Tuition Fees

[KateMumsnet]

As you've probably heard, the government has announced changes to the way universities are funded, and this means that, starting in 2012, the amount that students will be expected to pay for university tuition will rise to a maximum of £9000 per year. Here's the BBC's story.

We thought we'd test the water to see if there was a strong consensus on this issue amongst MNers, so do let us know what you think. Whether you're for or agin', it would be very useful if you could indicate (briefly!) your reasoning.

Those of you who are firmly against the changes might like to know that there will be a rally for students, future students and their families, on Horse Guards Avenue SW1 at 11:30am tomorrow, Wednesday 10th November. The event is organised by the NUS and supported by the British Youth Council, which includes organisations like the Scouts, the Woodcraft Folk, and St John Ambulance.

Im opposed to the huge leap in tuition fees. I believe that students should be responsible for some of the funding but this increase is far to much. Students who would have prospered under a university education, and given back to society, will now not attend.

The government talk about helping children from the poorest families but what about the families that are not considered "poor" these families are quite desperate for their children not to to through life with such a huge debt. This is particularly galling as many of the politicians who seem to rubbing their hands in glee are the same ones who benefitted from tuition free HE.Perhaps the hidden agenda is that University is only for the "boys"

well i guess if all else fails the country can import skilled people from indian like they are with the IT specialists - so doesn't really matter if our kids don't get degrees.

Totally against. I went to Oxford in the very first year of tuition fees, and saw so many former private school students whose parents paid their fees/maintenance, AND took the loans out, stashed them away in high-interest savings accounts for the duration and actually made money out of the system.

Although I was from a comprehensive school and from a single parent family (mum earned approx £20k) we didn't qualify for any financial help from government or university. Finally paid off my loan this year, aged 30. Over that time it reduced the mortgage deals I was offered by thousands.

How will a cost of £9000 for tuition alone EVER seem acceptable for a family on an income of £20k? Plus Oxford and Cambridge are very expensive cities to live in. It will definitely put people off.

Well I have to stick my head above the parapet here and say that I am in favour of these fees.

I work in a University and can see that the fees situation will force the institutions to give better value for money and be more professional and reasonable in their dealings with students, and more accountable to the students themselves. This must be a good thing. It is just bringing a fusty, backwards looking sector in line with the real world.

The same students who are protesting about this are the ones who think nothing of taking a year out to travel the world with the cost implications that this brings, and in alot of cases piss money up the wall every Saturday night.

I studied as a mature student and had to pay every penny of my college and Uni fees, no grants, no funding and what I learnt was still worth it, and is still worth it now that I am paying it back.

IMO you get back what you put in - those students who go to Uni and earn enough to pay back what they have borrowed will be earning reasonable money and making the most of their learning. Those who don't earn a reasonable salary won't have to pay it back anyway, so where is the problem? This argument applies to all - rich, poor, middle class or working class. Maybe I'm seeing it too simplistically but I know that you'll put me right if you think this is the case!

I'm broadly against this, but I don't think it's really an obvious Mumsnet campaign.

I'm for these changes. It will lead to a decline in the third tier universities which frankly weren't teaching all that good degrees in the first place (surf science anyone?)

Repayment of fees will always be an issue, but I earn more because I'm a graduate and yes I pay more tax as a result of that. But universities currently trade on reputation not results.

DH didn't go to university. He was partner in one of the world's largest insolvency firms. He didn't come from a wealthy background, he just worked his arse off. It is still possible to succeed without letters after your name (unless you want to be a surgeon.

Why would it be free anyway? If you said 'I know, I fancy three years off work and incidentally, I want someone else to show me all aspects of something I'm interested in thanks very much' people would deride you as mad. Education is an investment in your future and yes there is a price on it. But that's probably valid in terms of value.

I think that there are a lot of problems here. It is difficult for the staff of the newer (and possibly some older) universities because they are facing job losses unless the fee increases go ahead - I have the odd contact and it would appear that in some very exalted institutions the teaching budget has been slashed by 70% - if this is across the board then the situation will be dire for many academics as it becomes apparent that many students simply can't afford it any more.

In the end I guess it is down to your philosophical viewpoint - do you think young people should be educated to degree level if they have the intellect? Or should it be a privilege - for those who can afford it financially as well as intellectually. If you are to expect £27,000 minimum (3 years - many degrees are 4 years plus) in addition to any living costs (usually at least £12,000) of debt per student - many will just feel it isn't worth mortgaging their lives. It will affect their futures. It has to.

I have just seen Nick Clegg on the news - he looked very uncertain. Surely this is the time to draw back from this mad policy.

I am completely against it.

Many degrees do not necessarily lead to lucrative employment but are important to the intellectual and cultural capital of the country. Within half a generation English, languages, history etc will be taught in schools by people who have no degree in the subject.

The creative sector is more important to our GNP than the sciences (according to figures I was looking at in the Observer at the w/e) but many creative / arts jobs are not particularly well paid.

Talk about the country dumbing down, and being a playground for the rich.

I think it was a mistake to turn universities into training institutions, training people to run golf courses and the tourist industry, and this has obscured the old role of degree level education.

Nurturing the best brains has to be important to the country as a whole, whether it is connected directly to a cash benefit or not, and to make it unreachable because of lack of wealth is shameful. Just shameful.

I agree with Eleison - mn you cannot possibly claim to speak on behalf of your thousands (100s of thousands?) of members on an issue as complex and divisive as this. MN is a forum, it was founded to enable parents to swap info and ideas, to support each other, to chat on-line and have some fun. It's defined, in part, by its diversity and vibrancy.

I think that if you want to turn mn into a campaigning organisation then you need to think very carefully about how to do this. Firstly - you need some principles that members sign up to - ie a mandate to speak on our behalf. Every membership-based campaigning organisation worth its salt has this. You (currently) don't - nor will you gain it from this thread. If you genuinely want a campaigning arm then perhaps you need to start it - properly - as a spin-off. You could have mn forum members and mn campaign members. But the current ad-hocery isn't strategic, and, basically, isn't on.

sorry - I should acknowledge that you have done great stuff (eg the miscarriage code) but - given that more and more issues are being suggested as mn campaigns - I think it's time to get strategic and do it properly with a proper mandate

mandate?

yes, as I said, a mandate to speak on our behalf, authorisation, permission, an agreed basis on which mn towers speaks on behalf of members, something we actually agree to/sign up to. like I said, this is what membership-based campaigning organisations do.

But the campaigns are for those who want them. I have sons and did not get involved with Let Girls be Girls. Isn't it enough that there is enough of an interest? After all MN isn't really campaigning is it? It is just providing a forum for discussion and information for interested parties.

I did not mean to upset you - I just have never seen mumsnet as a 'campaigning organisation' amongst other things we are all anonymous. We are just talking around a point.

I think this is a good thing. It will mostly be around the five thousand mark, not nine. And it will mean children can leave school at eighteen and seek a decent job with no shame. It's ridiculous this having to have a degree. It makes degrees completely meaningless. Bring back elitism, where having a degree meant something.

God I hope it puts lots of children off. For peter sake, half the population in full time education till twenty one? Ridiculous.

All those skilled people from India that someone wrote about in a rather facile way? Yep, they'll be an elite. They will have paid. A lot.

Is my degree (under the old 5% system) more meaningful than a degree today. I'm not sure Appletrees. I do (as someone at the chalk face) believe that education has improved.

I'm not sure what to do to be honest - but I can't help feeling that you should get the opportunity, if you have the intellect. Is it cheaper to be educated in India - as so many other things seem to be (at the moment)? I'd never thought of that as an option.

My degree is worth more than a degree now. Interesting that you have the opposite view.

It wasn't lack of money stopping children then. Money was chucked at you.

Primary and secondary education as it currently is can not support this spread of tertiary. There is no value in it.

I know - I had a grant too (although it was a 'minimum' and my parents did not make it up, they expected me to work. I did.) But the children do work very hard now and their A levels (well my son's A levels) are wide, complex and interesting. It was easier to afford tertiary when there were so few of us but education has changed with society. Well I think so.

alicatte - I think that's my point - I too don't see mn as a campaigning organisation - but I think it's trying to be one. and if it wants to be one it should do it properly. imho. on this particular issue I took the op to be sounding out opinion as to whether mn should be campaigning on fees.

sorry if I sounded stroppy in response to you - didn't mean to!

I do see what you mean. It's just I don't think this campaign is any different to the others and there is a groundswell of opinion - a focus of interest - here. We don't all have to be interested in this point or even agree. But it is a forum where people who are interested can air their opinions and, crucially, find out more.

MN is just a great big focus group really - I think.

I would be heartily behind a campaign which said that fewer people should go to university and that those who do should be properly funded. I am broadly against the increase in fees, mainly because I think the larger increases will come at the top end of the scale (ie targeted at those students who really need to go to university to pursue their careers, eg in medicine or other sciences or academia or law or teaching). I do not think that the bottom forty or fifty per cent of students (in terms of academic ability) need to go to university, nor do I think that the idea that they are entitled to do so is really doing anyone any favours.

It can't be denied that university is a lovely experience for anybody but I don't think it ought to be about the experience. I think it ought to be about real learning and the love of learning and the pursuit of academic excellence. When my mother was 18 3 or 4% of young people went to university and they felt privileged to do so and were properly funded through their courses. That may well have been too few, but isn't it now something like thirty five per cent? This is kind of nuts. I'd like a system where maybe fifteen or twenty per cent of 18 year olds went on to higher education and had a reasonable amount of funding.

I also think that places that are losing huge amounts of funding due to only providing arts courses (eg the RCM) should not be penalised in this way. Fair enough (well, fairer) to penalise colleges that are only offering 'soft' subjects but studying an instrument at an institution like that is bloody hard work and requires real talent. I think it is awful that this may only be available to the rich in future.

I'd be far happier with a campaign against the loss of EMA as I think that pretty much everyone could be studying something that would improve their job prospects and life chances between 16 and 18.

Why is it nuts for a lot of people to seek education? I think it's nuts to be so anti education for the masses. What is wrong with broadening minds and educating as many as possible?

"I think it ought to be about real learning and the love of learning and the pursuit of academic excellence."

I think most people who go to university think this too.

I keep seeing 50% of school leavers going to University, I think it's nearer 35%, perhaps this is too many but to reduce it because of the cost to the student isn't the way forward.