Just a point here ... the state does subsidise STEM undergrad degrees. Students may pay £9k pa, but the actual cost of delivering those programmes is far higher. For a medical degree, you are looking at about £20K to £25k a year; state subsidy for Home/EU student is why student numbers are capped in these disciplines.
I read that Corbyn statement and just thought ... what the hell is he trying to say here? Because to me, it just reads as though it is the job of everyone else to ensure young people get the grades they need, behave in a healthy manner, have somewhere to live and are channeled into a job. It reads as though the responsibility lays on teachers, nurses, doctors, housing officials, and careers advisors and businesses to deliver young people a life.
There's just too much of these types of expectations already, and it is already destroying the teaching and medical profession.
In reality, a young person has to be responsible for their own learning, their own health, their own lives. Yes, the state can provide free education and training to 18, and subsidise higher education. The state can provide free to access healthcare (when very few other countries in the world do so).
But ultimately, it is the responsibility of a young person to sit down and study and pay attention in class, to not smoke or drink excessively, to exercise and not spend hours in a sedentary activity eating processed food, and to become a productive member of society.
And the notion that it is depressing and unnecessary to tell young people they have to make their own way in the world? Well, who else is going to do it for them? What is he saying here? That the state should tell you what you are to do in life? It's bizarre. Unless you assume he thinks trade and profession allocation under the Soviet system was a good idea.
And I have never understood this obsession with council housing. What is so wonderful about housing owned by the local council where the cost of all maintenance is a public liability in perpetuity?
Surely, it would be far more sensible to state-sponsor non-profit building companies to build on state-acquired land, and operate zero-interest purchase agreements. So you would pay rent every month, and the place would be yours after 25 years once you've paid back the cost of the build (the state would retain ownership of the land under a leasehold agreement). Roughly speaking, under the system, a new three bed semi in most regions would work out as a monthly rent of £300 for 25 years.
So the state subsidises, but there is also a transfer of wealth to those unable to afford their own homes. After all, this was the thinking behind the original RTB policy under Labour, which was a bloody good idea and, of course, it was a good idea because it was post-war Labour and they actually understood working-class people and wanted better for them.
And the state would start to increase their land ownership, which is frankly appalling low in a lot of areas.