University Fees

[JaneEyreLaughing]

Just reading that the universities have floated the idea of students paying £12,500. FFS.

My working class mum and dad went to university in 1978 and 1980 and they didn't pay any fees. They say only 10% of people went to university then and so it was more affordable for local authorities to fund-now so many young people go, that it simply isn't practical for the state to fund it.

This must have a detrimental effect on working class kids who just can't afford to go without burdening themselves with massive debt.

AIBU to say that we need to get back to this-just the top 10% and your fees paid, whether your dad is a duke or a dustbin man. Everyone is equal-you just need to get into the top 10%-your background doesn't matter-just your ability as reflected in your grades.

Even saying the top 20% will be funded would be better.

FFS

"50%, or thereabouts, going to university is nonsense. They're supposed to be for the above average intelligent person or have I got that wrong"

OP, 50% of the population are above average intelligence, it's the very definition of average. Wherever the average value lies, 50% will be above, 50% will be below.

Sure though, let's have a race to the bottom educationally on the international stage and whilst we're at it, let the tax payer fund the wealthy too

That poster went to the Gove school of maths, I remember him declaring that all children should be above average in maths 🤣

People need degrees now for jobs that used to rely on common sense and the right sort of person. 🙄

Universities need more funding. When fees were set at £9,000 maximum - even then that was too low. If it had kept pace with inflation it would be nearly £12k now so £12.5k is certainly reasonable.

The student loan system is functionally almost identical to there being no fees, free maintenance grants, and all funded from a graduate tax. The main differences are that the money can theoretically still be collected if the graduate leaves the country, and that the wealthiest get to stop paying eventually (most middle earners will retire before they pay it all back)

I do think it needs reform.
I don't think the burden should fall solely on graduates. We all benefit from a highly educated population in a myriad of academically challenging fields. 10% was far too low a proportion - though it is possible that 50% is too high.

I think there should be places at university for everyone capable of getting at least BCC at ALevel, with some flex in contextual offers for people who get at least CDD from challenging circumstances. There should also be a wide variety of vocational and specialist courses which are not at university level and don't pretend to be, for those who don't reach that attainment level, which it certainly should be possible to deliver for about half the cost of a university place because such colleges do not need to maintain the facilities of a full university.

There should be MUCH higher expectation that anyone who lives within a reasonable commute of a university willing to offer them a place should live at home with their parents and get their university education there, with each university having a quota they can offer to applicants to specialist courses that their local universities don't offer, and a small number of elite universities (not just oxbridge but limited to top 8-10) able to offer to anywhere in the country.

This will massively reduce the burden of funding thousands of 18-21 year olds to live away from home when there's a bed for them at their parents' house. This shift should include extending the child benefit paid to parents until the end of their undergraduate course if the child is living at home, and no maintenance grant unless the household income is so low that having an economically inactive adult at home for 3/4 years would trigger serious hardship.

Those who can't live at home should have a maintenance grant which is enough to pay a reasonable basic rent, eat and cover basic reasonable expenses if their parents have low income. On a sliding scale to zero if their parents have a household income of £100,000+ (with adjustments if there are numerous university age siblings).

There should be significant tax break incentives for parents to save towards such contributions if they are in the relevant income bracket, with appropriate pathways to rewind the tax breaks if the child doesn't need it, and locked into being held in the parents name not the child's unlike the current Child ISA type products (which the child can choose to spend on a car or a holiday when they turn 18) but can only be disbursed to the relevant child if they qualify for the university support.

And fees should be ultimately funded from taxes on everyone. Life is a lottery and not every graduate wins a big salary, and not everyone who wins a big salary is a graduate - but the whole of society benefits when top quality education is available freely to those who can benefit.

The one loophole that makes the loans scheme better than a tax is for capturing payments from those who leave the UK. There must be a way to close that loophole. US citizens have to pay taxes wherever they live, it must be feasible to make some portion of income tax still apply if you leave if you benefited from state-funded education.

Sensible balanced post @SleepGoalsJumped - agree with much (not all!) of it.

@Meditationgame they’re spending money delivering courses obviously? energy costs have gone up massively (buildings, servers for online teaching and systems), insurance has gone up 30% in some cases, staff costs have gone up massively and there’s only so many positions they can due to regulatory requirements for quality as well as Course delivery (even if salaries are still low pension costs for employers keep rising). The government havent increased their contribution since 2015 nor have fees in real terms, gov policies mean international recruitment has dropped so overall less and less money coming in and a bigger shortfall. Unis have massively ramped up commercial activities to fill the gap- but they get criticised for this too!

In Germany 28% of young people have degrees, compared to 49% here, yet Germany is a richer country. Wages have been stagnating here for years despite the number going to uni increasing.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment

There just aren't and can't be enough graduate jobs.

It hasn’t always been the case. The grammar school I went to - a very long time ago - was full of working class kids who got there by virtue of passing the 11+. There was no tutoring and no moving into areas with good schools in those days. People with money predominantly sent their children to private schools if they failed to get a grammar school place, hence the only occasion my mother ever made a catty remark: “You can’t buy brains”. I was also at the tail end of the generation that needed Latin for university entrance.

The country was much more of a meritocracy then.

It was definitely more accessible if you were bright enough and had attained the right grades, the red brick universities were built with the intention of opening up higher education to the working classes. The 1962 Education Act guaranteed that tuition fees and maintenance grants would be paid by local authorities, this greater financial support made it accessible to people like my Mum and Dad who had been to Grammar school or in my Dad's case had pursued A levels at a secondary modern, made the most of the city library and despite coming from working class backgrounds went on to Red brick unis!

At the moment that social mobility is not prevalent and I know we are going to struggle to fund our eldest even though we are in jobs (Architect Senior post and Data management) that in the past would have easily afforded uni for their child. RG universities are full of very well off students now, my nieces housemates at a top uni had all gone to private school, no exception, how is this progress?

As someone who has worked in HE Widening Participation roles for my entire career I couldn’t disagree more.

The funding model is fucked, but we should not be looking back to the 80’s.

Tuition fees need to go up enormously now to cover costs, freezing them was a mistake. It would be better if we returned to the grant model and universities were properly funded by government and graduates taxed, but being realistic that’s not going to happen.

But yes £9250 is now worth about £6k thanks to inflation and universities are struggling, courses are being closed.

But that isn’t at all what they suggested. If you actually read what was said, they said that if fees had increased in line with inflation it would come to that much. The quality of journalism is terrible!

What % of students in all unis in the 1980s had been to private school?

What % of uni students were from a wc background?

It wasn't more accessible, it was just cheaper for the small numbers who were able to get in.

Not trying to derail but another change from the 1980s seems to be universities eviserating academic careers into a series of short term contracts that make buying homes or even living in the university location much harder while senior salaries, especially those of the Chef Executives have inflated. The sector might have more sympathy if the senior management hadn't adopted the elements of the private sector that suits them.

That's very true. I've found female lecturer friends in particular struggle to get permanent, full time posts. I think it's because some universities don't want to have to pay for Maternity Leave. I was shocked to find out how many lecturers are only paid for teaching weeks and expected to survive without pay from April until October (and no Reading Week, Winter/Spring Break pay) often for years on end.

Red brick universities were built to democratise higher education, do they serve that purpose now?

How is accessibility to uni not linked with affordability? In my DS's sixth form friendship group, the only one hesitating about uni is the one with parents on a low income, when I went to uni, graduated early 00s there were loads of people at uni like him, ok this is anecdotal but it is a snapshot of a situation that has arisen all over the country, I referenced my niece's uni flat mates at a top Northern uni all being private school educated! Equality of opportunity is just not there and that is down to money at the end of the day, to deny that is a nonsense!

I missed the start of it, but I think someone was saying on Radio 2 news bulletin yesterday that Scotland and N Ireland funds up to 50 percent of university costs, while England only 16 percent, so my first question is why do English kids have to get a raw deal from our government?

Secondly, will the loans to live on also go up, as they don't really reflect the recent price rises. If they do, what kind of total borrowing are young people looking at and will it still be worth it?

The thing that really depresses me when I look at courses for my DD, is that all the highest ranked courses are in the most expensive cities to live. There must be a correlation, that the wealthy well-connected kids are the ones who can afford to go there and surprise, surprise become wealthy well-connected adults. My DD is predicted top grades, but so many of those cities are out of our reach. So it's not really a meritocratic system, even if the fees for each uni are the same, because the costs you have to meet up front are very different, and these are the ones likely to hold you back.

Personally I think they are doing that thing where they float the idea of £12.5k, so that when they come up with the actual figure of £11k or something it sounds very reasonable.

I guess you are referring to “proper” universities?
I went to an old style Northern Poly in the 80s (that subsequently became a uni) and I’d say at least 80% of my friends/fellow students was on a full grant (as I was) because parental income fell below the cut-off.

Of course, Polys generally specialised in courses with professional qualifications that led directly to real jobs rather than high academia that might lead to (aside from medicine, law and maybe some other courses) a job in academia or a job in commerce if you had the right connections in those days!

@Simonjt

I worked in the Dept for Education when Gove was SoS
Oh what larks we had!!!

Please, please just do even a tiny amount of research before sprouting off.

Contextual offers are a real thing and, even now, still vital to ensuring a (slightly) more even playing field at uni application time.

@JaneEyreLaughing

As I indicated in a previous post my son had a contextual offer because

• he was care experienced
• he has ASD
• he is mixed race

My son is of course not thick, nor is he 'working class' But he had the most difficult start to life, he has been playing catch up all his life, like a lot of young people who have come through the care system. Should they not have the same opportunities because they aren't quite there at the same time as their peer group, and are a few UCAS points down

Well, I have to say I have never heard of such a thing as"contextual offers" and based on the little that has been said about them on this thread, no I don't agree with them.

I want the medical professional that treats me; the lawyer who deals with my case; the teacher who teaches my child; the architect who designs my house; the engineer who designs the bridge I drive over- to have been through university studying their respective subjects on academic merit and academic merit alone.

It will not benefit me-it could harm me-if my surgeon fails to spot a disease; my lawyer balls up a contract; the teacher unable to teach my gifted child; the architect builds a house that will fall down or the engineer makes incorrect calculations for the bride and it collapses killing me and mine.

I won't rejoice thinking, in the midst of any one of these possible calamities, well, they may not have been intellectually up to the job -maybe they shouldn't have been on the university course in the first place-at least they were given a contextual offer to make up for some difficulty in their life.

Of course, some may argue that they would be thrown off their course if, once on it, they couldn't cut it and that should indeed be the case but , in the light of some of these replies defending contextual offers-I would very much doubt that any lecturer would have the balls to chuck them off.

I think , as a society, we have become used to thinking that university is a right, in the same way that secondary education is a right. It isn't.
Maybe we should start valuing other paths to success, instead of thinking that university is the only one.

So, to go back to my original point-send only the most academically gifted and pay their fees.

I want the medical professional that treats me; the lawyer who deals with my case; the teacher who teaches my child; the architect who designs my house; the engineer who designs the bridge I drive over- to have been through university studying their respective subjects on academic merit and academic merit alone.

You don't need to worry.
Contextual offers get you into uni. They don't then set your uni pass mark at less than everyone else's. Your doctor will have had to achieve the same grade in their anatomy exam as everyone else, even if they got AAA at A level rather than AstatAA

@JaneEyreLaughing

Contextual offers have been in existence since at least 2009.
Perhaps do a little research to understand them.
Do you also object to foundation years and access to HE courses?

And students failing modules is not something that lecturers have angst over 'kicking them out' - if they fail they get a chance to resit (capped grade). If they fail that (depending on individual regs and reg body requirement) - after that they're out. Not a decision a lecturer gets involved in at all. And relatively common an occurrence in every uni to be certain that your doctor/engineer/solicitor hasn't passed because someone didn't have the balls to boot them out. Besides those accreditations are far too precious to risk frankly. Check out what happened to CCCU's nursing accreditation...

AIBU to say that we need to get back to this-just the top 10% and your fees paid, whether your dad is a duke or a dustbin man.

Yes, you're extremely unreasonable. When only 15% of the population went to university, they were mostly
male
white
upper middle to upper class

So very few dustbin men, and more like the three generations of men in my public-school educated family who went to university on family trust funds which paid fees + expenses

Universities had fees foisted upon them - it was not a decision by the universities, it was a government decision.

Fees have not kept pace with the cost of the basic undergraduate degree - it now costs around £12,500 - and UK undergrads are subsidised by the much much higher fees that international students pay, and massive unpaid overtime worked by almost everyone & anyone working at a university - especially academic staff and some professional staff who work in academic-related roles.