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.

I'm not sure that I would agree with the view that universities are underfunded. They have received a lot of research funding in recent years (according to DH, much of the research in his area done by top ranking universities is poor and sloppy) but teaching resources are definitely not so great.
DS1 has just gone back to a highly regarded RG university to take a taught masters course and told me how the (overwhelmingly overseas and high fee paying) students found there were insufficient seats for them in the lecture theatre (£10k to sit on the stairs to take notes?)
DS2 has just started at a middle of the road university and we will be interested to see what he makes of teaching and contact time there.

The Forces don't have the money to pay many bursaries now. My dh had his degree paid for by the RN, and is coming to the end of what will be a 36 year career in which he has had the opportunity to go to sea and use state of the art kit to do his job. He has also gained an MA and a great deal of transferable experience and skills.

Some want to join the Armed Forces and do so in the full knowledge of what it entails and relish the opportunities they are given. It's not just about killing people - or being killed; I'm sick to the back teeth of people peddling this line.

Have just got in from work ...

In the introductory handout I wrote today (lectures start next week) I included: "We expect students to attend tutorials having read the materials set out in the tutorial sheet and for students to be prepared to discuss the questions and to raise any concerns they may have".

Oh how we laughed. If only.

I remain wholly opposed to fees or tax if it comes to that - I cannot see why we would tax education - are A'levels next? But sometimes students are their own worst enemy. Some are fabulous, energetic and delightful human beings. But at least half never say hello or utter a word in classes or in the corridor. They don't read or engage in the material in any meaningful way. Maybe something does have to change.

If it wasn't for the Army I wouldn't have made it through university. Joining OTC allowed me to make some money, be fed twice a week and take part in activities for free that I would never have thought able to do (e.g. deep sea diving in Plymouth and Egypt). I decided not to join because, for me, joining the Army to sit behind a desk seemed rather dumb.

I dislike the adverts for the Army because they do not advertise the wonderful training opportunities offered.

It's not just about killing people - or being killed; I'm sick to the back teeth of people peddling this line.

With respect that is their main purpose.

Oh to hell with it! I'm gonna get my kids to rack up huge debts but only earn below the pay back threshold and aim for as many benefits they can get. Simples.

why do people think university education should be free or highly subsidised? look at other countries, such as the US. There is a thriving system that manages to educate people from all walks of life, with a mix of private, public and endowment funding.

people just get on with it instead of moaning.

Could it be because we pay higher taxes than in the US so expect a bit more in return. No-one is saying it should be free, happyish with the current level, and a bit of a helping hand.

"Could it be because we pay higher taxes than in the US "

It's not clear we actually do, though. US income and sales tax plus health insurance equivalent to the NHS costs, for most people, around the same as UK taxation. The US is cheaper for the rich, because they don't pay a proportion of their income, rather a fixed premium, for their health insurance. It's much more expensive for the poor, because that same premium is a massive chunk of their income (or they don't have it, which means they get ill and stay ill).

And it's also not clear why people who don't go to university should write an open cheque to fund those that do. You can make some arguments around teachers, doctors and suchlike benefitting us all, but if Araminta wants to study Byzantine Archaeology, should Chelsay have to fund it out of her minimum wage job?

Not sure the American system is something to aspire to on many levels though...

It's not just about killing people - or being killed; I'm sick to the back teeth of people peddling this line.

It is NOT their main purpose. The defence of the realm is their main purpose and that does not always mean killing.

'Among British students, 58 per cent of undergraduates were from state schools and 42 per cent were from the fee-paying sector, even though fewer than one-in-10 children nationally are privately educated.'

telegraph

Litchick. Yes perhaps the courses to cost more than that. But I don't think students should have to pay for them. More and more jobs want you to have a degree but if fees go up then less young people will be able to get into uni and so will have even more difficulty getting a job,
By the way both DH and I pay taxes as do most parents of young peeple going to unversity. So if taxpayers are paying for this education that means all the parnts are paying for thier childs higher education as well as having to help them out at uni.

NotanOtter - presume you are talking about Oxford or Cambridge - figures for other RG/1994 group universities tend to have at least 70% from state schools and other universities have an even greater percentage of state school educated students.

lilymaid - no that was a quote from telegraph about students- not oxbridge students

lilymaid oh you might be right !

I think there are several themes going on here.

Should one only go to university to gain a degree which helps one get a 'job' or should there be an argument for 'learning for learning's sake' in subjects which are not particularly vocational (eg Business Studies v English lit)?

Personally, I wanted my DCs to go to university for a variety of reasons, not just to secure a 'top' job at the end of it.

Also privately educated students are disproportionally represented at the top universities mainly because they are taught to pass the present A levels at the top grades, not because they are intrinsically more intelligent. Depressing but true.

"But I don't think students should have to pay for them. More and more jobs want you to have a degree but if fees go up then less young people will be able to get into uni and so will have even more difficulty getting a job,"

But qualifications are an arms race. You don't need 3As at A Level to do a Russell Group degree, not least because (a) almost no-one did in the past and no-one's claiming that degree standards have risen and (b) few of the profs will have A Levels remotely like their students' (based on how rare 3As were thirty years ago).

Same with degrees. You don't need a degree to do many jobs. But if there's an over supply of people with degrees, you may as well: it's some sort of imprimatur, of sticking at something for three years if nothing else. If degrees become less common, employers will have to cut their coat accordingly.

"Are there not less expensive schools you can go to? "

At the moment, no. But in best Labour tradition, they've managed to produce a system that has all the things that are wrong with the market, without any of the things that are good about it.

By capping the fees artificially low, and offering universal loans for the total amount, for practical purposes every institution is able to charge the maximum (does anyone know of a degree-granting institution that doesn't charge maximum fees for home undergraduates?) So long as people regard the loans as a long-term never-never debt (and I realise that there are people who are dissuaded from going to university, but not enough to mean there isn't huge pressure on places, so it alters the balance rather than the total size of the cohort) the fees cease to be relevant so long as you can borrow the money. It's like house prices during the madness: no-one looked at the absolute size of the debt, so long as they could get a mortgage to cover it, so dropping interest rates drove house prices up to keep repayments constant.

This knocks on in turn to living costs, which are much higher than the figures you cite because every degree granting institution places pressure on housing in the surrounding area and drives prices up.

Suppose for the sake of argument the government set the cap on top-up fees at £10K or, indeed, removed the cap entirely. Clearly, the University of Nowhere is not going to be able to charge the same as the LSE any more. Now socially, that's a bad thing: it deprives the less affluent (or less willing to take on debt) of opportunity.

On the other hand, it will force out into the open the institutions whose degrees are arguably poor value for money even at the current costs (which isn't the LSE, let's face it). It also probably reduces student housing costs, because ultimately there isn't an infinite amount of money in the system and people trying to charge £500/mo for a room will find that even posh daddy is looking hard at £20K/yr fees+rent+living costs.

I think one of the failings of the current scheme is not that people end up owing £30K for good degrees. Those degrees are either worth that directly, or they are a life experience that's worth paying for. No, I think the problem is that people end up owing £30K for degrees that are of limited worth on every front, exactly the same as the people who win the lottery of life and get into the good places. Raising the cost of the best qualifications will enhance their value, which makes them more worth borrowing money for (I find this "less affluent are unwilling to borrow money" a bit 1930s: isn't one of the economic problems precisely that people are too willing to borrow money), whilst probably driving down the cost of more modest qualifications.

As social policy, it's shit, and requires the imposition of a good system of full grants for the less well off (which I think will probably happen). But at a nuts and bolt level of economics, it makes sense as a better way to manage demand.

I haven't read this whole thread but I wanted to add (in case nobody else has) that the Browne report is not only expected to make all these charges, but is expected to force universities to cut their budgets by at least 25%. Of course it's a time of austerity but universities are one of the few areas where we are truly world class in this country, and universities are very important for the economy - they support local economies both by bringing in students and through the work their academics do, often in the local area (in mine there is an important literary festival open to the public, an art gallery of national importance again open to the public and filled with free events run by academics who are world experts in their fields, and scientists from the university do really important work with local farmers, on coastal erosion, and so on, just to name three). Our academics in this country use their expertise to make great television programmes and to shape our culture through media work, exhibitions, and museums, for instance. Along with the social and economic benefits universities bring to their local areas and to the culture as a whole (and aside from training and educating studnets) they also bring in lots of money from overseas students, and through bids for research funding. This will all be seriously jeopardised by forcing students to pay extortionate fees and at the same time by forcing universities to make drastic cuts.

Not in agreement with the OP about the free market. Some things should be above the demands of the market in my view - some scientific research, for one (a lot of which goes on at unis), and education for another. I say this as someone brought up on free school meals and benefits and who still has to pinch herself that she was able to go to uni. Makes me angry

Anyway, rant over! Might as well wait to see what happens in the report.

Ooh thelastresort I agree. Anyway Business Studies isn't necessarily better training for the workplace than English Lit - both will require hard work, intellectual effort, etc, and English Lit requires reading dense and complicated texts (good for professions like law, for instance), learning to construct intellectually sound arguments, critical and analytical thinking, and develops communication skills, to name but a few. It may not prepare you for a specific job but it's a worthwhile activity in itself and will give you a whole range of skills valued by employers. A lot of stuff you can learn on the job later anyway, if you're bright and you've stretched yourself at university and you're good at learning. English can do that too.

Plus, English is a vocational degree if you become an academic, a literary critic, a teacher, a writer, a journalist, or a librarian, for instance (even though for some of them you will have to do a one-year add-on). But it's not if, like many English Lit graduates, you become a lawyer, a management consultant, a banker, a lobbyist, a social worker, an administrator, a civil servant, or a politician, etc. But then neither would science be vocational for any of those careers, and nor would Business Studies for many of them.

So study for the best degree you can get at the best university you can get into, and have the best time you can. Then, even if you end up earning the same wage you would have done before hand chances are you won't regret it.

I hope this report takes into account that many nurses, teachers, social workers, etc, most of whom need degrees to do their useful and necessary jobs, do NOT earn more than plenty of plumbers, builders, and hairdressers, for instance, who do not need degrees to do their (also useful and necessary) jobs. So they shouldn't be penalised for having studied. Study gives you options, experiences and resources for future life but it doesn't guarantee you a high wage.

The problem with fees and loans is that they are means tested. This meant that when I graduated and had to move away from home to take up my job, earning £18k I had to pay back almost £12k because my parents happened to earn enough- although they didn't pay for my debt. My friend graduated in the same subject, lived at with her parents paying a perpercorn rent, and got a job with a starting salary of over £30k. She didn't have to pay back a penny because of her parents' income. How is that fair?

Personally, I think a tax of 1 or 2% for everybody who attends university, for life is far fairer. If it is applied immediately you never notice it, as you know nothing else. And, if the LibDems learnt some basic mathematical principles, someone earning £40k would pay back twice as much as someone earning £20k without the need to tax at a higher percentage for certain degrees. This way universities can be fully funded and people aren't penalised for choosing the "wrong" degree. Arts degrees often lead to a lower income, but cost less to teach than science based subjects.

The arguement that this pushes people to go and work abroad is defunct, as people working abroad don't repay their loans unless they return to work in the UK. For foreign students you could charge the fees upfront, as happens at the moment and then have the option of taxes afterwords if they work in the uk.

tokyanbu - you're making lots of good points (although I am smarting at the one about Profs A level grades - personally I did but I wouldn't want to say for certain they all did). You may be right but I will say that it is widely believed that A level standards have gone down. We run lots of remedial classes now that were just not needed years ago.

But the problem is that quite often it is the rich kids (particularly international students) who are unbelievably unmotivated. By creating a market where richer kids are able to access the most expensive education more easily I am convinced standards will come down not up. The effects on their peers are tangible.

Market economics is perfect for widgets - where each is the same - but university degrees are not all the same. If you're bright but not wealthy the difference in fees of say £3k at Uni down the road v. £7k at RG will feel significant and less affluent families will be less able to read the subtleties of each university which translate into the professional job market.