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.

The probolem with the maintenance loans is that they will cover the cost of a Hall and nothing much else -

'I don;'t have a wage at all. I only eat if I kill. If I'm sick I am paid nothing.

Wrong.

Becuase like everyone else you have the same safety net of the state.

The chances of you relying on it are slim granted but it's there.

Whereas, after facing some pretty rough times and managing to clamber back up anyway aginst the odds, we should be back on a decent middle income by the time the boys reach Uni age; so it will indeed be marginally annoying if we fight aginst state reliance only to be told we have to fight agin for the boys to get the chances they would have had if we hadn;t bothered.

Or something.

"Our generation was lucky to receive free or subsidised university education."

Or at least, those that went.

Simple choice: you can have the funding back at 1980s levels (which means, of course, that children whose parents refuse to pay their contribution simply can't go to university until they're 25: friend of mine trained to be a doctor, although he never practised, because that was the only degree his father would fund) if you're prepared to accept the take-up being at 1980s levels as well, which is about 15%. If you want full funding, including maintenance, without parental contributions you need to go back to the 1950s, when takeup was about 2%. Or you can accept student loans, in exchange for everyone who wants to go to University going.

Graduates made up 5% of the workforce in 1980, and 21% in 2004. Source here page 17. Going to university is A Good Thing. But the choice isn't between everyone being funded and everyone getting a loan: the choice is between everyone going who wants to or the number of places being violently, violently cut.

Plenty of people on this forum will have gone to university. Put your hands up. Now, put your hands down if either of your parents didn't go. Hmm. Now, put your hands down if your grandparents didn't all go. Yup, thought so. OK, there's some sexism in there, so hands back up if both your grandfathers went. Not many, eh? University takeup has risen. That's a good thing. That the rate of "first generation" students is falling is because the number of people left neither of whose parents went to university is falling generation on generation. That's also a good thing. But the money has to come from somewhere, and asking the diminishing pool of people who don't go to university to underwrite something that is both improving of your lifetime earnings and (snobbery alert) makes you a better person is unreasonable.

True Amothers, but luckily we have 2 excellent universities, 3 mediocre and one that has specialised areas of brillaince within a sensible drive.

So they can stay with us and commute over if they should wish.

"Yep, that's what happened to my cousin this year: A's at A Level, garde A music, plays in a band, volunteered at hospital for eyars, DofE.... no offers. nobody has a clue why, feedback is just that it is a competitive subject."

Almost without exception, it's because people apply only to the highest-rated universities and because they're a monoculture, they all look at the applications in the same way. People who apply to Oxford, Durham, Warwick, LSE, Bristol, UCL (to cite an example of a friend of my daughter) are cruising for a bruising, because (a) the chances are they'll all say yes or they'll all say no and (b) even if more than one gives you an offer, they'll be at the same level and therefore leave no room for error come June of Y13.

In "our" day, you applied to universities and polys separately, and (if you were so minded) teacher training separately yet again, so by definition you have a range of offers. I was holding offers ranging from BBC to DE in 1983, my OH ranging from BBB to EE. It's a mystery to me why schools advise/permit children to make this sort of application.

Yep Tokyo, that's what we think probably did it- kid had never failed at anything, his brotehr sailed into uni with same grades and Grammar background, so he aimed too high and didn;t build a safety net.

I only graduated 2 yerars ago (was an older student not a young parent LOL), and I was lucky as I did apply to high and low, and when high became impossible due to family circs I could take low, which though not quite the dream, was better than giving up (and got me ontp the same career route ultimately).

But I think you need to hit a few failures to know that they happen to real people tbh.

tokyonambu I am the first person in my family to ever go to university. I am sure my family would be dismissed by most mumsnetters as trash. I doubt I would have gone if there were fees. I did go, I now pay a fair wack of tax ( not on Xenia style although I did for a while) and work in the public sector.

My husband would also have never gone to university if her had not had help. Not only is he the first person in his family to go to university he is probably the first not to have a criminal record or have an addiction problem.

We now provide a stable loving home for our daughter and we are happy to pay for her to go to university, pay our higher rate of tax etc. If we had not gone to university we could not have escaped our backgrounds. I suspect it has saved both of our lives.

My family were furious that I went to university, they could not understand why I just did not want to go out to work. They saw it as laziness. It took a lot of arguing and a willingness to practically prostitute myself to pay for it. Having to pay huge fees, even in the future, would have been the last straw.

Tokyambu,

Anyone who applies to Oxobridge, with Durham, Bristol and LSE as their insurance is plain daft even these days. My two kids were told to make sure their insurance offer was just that - ie lower than their first choice and attainable.

I find it odd that everyone aged 18 is encouraged to go to Uni (any uni any degree) and the at 21 employers just want 2:1s or above from the top univeristies. Where is the logic in that?

I think the days of these "post 1992" universities are numbered. They'll be a flash in the pan, they'll wither away. "Remember the University of the RoundtheCornerfromtheChinese?" conversations will be heard.

Because who on earth will want to get into huge debt to emerge from a tenth rate institution with a silly degree? I certainly wouldn't let my dcs set off on the road to ruin (or, in reality, my financial ruin).

I think the days will return when you can enter a decent job with A Levels. You'll be able to join the local paper as a cub reporter, or work as a nurse and quite sensibly train on the job.

So on the one hand fees might provide a correction in this qualifications "arms race" in recent years.

On the other hand, it'll be damned unfair if someone whose parents earn £35K get no help to study Physics, but someone from a poorer home can study Sports Massage Therapy for free.

My DSs both of whom will be at Uni this year, get monthly allowance from both sets of grandparents. For this we and they are v grateful. Older one is dyslexic so it's too hard for him to work at Uni (but works in holidays) with younger one we will see but has job in Xmas hols lined up.

We are v lucky that grandparents help out and that our boys are their only two grandchildren! Grandparents are happy to help out as better than giving it to the Govtwhen they are gone. Both boys still have loans though. DS2's annual hall of residence charge (catered) is £1000 more than his mainentance loan. He had no choice but to apply for this catered option (too identifying to explain) at this Uni.

We suggested that they did not apply for London Unis as accommodation is the most expensive in London and they agreed.

"My family were furious that I went to university, they could not understand why I just did not want to go out to work. They saw it as laziness. "

But in the 1980s, anyone whose parents earned more than a pittance was reliant on their parents paying their maintenance, and in order to get the grant you had to fill in a means test. If they refused to declare they finances, you couldn't go. End of. Without that form you couldn't get the fees paid either. So parents could simply refuse to let their children go to university, even if it wouldn't have cost them anything. My example was someone who wanted to do something else but was forced into medicine, ending up with a PhD in computer science much later having wasted ten years in medicine, but I also have school contemporaries whose parents had similar attitude to yours but were able to exercise a complete veto.

The current scheme has many failings, but at least an 18 year old can go to university without their parents having right of veto.

The article also talks about cuts to University funding of two-thirds and doing away with funding for teaching in the humanities altogether.

Those are the things that caught my eye.

Yes I suppose so tokyo.
Yes the humanities funding caught my eye as well.

If these changes do take place then no-body has to actual pay these tuition fees, it should be down to the student once they get a job or are parents with the money expecting their 'children' to get a degree that won't lead to anything.

Asked DD what she thought and she said well 3 grand or 10 I will pay it back once I get my career going so it's not going to put me off. Bless her.

"The article also talks about cuts to University funding of two-thirds and doing away with funding for teaching in the humanities altogether."

That's not the end result, though. Every pound that goes onto tuition fees is a pound that can come off central funding without altering a university's income. All this really is is an exercise in off-balance sheet funding; universities being funded through top-up fees (ie, right now, out the student loans guarantee scheme) rather than through hefce block grants (ie, the government current account) is a sleight of hand, akin to PFI. The cash flows down exactly the same route, but the vague promise of repayment in twenty years time makes it politically acceptable.

At the moment, teaching is funded through a block grant, through fees paid on a per-student basis and through top-up fees. The effect of "doing away with funding for teaching" is to move from the university being funded to exist to the funding following the students. So long as the entry requirement to do English at the strong institutions in AAA (institutions which asked for BCC in the 1980s) there's no shortage of people willing to pay for the qualification. Conversely, places which struggle to fill their places rely on the central funding. What seems to be being mooted at the moment is moving closer to the US system, where universities are essentially private institutions reliant upon students being willing to pay. There are arguments in both directions, but it's not as though Harvard and Yale are weak institutions, is it?

*I think the days of these "post 1992" universities are numbered. They'll be a flash in the pan, they'll wither away. "Remember the University of the RoundtheCornerfromtheChinese?" conversations will be heard.

Because who on earth will want to get into huge debt to emerge from a tenth rate institution with a silly degree? *

Couldn't agree more. Howevver I think it a great shame that the former Polys had to become unis though. As polys mamy offered very good vocational sandwiwch courses.

"Couldn't agree more. Howevver I think it a great shame that the former Polys had to become unis though. As polys mamy offered very good vocational sandwiwch courses."

And because many would argue that CNAA validated degrees were stronger than some of their university cousins.

Of course, "ex poly" is at the upper end of the post-92 universities. There was a competition in the Times Higher at the time to identify the institution that made the biggest jump in the least time to end up as a university. A big, well established Poly in a university town is one thing to move to a university; it would have been doing degrees, subject to CNAA accreditation and CNAA quinquennial reviews, for twenty or more years, and had close links to the local universities. An ex teacher training college or college of FE in the middle of nowhere: how's it going to do it? How many of them are currently places anyone would send their child to if they had an option? The point is that "we" know that, but a lot of people - first generation students - are accumulating a lot of debt to get degrees that are close to worthless from institutions that are universities in name only, and that's a tragedy.

It's not like the 60s with the rivers of capital thrown at places like UEA or UKC or Warwick to provide university places for the baby boomer, staffed by the huge surge of people who went to university in the 1950s on the back of '44 act and the post-war funding (Warwick, for example, has a fabulous maths department that was set up by a diaspora from Oxford who realised they wouldn't get promotions until the incumbents died). You can fill in your choice of places here, and it would be invidious to name them, but they're ex colleges of FE with no research record, limited library facilities, a massive preponderance of "vocational" degrees that scream "why isn't this an HND?" and the generally spinning out over three years of less than years' material.

And when you talk about this, you're accused of snobbery, and expected to believe that a degree from somewhere that less than twenty years ago probably taught nothing beyond ONDs - in most areas, HNC and above were moved into Polys - is worth the same (because after all, it cost the student the same) as a degree from Oxford or LSE or Manchester. Worth in any way: academically, financially, personally. It's a con, perpetrated on the unknowing.

"and the general spinning out over three years of less than three years' material. "

I think it varied Gramercy; DH's course is well regarded in his field at an otherwise unremarkable university; my former uni has also acquired a good rep (and is massively expanding) in a very specific field (not mine, am not delusional, but that's OK as my MA will get me where I need to be).

I think the sensible new universities have done that; devevloped a specialism that will keep them going. Idaresay others will fall by the wayside though.

There will be plenty of colleges offering degree level courses in the way that very decent FE colleges such as Bridgwater already do. Anyone with a sense of nouse but a need to stay regional will simply do what I have done and chuck an MA on top of the degree to get where they want. Longer perhaps, but if the job you want is grad entry only, and you are restricted in where you can live, there is always a way.

''Anyone with a sense of nouse but a need to stay regional will simply do what I have done and chuck an MA on top of the degree to get where they want.''

This is the strategy kids in developing countries use - many in my family have done so.

I was also one whose family were not amused by my going to university but did sign the necesary form for my grant approval. That was end of the 70s - my highest offer was for 3CCCs from my alma mater UCL. Ah, those were the days!

I have been seriously thinking how on earth we can get even half the money together to put dd through university. Dh will have retired and we will just have finished the mortguage. And our pensions are just about adequate for us to support the two of us.

I'm hoping something favourably radical will have happened by then.

I'm also hearing many tales of kids applying for all top universities instead of having insurance offers. Even I had insurance offers back in the day you hardly needed such a thing - it was understood that there were a bunch of places you could only put first.

If the money follows the students then good places where teenagers want to go will do better. That's probably a good thing. Already we have a situation where the weaker places have massive drop out levels which is such a waste.

(As for my children I don't want to be too identifying as they are all student age or just beyond. I think they'll do okay but I'm not sure I have contacts or could procure someone a job. Presumably it's a a bit naff to do that. You want them to get where they get on their own steam. The oldest one just applied to 3 places and got something. I had no hand in that at all. And yes I know there is the welfare state if I fell on bad times. I just meant I don't have an employer paying me and if I let up / chose not to work or was sick then the employer is not there paying me nor when I'm on holiday. I have to generate everything and it's a contniuous thing and it's huge fun. I sometimes feel I get paid to solve puzzles and problems. I'm very lucky to like what I do and I hope all the children end up feeling the same. Then work isn't a pain but a life enhancing pleasure thing.)

We only have one child, and as dh retires two terms before he finishes A2s in 2014, there will be a lump sum available to pay his fees upfront. The rest he will have to do on loans, or it will come from income if dh gets another job (he has to retire at 53), or if we move back to UK I'll go back to work to fund him.

I am worried about the rumoured withdrawal of humanities funding. I also agree that 50% should not go to University - we are encouraging students who cannot cut it at AS and A2 to go and then drop out.