Tuition fees

[stoatsrevenge]

So we are to expect a massive increase in university tuition fees, as well as increasing interest ib student loans...

Here is the 6 year plan from the LibDem manifesto:

1
Scrap fees for final year full-time students

2
Begin regulating part-time fees

3
Part time fees become regulated and fee loans become available to part time students

4
Expand free tuition to all full-time students apart from first year undergraduates

5
Expand free tuition to all part-time students apart from first year undergraduates

6
Scrap tuition fees for all first degree students

How are they going to square this one?

"I would think that what you're missing is the fact that the staff are employed full time and will be working on projects/research when the students aren't there. Which presumably means the tuition fees will subsidise this? Or maybe that's totally wrong. Does anyone actually know?"

For science and engineering departments, the funding for research comes from elsewhere, either the EPSRC or their moral equivalent, or industry, or other government sources, or assorted trusts and funds. For humanities departments, it's more diffuse, and may be done by top-slicing teaching money.

" I would seriosuly hope that if university were to cost so much then it would no longer be stretched out into a ridiculous 3-4 year life experiment and they could start having classes 5 days a week."

Degrees were shrunk to two years (and medicine to three or four) in 1939--1946. I don't think anyone suggests it hurt the standards of teaching. However, if you do this, research by lecturers stops stone dead.

A glance at our engineering timetables shows that they're doing 25 hours a week of lectures in year 3, plus a ten hour per week project load. The issue there is the length of terms, not the hours in the week.

I am an Oxbridge graduate who went into teaching, so if there were fees I may have paid 30k in fees and gone on to earn a teachers wage. 30k over 30 years is £1k a year , would I pay that in recognition if all that my degree has given me, hell yes. Even with interest that is about £100 a month. A new teacher could do that, it may be a stretch but within six years they will be on 30k. Quite frankly if you are an Oxbridge graduate and you do not move up the payscale quickly something has gone wrong.

This is the students debt, if you wish to pay it yourself that is your own free choice.

I guess what will happen is that the top universities will charge a lot and their students will be roughly:

a) those with the confidence and drive to be reasonably sure they can deal with a large loan
b)those clever enough to get scholarships (oxbridge took poor bright lads like my dad in the 30s. I don't know if they give scholarships now but I'm sure they will under this regime - they want the best brains not mere cash)
c)those with brains and rich(or prudent thrifty middle class who've predicted this and saved for years) but not necessarily confidence.

The bright but poorer and less confident will find places at less expensive universities.

Its not totally fair but neither is it a total disaster.

Tokyo - why does the government have to cut science funding anyway? Particularly as it appears that this country is already rather light in that department.

I can remember my own father being paid extra to teach courses - he saw his main job as the research department. If we could do it then why can't we do it now?

Grimma Oxford colleges do still give scholarships, one of my DS friends is in that situation. However I do think it is a total disaster. I can afford to help my children but many others will be completely put off - how does this help?

"Tokyo - why does the government have to cut science funding anyway? Particularly as it appears that this country is already rather light in that department."

I don't think I said it did have to. Although it has to be said that the relationship between the amount of money spent in departments and the amount of money that benefits the country may not be obvious.

"I can remember my own father being paid extra to teach courses - he saw his main job as the research department. If we could do it then why can't we do it now?"

That wasn't the usual arrangement, though.

I don't agree with the assertions that Science is poorly paid. Maybe some is, but it is a choice to go into those areas. Most is very well paid.

I think the starting salary at my DH's company is now in the region of £30k for a BSc/MSc.

It was a medical school

Tokyo - I think I was trying to point out that you could have considered that aspect in your analysis.

From what I can remember up until the late 90's it was common to be paid extra for teaching.

I agree a graduate from Oxbridge, can just about pick their wage, it is no different for science . There are low paid areas but if you choose them.

I think before anyone is allowed to go to university they should have to sit an exam on compound interest. After all it would be irresponsible to let someone take on that much debt unless you were sure they understood the facts

So what's the situation to be in Scotland? Surely the free fees will have to be stopped or else people will be moving there if they stand to save £30K.

This is still so shabby, I can agree that it is possible that not all degrees are the most suitable courses for young people, but the fear of debt is huge, you only have to talk to children who are 'deciding' rather than students who have already 'jumped' and are supporting their decisions. It can not but reduce the pool of intelligent young people seeking to develop themselves. Ah well do we see a return to the 'gentleman's third' then.

I feel quite upset about this.

The problem at the moment is the uncertainty - DD2 is applying for university now and so the new tuition fees will come into effect in her second year. She will have already chosen the university without knowing what they will charge for the remaining two years of her course. Also I think that kids need good advice more than ever at the moment about their choices. My DD's school has given no advice whatsoever on what course to apply to and where. I wonder if they would say anything if someone was making a completely mad choice.

"It was a medical school"

Which is a whole other world, of course, where a lot of people were employed on NHS medical budgets in the hospital and then did extra work in the attached med school. People employed as lecturers in departments weren't paid extra to lecture; people employed to perform medical jobs who did a bit of lecturing in sessions they could equally have done private work may well have been.

"but the fear of debt is huge"

Ah, that's why the rise in house prices was met by resistance from people unwilling to pay the prices being demanded, which led inexorably to a fall in house prices throughout the last decade. No, wait...

That explains why over the last decade the retail market evaporated because of the general refusal to purchase things on credit, especially long-term credit secured on things like mortgages. No, wait...

The "fear of debt" appears to be invoked selectively. The debt mountain of the last decade was piled up by people (a) borrowing against the value of their houses, even though they had sodding great mortgages and (b) spending money they hadn't got on credit cards on things they didn't need, like flash holidays and new cars, because the notional rise in the value of their house made them think they could afford it. Why is borrowing to get an education so horrific, when people borrow insane amounts of money (see every Bridezilla Thread, passim) in order to piss it up the wall at a flashy marriage?

" My DD's school has given no advice whatsoever on what course to apply to and where."

Browne has, to his credit, covered that in his report, page 28. ``Every school will be required to make individualised careers advice available to its pupils. The advice will be delivered by certified professionals who are well informed, benefit from continued training and professional development and whose status in schools is respected and valued. Similar careers advice will be available to older people as well.''

Webwiz: I'm pretty sure the tuition fees will only come into effect for new students not existing ones.

Certainly that is the way it has worked in the past. When I went to university in 1998 even those who had applied a year earlier and deferred entry completed their course with grants and no fees alongside the rest of us who had no grants and paid fees.

1. Sorry Tokyo - I was there, perhaps you weren't. I also remember other friends both of my father and my own in other science departments being paid. Just to clarify - if you lectured to another department, you were paid. Then it changed to your department being paid in the early nineties.

1. Sorry Tokyo - I am here, so are you. Why are you being so gung-ho about this? I can see that you may feel unworried by debt but other people do. They just do, especially a child who finds such sums HUGE.

I do not accept that your examples are valid for these reasons:

People want somewhere to live, there is not an alternative, renting is difficult for our national psyche. Consequently they are prepared to pay what they think they have to.

Do you really think anyone wants to pay a huge mortgage?

Credit cards were heavily advertised to a population who did not perhaps entirely understand that interest rates might rise/or indeed that inflation would fall so that debt became in some sense permanent. The experience of their parents was that debt would be eroded by inflation.

I remain unconvinced.

Sorry my upset is making me ungrammatical I meant to say 'other people do worry. They just do ...'

Browne has, to his credit, covered that in his report, page 28. ``Every school will be required to make individualised careers advice available to its pupils. The advice will be delivered by certified professionals who are well informed, benefit from continued training and professional development and whose status in schools is respected and valued. Similar careers advice will be available to older people as well.''

This is the big elephant in the room if you ask me, students at 18 are pushed into university when vocational course could get them exactly the same career if the student knew what career they were aiming for in the first place.
Isn't it currently 60% of graduates that aren't using their degree at all, that seems madness and I believe admission tutors asking for evidence that the career has been thought through and planned. I've heard that mentioned at 2 open days this year.

A good and relevant point Riven

'if you lectured to another department, you were paid."

Which isn't quite what you said, is it?

" renting is difficult for our national psyche"

OK, let's accept arguendo that somehow large amounts of debt on houses are a special sort of debt, which people treat differently. What proportion of cars do you think are bought for cash, and what proportion on credit? Big weddings? Long-haul holidays? Extensions? Kitchens? Bathrooms?