University Fees

[Xenia]

I see that Lord Browne in his report may apparently suggest (Sunday Times today):

• rights for universities to charge fees of up to £10k a year rather than the £3200 or whatever it now is perhaps from 2012

• removal of cheap loans for children of the middle classes (presumably even if their parents are not prepared to help them)

• interest rate susidies on loans going up 2%

• students who go into high paid careers will have to pay back more than they borrowed perhaps capped at 20%

• and one which pleases me - parents will be able to avoid the graduate tax for their children if they pay the fees in advance. None of my older 3 children took out student loans as I paid as I wanted them to be in the same position when I graduated in the days when there were no fees paid by students.

However the report is not yet finished and he may recommend abolishing the cap on tuition fees and let the free market rule which may be wise.

well if lord browne gets his way i would have to find an extra £100k - so either way me, or my children, are stuffed

What exactly did we expect from the Tories?
To help the disadvantaged? I think we mixing up ideologies here. the conservatives believe in the individual looking after ones self, basically if you don't like your school go private, don't like NHS go private, Individual responsibility is the Tories core value.
I'm staggered that people even voted them in. we can't complain, we voted, we got the Tories. of course they would do this it?s their ideology .we need to bring Labour back to power before EVERYTHING is privatized.
Do you know that the 18 week waiting time for referral has been scraped, 2 week cancer referral SCRAPPED. people are going to die, UNI fees are the least of our worries.

tabby - i think you will find this is a libdem policy so please don't slag off the tories. i can complain as i didn't vot lib dem who are think are totally loopy

agre this does raise the question - if you have to pay for education why shouldn't you pay for everything else - though i don't agree with that

dreaming - lord Browne will not get his way in a million years. Will never be politically acceptable to bar most of the population from university entry in this way.

Not sure how the Tories can get the blame for this,they didnt set the review up ,Labour did and its totally independent,if we want our unis to be world class they have to be able to compete on a global stage,that means fees that actually bear some resemblance to the value of the course,now that is only half the story,if charges of several thousand are going to be made we have to build up the scholarships,bursaries etc,we need to go the American Ivy league route,needs blind- ie if you are good enough you get in,the fees will be found ,be it via scholarships or whatever,we need to build up alumni giving etc,the endowments that even Oxford and Cambridge have are pathetic in comparison to a mid level American Uni let alone an Ivy League,our whole culture needs to change if we go down this route.

Lets also drop this silly idea about 50% of people going to uni,lets get rid of the useless courses and unis and get back to a degree meaning something

Why do you have to find an extra £100k, dreaming?

propatria - agree, you don't need a degree to work in a call centre as so many of them seem to.

jenai - 3 kids times 30k each tuition fees rounded up slightly for tiny bit of living. i guess this is after tax. i just don't want my kids to have over 30k of debt before they even start trying to find a deposit for a house and starting a family. would seem even more unfair if people doing the same course come out with less debt because their parents don't work.

OK. I want to see as many people who are able having the opportunity to enjoy higher education. Hence I believe that HE expansion has been a Good Thing.

But this has to be paid for. I would rather adults - who stand to benefit financially from post-compulsory education - paid towards this than funding be directed away from schools, or taxes rise for all.

dreamingofsun - I honestly think that we need to reasses our attitudes towards this.

That £30k is an investment that your children may need to make. It is a horrible sum of money, I agree. But assuming the repayment terms are reasonable and they actually want to go to university then it will be money well spent.

jenai

so do you think each adult in higher education ought to pay the same or do you think it should vary depending on how affluent your parents are?

if its the latter then students of more affluent parents will have higher levels of debt because even parents earning a decent living will not be able to stump up these large amounts - 90k plus in our case.

jenai

agree, i am starting to reassess my attitude. i have a degree and this was always something i was encouraging my children towards. i'm now starting to question this - more so if the fees rise to 10k per year.

I doubt this will ever happen, but I'd like to see parental income taken out of the equation entirely.

18+ year olds are adults. They should pay fees. But they should also be eligible for maintenance grants.

propatria;
Labour never want people to pay £100k a degree. I still feel Labour were right to bring back grants and abolish up-front tuition fees.

but ask your self is it right that a nurse pays the same for a degree where she earns a low wage compared to a surgeon who earns a high wage .

dreamingofsun- of course typically Tories are in the higher bracket and would not want to pay back more for there degree.
Labour says a degree should be linked to your earnings.

tabby - the 100k was 3x30k for 3 children rounded up slightly. the surgeon will pay a lot more in tax over their lifetime so i have no problem with them paying the same for the nurse for their degree. And they get more pay because their job has more responsibility and you have to train for longer.

just because the parents are tories doesn't mean the students (who are adults in their own right) will be. i don't agree that a degree should be linked to the earnings of the parents - the only reason labour says this is to appeal to its own voting base - not because its fair

dreamingofsun;
sorry think you may missunderstand me. No not parents. if you earn £100k you pay more for your degree than someone who earns £16k. earning linked

I'm cynical about the way higher education has evolved over recent years. Do some of these professions that used to be a mix of on the job training and flexible study suddenly now require a full time three year degree course, or is it a money making scheme on the part of education providers? There should be more part time, flexible study, and on the job training options for all ages to make it easier for people to start a career or switch if their current career ends.

I was made redundant a few years ago and there was little chance of finding a similar job so I looked into retraining. I had a baby and a miserly redundancy cheque. I concluded that the only career I could sensibly afford to switch to at the time would have been teacher training because it was only 1 year of college for a pgce course and there was a bursary. Hardly a good reason to choose a new career!

Sorry, just realised that the thread has moved on from the OP.

Tabby-Does a degree mean shes a better Nurse?no in my opinion,you dont need to be academic to be a good nurse and you sure dont need a degree.
Linked to earnigs,mmm,hows that work,what happens if you are from abroad or decide to go and work abroad after graduation,plenty for tax lawyers and accountants to get excited about if that route is chosen.

ah i wasn't sure. but if you earn 100k you will pay a lot more in tax than someone who earns 16k. plus if you only earn 16k but don't need a degree why should you get a discount on the cost of your degree? we should be discouraging people who don't need them.

Propatria; no of course not, i was just using examples.

Dreamingofsun; proportionately someone on £100k does not pay more tax than £16k.

Yes a degree to be a manager for example is silly, this you get with experience. vocational

"Yes a degree to be a manager for example is silly"

That'll come as some surprise to the people who've paid all that money to get their MBAs and found them worthwhile.

Yes a degree to be a manager for example is silly"

Well in the large corporate I work for, and others I have worked for before, you can't apply for managerial jobs without a degree.

And I know this as I helped out with recruitment, both internal and external!

For those of you sneering at media studies degrees can I please point out the following:
'The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service assert that media studies is among the top 10 degree subjects in terms of securing employment, claiming that 73.6 per cent of its graduates find work within six months of completing studies.

Their report, What Do Graduates Do?, charted the career destinations of graduates in their first six months.'

Can I also suggest that a student graduating with an ability to intelligently review and criticise the media that surrounds us all these days - including tv, film and the Internet; create such media - using complex software and hardware; and undertake a variety of tasks such as events management; press relations; film and sound recording and editing; historical and critical analysis using a variety of approches from Marxist to feminist may actually be more employable than the average history graduate.

Disclaimer - I was a history graduate. I now teach on a media course. My post-1992 university has an Excellent graduate employment rate.