Cutting fees to £6000 would help the richest graduates?

[Figmentofmyimagination]

I was intrigued by radio 4s "more or less" programme last week, looking at the tuition fee statistics. It was an eye opener for me to learn that because of the low number of students expected to pay their loan off in full - and fewer women than men over the 30 years - milliband's proposal to cut tuition fees to £6,000 would only benefit the richest graduates - and quite a small proportion at that.

The system is such an unbelievable mess. With such a low number projected to pay back their fees, where is the money going to come from in real terms?

Agree with all your points Bonsoir, including the language-not-being-the-only-stumbling-block to international take up in continental Europe, but I was responding to Word's implication those universities are not held in high regard - many are. And language is undoubtedly a factor.

For sure there is some excellent HE available in Europe outside the UK. I do think that, generally speaking, UK universities makes the information gathering and application process incredibly user-friendly in a way that not many other countries have even begun to understand.

molio it had been a Labour Party policy to widen access to tertiary education throughout the seventies and eighties.

I recall listening to John Predcot making a speech on just this issue in 1984.

He talked about the working classes no longer leaving tertiary education to the middle classes.

When Blair finally won the election it became a reality.

But obviously the huge expansion of the universities was very costly.

And of course there are well respected universities outside the UK.

But internationally it is the UK and the US that are still considered the gold standard.

Given the £££ involved in the industry that is University UK we can't allow that reputation to fall away.

So where will the shortfall come from if Labour reduce tuition fees?

I cannot see them reducing numbers of places.

But internationally it is the UK and the US that are still considered the gold standard.

That is far too simplistic a statement.

I'm not saying it's even deserved bonsoir

But we have been very successful here in the UK at selling our tertiary education to outsiders.
More successful than anywhere except the states.

This is an industry built on reputation as much as anything and so that rep must be protected.

I'm aware of the policy Word, because as you've pointed out elsewhere (and one of the very few correct things you've said about me :)) I'm olden days too! It's a bit simple though, and of course we were classless by the time Tony Blair did his stuff.

Classless? Good one!

I believe John Prescott declared it to be so, didn't he? I don't buy it either, obviously - I think in some ways we are more class ridden than ever. I certainly see it all the time in my professional life (perhaps because I 'don't belong' - I suspect that a lot of it is so unconscious that it passes over the heads of my posh colleagues even while they are acting out their class determined roles...)

I think fewer people identify themselves as working class but that doesn't mean they're not!

Call them what you like. The working class. The children of those working manually, the not middle classes, the first generation to be educated. ...

These are the people for who the universities were expanded ( by and large). These are the young people who put their bums on the seats.

And Blair was left with a stark alternative; introduce fees or reduce numbers.

I just don't agree! There is a high concentration of good universities in the UK but they aren't some sort of gold standard on which other education systems model themselves and aspire to emulate.

I didn't say other educations systems are trying to emulate us.

Nor did I say we don't have some terrible institutions here.

But we have successfully built our brand.

"Gold standard" (your wording) means just that!

Those questioning TheWordFactory maybe don't remember the times when only 10-15% of people went to university. Mostly not 'working class'. And mostly not female. We're only talking about the 1970s -- within living memory.

£9k doesn't cover the real cost of a university education, and the British system is, as Word says gold standard or used to be. £9k is cheap for what students get, actually.

Now we have taxpayers/parents/students demanding more & more, but not being prepared to pay for it. Because they have no idea of its real value.

I went to Uni in the 70s where there were plenty of women and working class students. I think it was the golden age for going to uni - tuition fees paid by the state, maintenance grant which was means tested but you could set up a coventant to pay the parental contribution. And when two were there together the parental contribution was split between them.

Word I think you may just not know which European universities are held in high regard in academia but there are a fair few. Trouble is, it's hard enough to study some subjects without attempting to study them in Polish say, or German, when you've no acquaintance with the language. For example the idea of Physics and Philosophy has always done my head in when contemplating it in my own language, but the idea of doing it in a European language moves me into meltdown. The fact is that English is the second language of choice for most internationals taking up places at UK unis. And then there's all the other stuff about entrance that Bonsoir has pointed out. I'm not sure we should get too cocky. Part of it's down to luck, or Empire (as was).

Yes the classless thing isn't serious although there was a weak attempt to persuade us that we were all middle class together, one and all. But I thought comps would have sorted out all the issues by the time TB brought this in. They'd been around long enough, after all. So no wc kid should have been missing out. It was simples.

Anyone who has contributed to this thread needs to read the article which almost certainly started it - I'm a bit surprised it's not been referred to before now (but, hey, it is from the Torygraph, and this is Mumsnet, so maybe not that surprising...):

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11408555/Raising-tuition-fees-is-paying-off-for-everyone-except-Nick-Clegg.html

DS's closest friend is currently Ivy League-ing with even his termly airfares paid, as he is very bright & very poor. Imagine if the brightest children found they could go to Oxbridge for free, or Kiel for £9k pa...

Actually article [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31028467]] on the BBC website predates it by several days. But hey, Torygraph readers don't like the BBC do they, so I suppose you missed it.

Don't know what happened with that link www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31028467

Maybe wicked Torygraph types hexed it...

Actually, being a bit of an internationalist, my No 1 news source is Al-Jazeera - but A-J is not so good on English education .

Outrageous. What are they thinking