Want your children to be able to go to uni?

[GreatAuntLoretta]

I am really feeling the urge to join the NUS protest against tuition fees on Thursday 9th December. Although my children are both under five, I am really really upset and annoyed to think that if they want to go to university in the future we will be very unlikely to be able to afford to send them. Who knows what the fees will be by then?! Also when my children are a little older I would really like to have the opportunity to retrain and do a degree. That would be completely off the cards. (angry)

Is anyone else with young children thinking of attending? It would be good to stick together with some other parents. A large group of parents will probably be a lot safer than a random woman with a buggy and a toddler in a mass crowd.

Who is with me?

Is there already a family protest group out there?

The higher you raise tax the less the tax take. When we brought taxes down to a top rate of 40% (had been up to 99% in the UK) the tax take rose.

'It doesn't make sense, does it? Unless they are simply protecting the people who vote Tory'

grannie, Labour started the whole fees thing. They knew where it was going. Cameron called their number today, he said they are an organised hypocrisy. It's not just the Tories' fault. Labour brought it in for England, and Scotland didn't get it. Did Labour care about the English students?

Even Jim Murphy of Labour said today that it is the middle classes who will be hit by the rise in fees.

The Daily Mail, a good, solid, honourable middle class paper is on the side of the middle classes, who often vote Tory and read the Mail

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1162577/New-threat-middle-classes-Universities-plan-double-student-fees-leave-millions-debt-50s.html

These fees only favour the elite. Labour knew it when they brought it in.

It's all yah boo from Labour. One minute Johnson was against the graduate tax, now he seems to support it. You don't really believe they'd do any different do you? They started it all.

Jim Murphy of Labour had to admit that it was unfair that only the English in the whole of the EU would have to pay these astronomical fees if they study in Scotland. Didn't he realise that this would be the result of Labour's policies.

Hi Claig,

I think that's a result of devolution, not of Labour policy. There was no love lost between the previous Labour administration or the current SNP administration in Scotland and the previous Labour administration in the UK. UK Labour cannot for Labour Scotland to adopt policies that the Scottish electorate would not vote for in a Scottish election. And they certainly can't force the SNP to do so.

It's strange that Jim Murphy should have admitted that it was unfair that English students would be the only ones to pay these fees if they study in Scotland. Presumably the Irish and Welsh pay the current level of fees. Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales each have their own government dividing up their respective pots of money according to their own priorities. It's a bit odd to say that it's unfair that an English person has to live with a decision of the English government just because a Scottish person gets better decision (or a decision you prefer) from the Scottish government. In this case the English government is the UK government, which is of course anomalour, and if you want to change that you can always agitate to get your own parliament.

I'm sure that if feels very unfair, Claig, especially since you don't agree with the policy, but I think part of the problem is that a lot of people in England (and apparently the odd Scottish MP) just don't get devolution yet. It's no more unfair than California having a different policy from Arkansas.

RRocks

Apologies for the typos.

RRocks

RRocks, what I mean is that Labour thought it fine that English students should pay high fees and didn't change their policies. There is not much we can do about it. Labour introduced it and now the Coalition are increasing it. Students are demonstrating. Clegg has listened to all of the objections, and has decided to vote for the policy.

Fairness is what Labour are supposed to be all about, so I am not surprised that Jim Murphy, when pressed by Andrew Neil, said that.

Yes, it's clearly unfair, but the solution is not for us all to follow the English model, imo. English students should fight for the same system as the Scots, not seek to destroy what is working well in Scotland. Scottish students have come out onto the streets to support the demands of the English students. So (to repeat myself from elsewhere) how can we afford this in Scotland, when you can't in England? The Westminster government has a choice. It chooses not to spend money on education. The Scottish government has different priorities. The Welsh government really supports its students. Good for them!

(I do hope I don't have to eat my words when they raise fees in Scotland too.)

Claig, you seem to want to make sure we don't think Labour would have done any better. Who knows. How is that relevant, anyway, to what's happening now?

Btw, for what it's worth, I think the Labour government probably was just as deep in the pockets of the banks and big business as the Tories. Probably little difference in that respect, but this is far too important for party politics. These policies are about a fundamental reshaping of society. And we haven't been asked what we think of this. We weren't told before the elections what they were going to do.

They have four years to do their worst. It's an interesting social experiment from their point of view. They know they won't be re-elected - no matter how they try to divide and rule us. There they are, sitting round their table having good idea after good idea, while their millions pile up in their bank accounts. Not one of them has any idea at all how the majority of us live. How could they? Not unless they read their servants' servants' diaries that is. Some of them even go out and spend a night with the homeless. 10 out of 10 for trying, Grant Shapps. Now here's an idea. Instead of taking up valuable pavement space, give them some money to find somewhere to live.

Sorry. Seem to have gone off on one. Happens a lot these days.

because you keep saying it is all to keep Tory voters happy, and that is a misunderstanding of what it is about. It is the middle class Tories who will be hit hardest. If you believe the Labour yah boo stuff, then you will end up being deceived again, since they are the ones that brought it in.

It doesn't matter if they don't get reelected because Labour will continue it, just as the Coalition has continued Labour's fee policy.

'Btw, for what it's worth, I think the Labour government probably was just as deep in the pockets of the banks and big business as the Tories.'
That's what I am saying. Don't be fooled by their talk of caring. They started it and they will continue it next time they get in.

Claig, I don't care if middle class or working class students suffer most. I don't want any of them to decide against going to uni just because they can't afford it. I don't want any students to start working life saddled with such huge levels of debt.

BTW, just seen on BBC News that half of all students will never pay back their loans. So how can that be good for the economy? Who does that benefit?

I agree with you. Divide and rule divides us into Labour vs Tory, when it is all one policy.

It benefits the rich that the rest of the people are burdened by debt, whether they repay it or not, it stops them being free.

I think it's fair to say that Labour started students having to make a contribution to university funding but that what is proposed now is quite a departure from that in that they intend to remove existing government funding from universities that has been there for decades, and make students replace it.

You might be right that Labour would have done the same, but we'll never know. They mght have had different priorities from the Tories, as Scotland and Wales seem to have at present. However, if the bill passes into law, Scotland and Wales might follow suit in a year or two because inequality of funding between the countries will cause more problems for the unis in Scotland and Wales. A bit like Scottish football clubs can't afford to pay for expensive players on the transfer market, Scottish and Welsh unis won't be able to pay for the better staff if they are less well funded than English unis and their ratings will suffer.

I don't see how it benefits anyone, not even the rich. After all, no matter how much money you have, you still need well-educated staff to run your country seat. It's so hard to get the plastic surgeons, clothes designers, dieticians, interior designers, financial advisors that one needs these days, what!

There aren't enough jobs to go around. Because of globalisation, they have exported our jobs.

They haven't improved education, they have dumbed it down. At least the Tories will increase standards. But they have made it more expensive to get a university education and inevitably that will mean that the number of people getting degrees will fall.

I hope you're wrong, RRocks. But luckily it's not the money that attracts people into teaching. However, we might have to lose some of our managers .

"BTW, just seen on BBC News that half of all students will never pay back their loans. So how can that be good for the economy? Who does that benefit?"

Grannie
That's just an assumption they've built into the calculations really. It's assuming half the graduates will be paying all the fees back (they hope).

I think that's one reason it's seen as 'progressive'. The graduate tax appears to take more from the lower earner and less from the higher. I really don't get why the students prefer it.

The whole pupose of the raised fees is to discourage the "lower orders" from going to uni all else by the tories and Fib Dems is bullshit

the lower orders are all of the poor and the middle class. The really poor will receive subsidies, the middle class will receive none.

I don't like the new proposals I think university education should be free but I think what the Government is trying to do is to shift the financial burden of higher education away from central Government and onto students. I don't agree with the policy but I think all this supposed hatred of those on lower income accusations being made by people is a tad silly.

Nor do I, Jackstarlightstarbright. Just raise taxes for higher earners, graduates or not! Loads of people earn more than graduates. I know people with degrees working as carers on £12,000 a year, gardeners, carpenters ...

However, just because graduates often can't get jobs that reward them for their 3/4 years' study, that doesn't mean degrees are worthless. Having a degree improves the quality of your life, means you are probably healthier (therefore less of a burden on the NHS), will probably live longer (and buy more mangetout)... Sad but true.

they all keep telling us about social mobility and how much they want to encourage it. How will fees of £9000 help social mobility? I'm sure they will find a way to explain it in their election manifestos.