being an accountant. I am led to believe it's similar in other professions such as law and architecture where additional years of work/study/exams are required before you actually become a solicitor or architect.

Of course fees should be scrapped - or at least put down to the levels they used to be. Students are still coming to University, but as a pp pointed out - it's becoming more transactional despite best efforts to keep it otherwise; it's having a calamitous effect on institutions, as they're pushed further and further towards 'student satisfaction', and targets; students aren't actually paying, the fee money is coming from the Government and then being sold onto private companies at stupid rates of interest, and more importantly, the high levels of debt and the pressure to succeed knowing the level of debt they'll be graduating with is having a detrimental effect on students' mental health.

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?

Absolutely agree DawnDonna .

FFS Bold FAIL

we don't have oodles of money to chuck around though - if we offer free tuition etc, it's stealing money away from other sorts of education.

The net result is us prioritizing a poorly done fast expansion in uni degrees at the expense of other types of education and earlier education.

The reason that tuition fees are such a bad idea because if you come from a very wealthy family then you don't need to take out the loan as your family can choose to pay the fees.

Therefore only those who can't afford to pay fees upfront take out loans and then continues to permeate income inequality.

Even if person a and b both get the same job and earn the same, person a who didn't need the loan has higher disposable income and thus can afford higher mortgage etc etc

If as a society we believe that individuals should pay for higher education then a graduate tax is a much fairer way of raising the money.

What's the problem OP ?

Afraid that "Oiks" from council estates will finally climb the ladder with hope ? Doctors , Lawyers etc .. domain of the well to do and it NEEDS a kick up

While I agree that there are too many people going to uni in the UK for whom a uni education is not appropriate, and studying courses that don't have much academic merit.

At the same time, education enriches an individual, and there's no harm in being educated to degree level, but ending up in job that doesn't require one.

I think educating only the same % of the population for whom there are graduate jobs is a bit narrow. Many people don't know when they leave what field they'll end up in. They may intend to go into a graduate post and change track.

It used to be that you could go into things like accountancy from school and train on the job, why not go back to that?

You still can. The routes are there. Trouble is that employers have so many applicants with degrees because too many are going to Uni. That pushes out those who chose not to go to uni for whatever reason even though they'd be perfectly capable of the training/exams. Accountancy is definitely not a graduate only profession - it still requires a few years of supervised work experience, studying and passing exams to become an accountant, whether or not you have a degree.

well if we're talking about leveling playing fields, if you give me back £60k in free uni tuition i would've spent on my DDs at uni, I'm going to spend that earlier in their school careers.

back in the 60s/70s, you used to be able to train to be a lawyer on the job (my dad did), and more recently, also as a teacher.

All of that should come back.

Scottish education is absolutely not appalling. In fact it is 2 points below England. Thats not saying it doesnt need improvement though because quite clearly it does. Not sure why relevant in a discussion about tuition fees but responding to an earlier post. Personally im against Tuition fees. But then Im equally against uni being the be all and end all. More funds need to go towards college courses/apprenticeships. But its difficult when as a society we are demanding that jobs such as secretaries etc. require a minimum of a 2:1 degree.

The current fee system is crap for poorer students. Many of DD's peers have not been able to afford to go and these are the DC who desperately need a leg up, due to living in a deprived area. The maintenance loans don't even cover the accommodation costs let alone food and beer. Current living costs don't seem to have been taken into account by whoever set the amounts. DD has only been able to go as she can still live at home so had to chose a lower ranked Uni as she needed one within commutable distance. Due to crap timetabling (don't get me started) she has often had to travel for almost 2 hours for a one hour lecture or gets there and finds the afternoon lecture is cancelled.

It's very difficult to get part time work as well due to the influx of cheap labour over the last 10 years.

Most of the students in her class have well off parents who have paid the accommodation costs for them and don't need to find part time work.

Great system for social mobility .

DD is worried about the massive debt she will have afterwards but these days you need a degree for a secretarial job with a salary of £18k a year!

Labour has got my vote for the first time ever.

Scotland does have capped free tuition places which mean MC kids are less likely to get an offer now as the cap hasn't increased (because it isn't really affordable) AND a widening attainment gap.

It is an example of where free tuition has not benefited the poorest much as most of them don't get to university in the first place.

And it is massively at the expense of more spending on vocational training.

we don't have oodles of money to chuck around though - if we offer free tuition etc, it's stealing money away from other sorts of education.

Exactly this. I saw some figures a year or two back which showed almost half of 16 year olds didn't achieve C grades in both Maths and English, which is regarded as the base-line for functional literacy and numeracy. Surely whatever money is spare needs to be spent on primary and secondary schools to get far more people up to that standard. A bit pointless arguing about uni costs when nearly half of 16 year olds don't have the basic knowledge/ability to get there.

I'd far rather see money being spent on getting say 90% of kids up to a decent standard based upon GCSEs, so at least they're capable of working and a functional adulthood. Most jobs don't need a degree, so far better to get far more people up to the standard of being able to work to a functional level.

It used to be that you could go into things like accountancy from school and train on the job, why not go back to that?

I agree with badbunny apparently dh's firm hire equal amounts of A level and degree candidates

Obviously that would very from firm to firm

these days you need a degree for a secretarial job with a salary of £18k a year

A classic example! In the 80s, you'd get a damn good office job (probably in the public sector, job for life etc) with a handful of C grades at GCE. You'd get some kind of office job with CSEs. The work is the same today, but now you need a degree. That's a classic example of the downgrading of GCE/GCSEs and the inflation of importance of unnecessary degrees. If fewer people had degrees, those jobs that didn't need a degree would have to be offered to the next tier down, and again, until supply matches demand.

Germany's industral strength is built on their education system throughout all its levels. I went to Uni there, bachelors and doctorate. I was sorry to hear a couple of months ago that free tertiary education was going to be restricted to EU nationals in future., instead of being free for all students. They do have a loan system for maintenance grants, it's tuition that's free. It will be the first time since WW2 uni students have been charged for their education.

Corbyn is right, uni education should be free.

Yep I agree too .

I do admin and looking for a job but I stand NO chance due to the fact that NOW they mainly want Graduates . Its not damn well fair or right and yet us, the ones TRYING to get a job, are slated !

I went to college in 1982 and learned what I needed to learn just fine and for years I done fine In admin jobs . Now though ? "No chance HeyHo you never went Uni" !

The current fee system is crap for poorer students. Many of DD's peers have not been able to afford to go

Bollocks. There's a loan system, where you pay back a miniscule ammount only when you start earning above £21k p.a., how can someone not afford a universal loan, whose repayments are tied into your earnings, and written off if you never pay it all off? My partner pays £45 a month or something, £45 a month for 4 years optional education is a good deal. They were from a poor household as well. I was from a poor household but never went to university, but even so, I understood the loans system, and that I wouldn't have to pay anything upfront for the privilidge of going, and wouldn't have to pay back anything at all until I started earning past X ammount. I know plenty of "poor" people who've went to university.

You mention the maintenance loans part, as far as I'm aware those will be the same, so labour aren't doing anything about those. I will concede though, that I believe the maintenance loans system to be wrong, and people should all recieve the same rather than it being dependant on parents earnings, as I think that is an unessecary restriction to place on it.

It's very difficult to get part time work as well due to the influx of cheap labour over the last 10 years.

So you're voting labour, who not only helped cause that, but in their own manifesto; haven't got any plans to do anything about it?

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?

Perhaps because of the growing expectation that practically everyone will go to university, whether they have an aptitude for academic learning or not?

We seem to have reached the stage where a degree is demanded for far too much, at the expense of vocational education, apprenticeships and so on. There will, of course, always be careers which demand higher study, but forcing so many into the same system seems to me like no kind of answer at all - even if it helps with the unemployment figures

yeah look - my parents were on benefits when I went. I went to university regardless because I knew I would earn more money as a result. Not to benefit society, and I got into the debt because I expected I'd get onto a well paid grad scheme (as I did) and pay it back.

Back in 1997, Blair said time and again there is no evidence that kids for poorer backgrounds don't go due to fees. They don't go because their earlier education has left them in a position where they can't get the grades.

It's interesting to read the range of responses on this.

Universities that do well on the new Teaching Excellence Framework will be allowed to raise their fees, and I worry that that really will put off poorer students from applying to university. I think a ceiling of £9k a year, which you only pay off once you're earning above a certain amount, seems to be working OK, in that it's not deterring poorer people.

I'm against scrapping bursaries for nurses, as I already mentioned, and I think you could also argue about whether you should have some kind of inducement for people to study in shortage areas, as they currently do with teaching. But I think there are problems with that. It's already the case that humanities students are effectively subsiding science students, who are more expensive to teach because they have more contact time and need expensive facilities.