UK universities in trouble - why not add VAT to tuition?

[80smonster]

UK universities are in trouble, apparently many could close, why not charge VAT on tuition fees (for those that are financially viable)? Bridget Phillipson says they are autonomous institutions and won’t be given a public bail out - they should rely on their own resources:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/09/english-universities-face-autumn-tipping-point-as-financial-crisis-looms

YABU - don’t add the VAT
YANBU - add the VAT

"Do you think doctors, engineers, pharmacists, teachers etc used to all train on the job and older ones don't have a degree?"

Universities have historically been about knowledge generation and dissemination. The professions you have named have arisen from the knowledge generated in universities. The purpose of a first degree is to gain that knowledge so it can be applied. Post graduate degrees and research degrees focus on generating new knowledge.

My point is that learning and development for roles /professions/careers that aren't underpinned by scholarship are not suited to universities.

I totally agree that VAT can't be the solution. I think the OP was just trying to make some sort of statement - re private school VAT etc

It should be income tax or other widespread tax - as it is a societal benefit. The entire society benefits from solid education from cradle to grave

Uk loans don’t cover the US or EU and since Brexit we are deemed to be foreign students in the EU.

Funding - not just loans

No offence but people really need to think beyond what they perceive to be the only way things are done.....

With many less academic students guided toward vocational/apprentice training?

Yes! Exactly. Why should less academic students be pushed to do high level academic work? Why wouldn’t it be better for them to get more useful and relevant training for work after THIRTEEN YEARS of academic learning at school? If it turns out that they do want a degree later in life, that’s fine. Plenty of people go as mature students.

If it were me in charge, I would return to grants, not loans, but they would be awarded only to the top % of students based on A-level results (with contextual weighting). You’d have to earn the funding.

So what do you record it as and when students are interviewed by Ofsted re how safe they feel which is part of the process how do you hide their feeling of being unsafe due to rife bullying?

Easy when you’re not holding down 2 jobs to pay rent and feed your kids. 🙄

https://education.ec.europa.eu/study-in-europe/planning-your-studies/scholarships-and-funding

I didn’t say UK loans did cover international study. There are other funding routes. Parents and students are exploring other ways of funding.

And again, why are these unis a waste of money?

Erasmus is a Masters and exchange programme.

That's your problem, not mine. I am thinking of the people who may come back to this thread and think they can't access the type of education they want because 'the loans don't work'.

I want them to see the possibilities that are being shared on here and accessible to them and their kids. So yes, I will continue to highlight these possibilities, whilst you focus on your 2 jobs. You may even find some of the options discussed here useful!

@Dorisbonson
UK productivity has been flat the past two years with minimal growth. Not since 2005 🤨

See, a slanty line that goes / indicates growth a flat line like this — indicates zero growth, a slant line that \ indicates decline.

We can see consistent growth that slows - less steep / after recovery from the 2008 crash, we can also see the \ / caused by the Covid lockdowns. Productivity is now 2% above where we were just before Covid..so productivity has also recovered from that, the problem NOW is that our prior / line of upward growth now appears to be flatting.

This is a problem for the future as a flatline can easily go back to growth / or the want to avoid \ decline.

But the post stating U.K. productivity “has declined” in synch with the decades long increase in U.K. workers getting University degrees cannot be true.

Of course they are a massive drain. They are a drain on the scarce resource of (state trained!) teachers, they are a drain on the economy by spoon feeding children to the extent that they get exams which over represent their ability and independence, meaning that recruiters and higher education institutes need to input so much more to bridge the gap, they often don't even do real standard GCSEs, just the easier to pass iGCSEs, they are a drain on the educational markets by raising the prices of so many resources and opportunities by skewing the market, they block out many intelligent able independent young people by using private school networks to monopolise jobs...they are a constant drain on everybody else

"Do you think doctors, engineers, pharmacists, teachers etc used to all train on the job and older ones don't have a degree?"

State school teachers did not need a degree until the last 30 years or so. You could go to college for a teaching qualification that was not a degree. Private school teachers still don’t have to have a degree or teaching qualification.

Engineers certainly didn’t need a degree in the era of Isembard Kingdom Brunel! And even now, I think it depends a bit what you mean by ‘engineer’. Chartered engineers obviously do. Inventors, not necessarily.

Pharmacy, along with most medical jobs, has become an increasingly complex and demanding role over the last 100 years. It did not start out as an academic graduate role, though it is now.

And that’s the point. Universities have changed dramatically in the past 100 years, to encompass a much broader range of subjects, including many more that are directly vocational. They have also changed to encompass a much larger range of academic abilities. University education used to be rare and is now common.

I think the pendulum has swung too far and I am encouraged by several young people I know making different choices: paralegal apprenticeship, retail management, etc.

They are a drain on the scarce resource of (state trained!) teachers,

Mytuppenyworth posters on here claim that private school teachers are unqualified so presumably they couldn’t get jobs in state schools.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people are so ignorant and have such a total lack of understanding about what VAT actually is.

It is a TAX. Value Added Tax.

The organisation charging VAT to its customers merely collects it on behalf of the government, and hands the money to HMRC. They don't get to keep it.

The tantrums over VAT on private school fees just keep coming, don't they?

Exactly. Many posters don’t seem to understand the difference between input and output VAT either. Many seem to think that output VAT is a tax on the business rather than the customer.

University education might be much more common but that is partly because the places that trained people have been renamed as universities. It isn't because professions previously didn't require training and everyone learned on the job.

State school teachers have needed a degree since the 70s. Before they didn't need a degree but had to do a lot of training at a college. Now it is always a university because the same colleges have been renamed as a universities. Pharmacists have required a degree for about a 100 years so all pharmacist alive today will have one. They could get it from a university or poly. Now it is always university because the polys have been renamed.

Oh yes. The ‘solution’ seems to be - ‘let’s try to shut even more WC kids out of higher education’.
dick move.

As for ‘worthless’ degrees- in my global industry degrees are often the minimum requirement for any role paying over minimum wage. You can get one while working, which my company will help finance, but that will hold you back a gods 5 years… until that changes a uni or college degree will always be an advantage.

State school teachers are leaving in droves. They are not all moving to the private sector. Around 40k teachers left in the last year alone. Only around 8k have switched to the private sector over the last 5 years. Let’s not pretend that the state school recruitment and retention crisis is because of the private sector.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/teaching-workforce-grows-by-just-259-as-recruitment-stalls/#:~:text=One%20in%2010%20new%20teachers,still%20below%2013.6%20in%202010.

schoolsweek.co.uk/thousands-of-state-teachers-switch-to-private-sector/

Private schools do not “spoon feed”. They work with children so that they can achieve their full potential. Those children still have to sit exams without help.

It’s absolute nonsense to say that the privately educated monopolise jobs. Many employers now actively favour state educated. It’s perfectly possible for good candidates to get great jobs regardless of their school background. I say that as someone who was state educated who entered a career traditionally dominated by the privately educated. Not once have I felt disadvantaged.

God you really don't know anything about private schools do you:

1. 44,000 state teachers didn't leave state education last year to go to private schools. They left because of the issues in state schools. That's not the fault of private schools
2. Spoon feeding children. Our local state school has zero study leave and has daily booster classes throughout exam periods. DDs Indy does not. Please clarify what you mean by spoon feeding because honestly that's a tired trope of "rich but dim" that really doesn't apply to the majority.
3. Theu don't do real GCSEs. Er yes they do but they often often iGCSEs alongside. Look at the results of your local indy schools and tell me they don't offer GCSEs. Most indy kids do MORE GCSEs than state kids ie 10 rather than 8 or 9
4. Private school networks. Most networks come from family rather than school and again, outside of the top public schools this really doesn't happen.

Maybe understand the sector before assigning lazy and untrue stereotypes to it.

Indeed. The in UK around 80% of graduate jobs don't specify a particular degree subject.
Subjects such as History, English and Philosophy are valued becuase of the skills developed rather than the knowledge gained.

So where are universities going to get their funding from? Either the students themselves need to pay more, the government needs to increase funding, or the universities need to increase the proportion of international students. The latter, favoured by the government, isn’t going to help poorer home students access higher education.