Student fees

[gillymac]

Have just read on the BBC news site about certain universities wanting to charge students 'top up' fees over and above the current capped level of £1100 pa. This should, these universities believe, be paid either by students taking out bigger loans or by so-called better off parents saving for it. As a parent of three, all of whom will probably want to go onto higher education I'm pretty p**d off about this (although living in Scotland we currently don't have to pay student fees at Scottish universities up front) and just wondered if anyone else had any views on this.

What Mr. Bossykate said peeved me because I don't agree with his assessment about how bad the US university system is (got my first degree there). Yes, some cacque programmes, but not as poor quality as he implied.

That vent made, what GRMUM noted about the danger that first degrees will not count for much, is true in the USA. A first degree means fairly little; which university you go to means more than the degree subject, almost. I have always admired the UK system (if I can be pardoned for calling it one system) because a first from UCL, Cardiff, QU Belfast or Oxford were all supposed to be equal quality firsts. I do think Mr. BK is right to sense that that equality between HE institutions is bound to be lost, and more is the pity.

Also, the situtation that GRMUM describes for Greek students I believe applies in Spain, too. I have very bright Spanish friends who never had the slightest chance of going to Uni.

Writing as a foreigner, now....I have always thought English students were spoilt, because there were no tuition fees. I still can't believe how cheap HE education is in the UK. My parents paid for about 20% of my first degree (including living costs), and nothing since. Even the worst scare stories the tabloids have propagated about UK tuition fees, still don't at all expensive to me.

Yes, but, zebra - we just had it sprung on us 2 or 3 years ago - until then, spoilt or not, UK families had no idea they were going to have to pay - unlike the US.

Now it has happened parents of younger children can make financial arrangements for 10-15 years down the line. Suddenly having to find £10-15,000 (hinted at as possibility for top-up fees) is out of the question for most of us. Will Straw was interviewed on the news tonight and said that working all summer to earn £1000 for tuition was possible - the other just isn't. I imagine many US families would struggle if suddenly asked to provide half or more of the average national income to pay for one child to go to university. Obviously the wealthy can pay but that's what this argument is about.

Re equality of degrees - we don't have that now I'm afraid. Some are more equal than others. Those you quote - - can be quite easily ranked and if you throw in any of the ex-polys they will sit neatly at the bottom as far as most employers are concerned.

I recall many years debate about the possibility of tuition fees being imposed before they were introduced. Don't think it was that much of a surprise. As for top-up fees, etc. -- it's not like any one is suggesting (ok, maybe the Daily Hell, but nobody else) that in 2 years time tuition fees will be to the tune of £5,000/annum or more. So parents & kids do have the chance to save. Moreover, even now, I understood that the fees are means-tested; not every English student is paying them. And the student loan interest rates are paltry; DH is still paying one at around 1.3%; much less than he can earn in most savings accounts. Not an unreasonable burden to take on. I believe very strongly in State Education until age 18, but don't have a problem with charges thereafter.

Anyway.. I thought all of you were super keen to have your children become plumbers, instead of going to Uni???? Or is plumbing a good enough trade for everyone else's kids, but not ours?

Ooh, that bloody hag Margaret Hodge has been getting right up my nose again. Dustmen subsidising doctors indeed! So dustmen don't use doctors then? They cure their own cancers, I suppose? The idea that doctors only benefit themselves by their training is so Thatcherite I can hardly believe that I am hearing this from a minister - no matter how useless, stupid and evil (cf Islington children's homes scandal) - in the Labour party. So, Margaret, there's no such thing as society then - a society in which we all benefit from properly educated and trained doctors, scientists, engineers, teachers etc etc? And if a University education increases your earnings, then surely by extension it increases your tax burden? So people do end up paying for their degrees. Yes, I did say that the Blairite dream of universal provision of degrees was misguided. That there are many people who don't enjoy continued academic study and would benefit more from on-the-job training and more practical study (instead of golf course design and management) who shouldn't be pushed into University. Indeed, I said that I would probably have benefitted far more from not going to University. But that was then. Nowadays - as I also said - degrees are seen as basic qualifications similar to O and A levels a decade or two ago, and I simply wouldn't have been considered for my entry level jobs without a degree if I was applying for them today. This is, I think, ridiculous. But it does show that today degrees are essential to even apply for jobs for which they are not relevant, which means that of course, we want our kids to have them if otherwise doors are closed to them and will be even more so in the future. They are being turned into an expensive luxury. Also, it makes my blood boil when politicians talk about middle class kids paying - they don't. Parents do. I will be nearly 60 by the time my ds is ready for University - and my pension is with Equitable Life (ha!) so guess how much cash I'll have to spare by then. Do you know what, I really hate this government.

I would love it if my kids learned trades, I always thought having an electrician, plumber and builder/plasterer plus maybe a solicitor would be really useful! Unfortunately none of mine is remotely practical, plus (as discussed) training salaries in FE are not nearly high enough to attract good teachers, and unfortunately they're not smart or dedicated enough for professional training, hence the assumption that they will go for academic degrees.

Yes, tuition fees were discussed, but I don't think anyone believed it would really happen. (It was the Tories' idea, Labour were not supposed to do this to us!) It really was quite a surprise - stupid but true - my DB had a daughter still at uni when the tuition charge/loans first came in (she didn't have to pay it as she was already there) and when I mentioned it to him he didn't believe me!!!

£1000pa is not too bad (though it's sad that the cash goes to HMG and not the unis) but zebra, never mind the Daily Hell, all the media have been quoting £10-15K for top-up fees for the top-flight unis. If this govt goes ahead it will introduce them in their next administration which is 3½ years away at best - not nearly long enough for a middle-income family with 4 kids and a mortgage to save for.

Means-testing. Yes, well. This is a soapbox of mine. It doesn't allow for mortgages, but does allow for pension contributions, plus the princely sum of £75pa per other child in the family. The family quoted above (ie mine!) pays £50pm into a pension fund (all it can spare) and nearly £600pm in mortgage repayments - ie, allowance of £825 against income - has to pay full tuition and doesn't get maximum loan. A family with only one child, already at uni, same income, mortage paid off and £600pm in pension contributions - ie allowance of £7200 against income - would get nearly free tuition and maximum loan. My DD2 has a friend whose family are farmers - free housing, more disposable income than us, but relatively low means-tested income and everything covered. There are worse anomalies too - I know of many families, parents divorced, both parents quite wealthy but the mother with no actual income and the stepfather not responsible, where the child gets free tuition and maximum loan.

My DD1's loan rate is already over 1.3%! Can't remember what but I saw her annual statement this month.

The point is that suddenly making today's students pay, upfront, assessing them on their parents' current income but expecting them to pay off the cost of their upkeep later, while students from earlier days fly away unfettered, is unequitable. Will Straw's (and my!) proposal to increase the higher rate of tax means that those best able to pay for HE do so and will continue to do so. The current situation obviously appears perfectly fair to you but it doesn't to those of us raised under a different system.

aloha - unfortunately, the conservatives were talking about 'privatising' the top universities so they could totally set their own fees/selection process etc!

Maybe it would be fairer to increase the higher rate of tax for those who are also graduates and have therefore benefited from the system, rather than all higher rate payers. I'm not convinced it's the right way to go anyway as liability for higher rate tax starts at 28K, hardly a fortune to be earning.

When I say I hated the government, I wasn't comparing them to the conservatives, but to the government they posed as before they backtracked on everything they were voted in to do. I still think the concept that those who are educated at university/medical school etc should pay for it while nobody else does (the graduate tax) is a really flawed argument. It does imply that education is only for the benefit of those receiving it, which is clearly nonsense. We all - as society - benefit from properly educated and trained workers, esp teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers etc. And we wouldn't have a civilisation worthy of the name if we didn't think that education was a valuable thing in its own right. This is why I think we should all pay for education. To say otherwise, is IMO, like saying, only the sick should pay for the NHS, and letting, say, women who don't want kids to opt out of paying for maternity provision. Either we are all in this together or we are just selfish little satellites.

Suedonim, it's not quite that bad, you add on the personal and other allowances (pension contributions, charity donations etc) to that before the higher rate starts, it comes out to nearly £35,000 if you don't get any employment benefits to knock off.

You also don't pay a lot of higher rate tax at that point, but when you get into the really high earners (eg 6 figures) the contribution is significant to the Govt but surely not that painful to the earner. (In the 1960's the top rate was 97.5%....)

Yes, it might be fairer only to tax graduates, but how is the IR going to find out who is one among people who graduated before all this started? And non-graduates (eg aloha's dustman) benefit from the expertise of graduates (eg aloha's doctor) (and the golf course designer too probably! )

I wonder how much a dustman earns though (or how much Margaret Hodge thinks a dustman earns???)

aloha, fantastic, well said some common sense at last! Do you think Cherie Blair reads this site and will pass on the message??

well said, Aloha. I don't 'benefit' from eg disability allowance, a new hospital in Slough, the cost of teaching sign language to adults/children - even though I 'pay' for it, I don't begrudge it (although I am really grumpy at the prospect of paying through the nose to bomb Iraq)

Hear hear Bundle and Aloha. And my support for education extends to good quality, well-funded FE and workplace training to give engineers, technicians and craftsmen and women the start they need in their professions.

Rethinking I shouldn't have said anything about tuition fees because I know that the English (maybe all Brits) are very sensitive about the whole issue of higher education (touches on class issues, maybe??) and I can't really understand, being a cultural foreigner. There seems to be a gulf of aspects to the situation I can't grasp.

That said, I'm desperate to vent one peeve: It dismays me that qualifications are effectively being "dumbed" down, with the Blairite vision of degrees for all. Absurdly generous as the old system seemed, I'd still prefer it (a return to few, difficult university places and full funded grants) over what we seem to now have, a progressive decay in HE quality.

Okay, Janh, I'd only read that it began at 28K!

I see the argument about everyone benefiting from graduates but....hmmmm! I'm not sure how anyone has benefited from a dear friend's entire life spent in academia, now as a professor and world authority on gas clouds in outer space! Nor am I inclined towards feeling those with degrees in computer game writing will contribute much towards mankind. But then we are getting into the realms of the 'value' of degrees again, which on this thread seems to be the crux of the matter.

Btw, my ds has contacts in the govt who say that the 10K-a-year-fees is a smoke screen and that 3.5K fees are more likely, for which we will all be very grateful and say "It could have been worse."!

Aloha - not meant to be at this website at all right now but your "Either we are all in this together or we are just selfish little satellites" message is fan-b**y-tastic!

I presume Aloha's remark was directed at me and quite frankly, I find it offensive. I resent the implication that we are selfish hangers-on who contribute nothing to society. Maybe when you are in our position, with DH having been working for more than 40 years (yes, 40 years, with about two months off sick in all that time) and with no prospect of retirement for at least another eight, you'll view the situation differently.

Not having been able to take advantage of higher education ourselves we have instead paid plenty of tax so others can go to uni for free and then found that we have had to pay for our own two children and have two more to fund. We've paid, and are still paying, our dues so don't tell me we're satellites - go tell it to all the real hangers-on in this world. Rant over.

Suedonim, I didn't read aloha's message like that, I thought she meant all together in the old socialist sense, as opposed to selfish satellites in M Thatcher's "no such thing as society" sense.

BTW I did wonder if the 10,000 thing was a smokescreen. They must think we're really stupid.

SueDonim, I didn't read Aloha's post that way either...I was with "Comrade Janh" in my interpretation.
I heard the same as you today - that all this Russell Group going it alone and charging £10,000 was a taster for slinging about £3.5k onto everyone's tuition fees, regardless of institution or discipline. And they keep postponing the arrival of the White Paper...

SueDonim, agree with the others here on interpretation of Aloha's comments and therefore agree totally with what she said (i.e. I want to live in a proper 'society' where there is mutual care and respect of and for others not in a world where is everyone for him/herself and survival of the fittest etc...).

As an American with 3 degrees at a total cost of more than $200,000 (totally paid for by my parents and me) I am amazed at how little the brits have to pay for further education. And even more amazed at how few people avail themselves of this virtually free (as compared to the usa) learning. I also think it's sad how little is available in serious further education for those of us who just want to learn for the sake of learning. In the usa I took a university extension course almost every year just to keep my mind stretched. Of course I paid for this myself.
I'm not sure how the subject of plumbers came up, but interestingly most plumbers in the usa that I've encountered have had at least a year or two of university and make a heck of a lot more money than teachers and english professors to name a few. Although I agree with Aloha that we all benefit from having educated people (including SueDonim's gas clouds in outer space friend), we also all benefit from bin men, fire men, builders etc. And as long as the subject of the NHS has been brought up, I DO resent paying into the NHS for taking care of all the smokers who get ill and the injured who haven't bothered to wear a seatbelt etc....

Ah now come on, the smokers MORE than pay for themselves!

Shall we have a go at the 'extreme sports' people?

My old boss was of the opinion that it is every citizens 'duty' to smoke themselves to death, he used to say that they contributed loads of money to the tax coffers through their smoking, and then died of some ghastly disease quite quickly without using up their 'share' of the NHS. Not quite sure that I subscribe to this theory though!!

Exactly, they more than pay for their own treatment and die young as well! And I'm not a smoker, but smokers seem to have more fun! Think I'm a wannabe smoker.

Suedonim - I've only just gone back to this thread because of an item on Radio 4 - and I'm ASTONISHED & HORRIFIED! I didn't read your post when you wrote it and I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I TRULY can't imagine what you thought I meant... Of course, I meant we are a society which is highly interdependent and binmen need doctors (& of course, doctors need binmen) so the concept that to train a doctor only benefits the doctor is bizarre to me. It obviously benefits everyone who needs a doctor, which is why we should all pay for the training (& for the binman's wages). BTW, I think exactly the same arguments could apply to A levels - they probably improve future job prospects and wages - so should we start charging 16year olds to stay on a sixth form?