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Is Cutting Tuition Fees Fair On Current Students?
Labour promises to cut tuition fees to £6,000
http://
"Ed Miliband says Labour would cut university tuition fees in England to £6,000 per year from autumn 2016."
If this happens, this will mean that tuition fees went 3000->9000->6000, meaning that a typical three year course would incur a loan of £9000, £27000 or £18000 respectively.
How are the students with the £27000 loan supposed to compete in the future job market, when candidates with the same degree both older than them and younger than them will be able to accept a lower wage (or derive a greater net income from the same wage)? Should Labour be backdating the £6000 pa to 2010? And why is it waiting until 2016 to bring the fees down, rather than doing it in 2015 if they get in?
This matters to current students. It's not nice for them to know that, for the course they're on and paying £27000 for, students a few years before them paid £9000 and students a few years after them will be paying £18000 should Labour get in, and that this will reduce their competitiveness in the job market.
http://
"Ed Miliband says Labour would cut university tuition fees in England to £6,000 per year from autumn 2016."
If this happens, this will mean that tuition fees went 3000->9000->6000, meaning that a typical three year course would incur a loan of £9000, £27000 or £18000 respectively.
How are the students with the £27000 loan supposed to compete in the future job market, when candidates with the same degree both older than them and younger than them will be able to accept a lower wage (or derive a greater net income from the same wage)? Should Labour be backdating the £6000 pa to 2010? And why is it waiting until 2016 to bring the fees down, rather than doing it in 2015 if they get in?
This matters to current students. It's not nice for them to know that, for the course they're on and paying £27000 for, students a few years before them paid £9000 and students a few years after them will be paying £18000 should Labour get in, and that this will reduce their competitiveness in the job market.
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> Was introducing £ 9000 per annum Tuition fees fair on any students, past or present?
No, but nor was introducing tuition fees at all. The question, however, is specifically about the Labour policy of reducing tuition fees, leaving a cohort of graduates with much larger fees than either those that went before or those that came after.
> they will get different net incomes but that doesn't make one more competitive in the job market than the other.
Of course it does! If one is receiving £112 per month more than the other for the same job, this may make the difference in the rent and the transport fees which means they can actually afford to live while doing the job.
> Grants should be returned and those going to University should be reduced to max 10% of school leavers - those who are actually capable of getting decent academic degrees.
I agree. Well, maybe not with the 10% bit, but 50% is way too high. Actually, maybe it should be that if you're in the top 5% you pay no fees, and the closer you get to 50% the higher the fees you pay ...
No, but nor was introducing tuition fees at all. The question, however, is specifically about the Labour policy of reducing tuition fees, leaving a cohort of graduates with much larger fees than either those that went before or those that came after.
> they will get different net incomes but that doesn't make one more competitive in the job market than the other.
Of course it does! If one is receiving £112 per month more than the other for the same job, this may make the difference in the rent and the transport fees which means they can actually afford to live while doing the job.
> Grants should be returned and those going to University should be reduced to max 10% of school leavers - those who are actually capable of getting decent academic degrees.
I agree. Well, maybe not with the 10% bit, but 50% is way too high. Actually, maybe it should be that if you're in the top 5% you pay no fees, and the closer you get to 50% the higher the fees you pay ...
The problem with limiting it to capability is that people can always surprise you. Either those who are capable crash and burn, or those who apparently are not work all the harder and surprise you.
High student numbers aren't in themselves a good thing if the courses they are doing aren't particularly useful, though, so there is a case for restructuring the whole system and cutting back on "courses for the sake of having students", but I'd be wary about arbitrarily cutting student numbers. Better to cut them naturally, by providing a plausible alternative.
High student numbers aren't in themselves a good thing if the courses they are doing aren't particularly useful, though, so there is a case for restructuring the whole system and cutting back on "courses for the sake of having students", but I'd be wary about arbitrarily cutting student numbers. Better to cut them naturally, by providing a plausible alternative.
Just to draw a line on the competitive discussion - clearly we understand that word differently. By competitive in the job market I understand that to mean one has more advantage over the other in getting the job in the first place. You clearly mean their lifestyle/disposable income after they've got it.
Evidently, NJ, many students would disagree that such an alternative really exists. The rise in student numbers is attributable to a lot of reasons, I'm sure, but one such reason is that people genuinely feel it's the best way to improve their career prospects. If so, one needs to work to persuade them otherwise, and for the children we're presumably mainly referring to who have fairly low A-levels that is going to be a hard sell.
If they have fairly low 'A' Levels, jim, the chances are they would not cope with a "proper" degree course. And thereby hangs the tale. In the past those with poor 'A' level results would not have gained a university place at all. Now there are places available for those who did not succeed too well at 'A' Level and it really does them no favours at all to mislead them into believing that a somewhat useless degree will open the door to riches and prosperity.
The balance has swung too far the other way, perhaps, but equally in the past many who were entirely capable of going to a university felt unable to financially. The debt levels deter very few people since they have come hand-in-hand with increased levels of support, and so people are after all able to go to University depending only on their academic standards rather than financial means. A return to sensible levels of students going to University is somewhere in between what it was 20-odd years ago and what the levels are now.
The word 'loan' is misleading anyway. Some students will never have to repay a penny; most will never have to repay the full amount: and only the highest earners will ever have to pay it all off and even then it takes many years.
It's more of a graduate tax really.
The change from £3000 to £9000 was not as bad as it sounded because the threshold at which repayments started was increased from something like £16000 pa to over £21000 pa.
Someone earning £25000 a year now pays 9% on the surplus over £21000 (or whatever the figure is) so that's around £360 a year. At that rate they will not come close to paying even half the £40000 loans off before it's written off.
I was lucky as I received grants that didn't have to be repaid, but I feel I've repaid it many times over through income tax and NI. The problem now is that so many go to university many will end up in jobs that used to be done by school leavers and these graduates will never earn enough to repay their 'loans'
It's more of a graduate tax really.
The change from £3000 to £9000 was not as bad as it sounded because the threshold at which repayments started was increased from something like £16000 pa to over £21000 pa.
Someone earning £25000 a year now pays 9% on the surplus over £21000 (or whatever the figure is) so that's around £360 a year. At that rate they will not come close to paying even half the £40000 loans off before it's written off.
I was lucky as I received grants that didn't have to be repaid, but I feel I've repaid it many times over through income tax and NI. The problem now is that so many go to university many will end up in jobs that used to be done by school leavers and these graduates will never earn enough to repay their 'loans'
The problem is that many people take a degree simply because, if they don't, then they're in the 50% of the population that don't have a degree. So they saddle themselves with debt to try to be in the "top 50%".
> equally in the past many who were entirely capable of going to a university felt unable to financially
When you actually had to make the grade to go to University, paid no tuition fees and even got a grant, it was a lot fairer.
But to saddle a cohort with more debts than those that went before OR AFTER is very unfair. If Labour is really concerned about tuition fees (that they introduced) then their concern is presumably about fairness; and therefore they should be looking at the size of the tuition loans of those that have paid more than £9000 per year in tuition fees up until now. That would be the honest policy, rather than leaving a cohort stranded high and dry.
> equally in the past many who were entirely capable of going to a university felt unable to financially
When you actually had to make the grade to go to University, paid no tuition fees and even got a grant, it was a lot fairer.
But to saddle a cohort with more debts than those that went before OR AFTER is very unfair. If Labour is really concerned about tuition fees (that they introduced) then their concern is presumably about fairness; and therefore they should be looking at the size of the tuition loans of those that have paid more than £9000 per year in tuition fees up until now. That would be the honest policy, rather than leaving a cohort stranded high and dry.
FF, the question is about fairness, in particular the fairness of the policy that Labour announced today.
Is it fair that for say a three year Cambridge maths degree, if you did it between 2005 and 2010 your tuition loan would be £9000; if you did it between 2010 and 2016 your tuition loan would be £27000; yet if you did it between 2016 and 2020 (and Labour gets in) your tuition loan would be £18000. No - such a policy would very unfair on those doing their degrees now.
Is it fair that for say a three year Cambridge maths degree, if you did it between 2005 and 2010 your tuition loan would be £9000; if you did it between 2010 and 2016 your tuition loan would be £27000; yet if you did it between 2016 and 2020 (and Labour gets in) your tuition loan would be £18000. No - such a policy would very unfair on those doing their degrees now.
I'm with New Judge here. The 'University Industry' has become far too big.
When I left school less than 10% of school leavers went to University.
The huge majority went into a job that offered training to increase your skills while earning a living. I did 9 years on day release and evening classes while working 4 days a week. I ended up with a LRIC ( Licentiate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry) which is just below an , rather than a debt . I was also able to get a job working in Zambia that in addition to my wages paid an end of contract bonus of £8000.
I could not have done that if I had gone to university!
When I left school less than 10% of school leavers went to University.
The huge majority went into a job that offered training to increase your skills while earning a living. I did 9 years on day release and evening classes while working 4 days a week. I ended up with a LRIC ( Licentiate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry) which is just below an , rather than a debt . I was also able to get a job working in Zambia that in addition to my wages paid an end of contract bonus of £8000.
I could not have done that if I had gone to university!
I'm sure the government could find a way to "level the playing field" if it had enough incentive. (Probably with a taxpayer provided waive of the loan.)
The problem is, of course, a target of getting loads of folk into further education whether they warranted it or not. The move from university as a privilege offered to those with academic ability worth cultivating for the nation, with grants; to university as a right offered to anyone who wanted to take advantage and could convince the government to give them a loan. A loan that would not need to be paid back if one just dossed around for a few years enjoying the campus life, but would be repayable if you actually tried to make use of the opportunity for your and the nation's benefit.
The problem is, of course, a target of getting loads of folk into further education whether they warranted it or not. The move from university as a privilege offered to those with academic ability worth cultivating for the nation, with grants; to university as a right offered to anyone who wanted to take advantage and could convince the government to give them a loan. A loan that would not need to be paid back if one just dossed around for a few years enjoying the campus life, but would be repayable if you actually tried to make use of the opportunity for your and the nation's benefit.
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