AIBU to think that it would have been fairer to introduce a graduate tax than increase tuition fees

[Tryingtryingandtrying]

As it stands most graduates effectively pay a graduate tax for most of their working lives. Exceptions to this are those who do not earn enough, those who pay themselves minimum wage out of their own businesses and those whose parents are wealthy enough to pay fees up front as well as all living costs. A graduate tax would mean everyone who benefits from university education contributes, instead of those on middle incomes paying the most of all.

Yabu - it was better to increase tuition fees
Yanbu - a graduate tax would be a fairer way to fund university study

The rise in tuition fees offsets the NI employer contributions for universities. How coincidental these things are you'd have to decide for yourself, but it helps reduce the number of universities going to the wall.

The last government made a conscious choice to indiscriminately spend more on pensioners whilst charging students more.
People really resent investing any tax payer money on educating the young who will be future tax payers and workers running the country. Look at the cuts that were made to state education. The preference is to invest in pensioners.

Invest is probably not the right word. Bribe is probably a better one.

Bribe is exactly the right word. Same deal as right to buy, from which coincidentally my generation also benefited. I remember being furious when fees were introduced, it’s classic pulling up the ladder.

There are some degrees that are known to deliver better ‘value’ than others. If you go to university and don’t put the effort in, drop out or choose a degree for passion then you do so knowing the cost.

Each university goer makes a number of choices, on attendance, effort and course type. I could never support a ‘tax’ that removes the burden of accountability for those choices.

Yes, I cannot help thinking your generation was duped into ruining the lives of future generations. The long term objective of politicians who wanted to push things like cheap privatisations and right to buy in the 1980s-90s and then more recently triple lock pensions was not utopia but a return to a class ridden society where working class upstarts couldn't compete with "their people" for jobs, wealth or opportunities. They've nearly completed their objective now and even the bloody Labour Party has helped them. Older voters naively went along with this, I suspect, either because of short term thinking or because they thought they could shield their own children from it.

The only thought that sustains me is that without even the mirage of meritocracy left, this whole bloody show is going to come crashing down sooner rather than later.

I think a lot of people got sucked into that Thatcherite, loadsa money ethos that greed is good and it’s only got worse. Sadly it’s getting passed down the generations with people complaining about the amount of tax they pay, begrudging others whose circumstances are dire and generally failing to see that if we improve society it benefits everyone. I’m very happy to be nearer the end of my life than the beginning. I dread to think where it’s going to end.

I’ve read the whole thread and still don’t under stand what the point of this proposal is? Why do we think it would raise more tax money or be more equitable vs student loan repayment?

it ignores 2 points already identified- that a significant number of students pay fees without a loan, and that significant numbers of students pay back their loan.

Current deduction at its max is 9%. take a person on £130k a year- of course they won’t start their career on that salary, but in this example they hit in 20 years in.
They’ll have paid off an average loan in their 40s. How could you justify deducting 9% (£1k a month?!?) from them for the rest of their working life?! For a 3 year degree they did at 23!

secondly the crap about Micky mouse degrees and reducing the number of people who attend university misses a vital role universities play in our society- the social mobility they provides - research shows at a population level this benefit applies to to ALL graduates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

all people demonstrate when they say this is they’re an uniformed snob who thinks the poor should stay in their lane.

I would prefer to see companies who benefit from employing graduates, who are essentially having their workforce trained at taxpayer expense, pay towards this training. This would include law firms, finance, engineering.

The country needs doctors and therefore pays towards training them. Other companies will only hire graduates but are paying nothing towards it.

It might encourage these companies to explore other training routes as well or actually support academics with placements etc.

I suppose we have this in the apprenticeship levy though? It’s not well managed though, I haven’t worked for a company that’s managed to spend it since they started paying it

It will encourage the best graduates with the best degrees to move abroad to work

Yet we have more graduates than ever before and employers are still struggling to recruit skilled British people.

We have skills shortage because we have a shrinking young population & a lack of investment by the government & companies themselves in upskilliing staff plus lots of people aren’t interested in the areas with said shortages. It’s not because people are doing Mickey Mouse degrees.