university costs

[Lyndsey]

can any goverment really promise a cut in the amount of money that university's are charging?

[geofbob]

They can certainly promise, but probably won't be able to deliver, because the universities are truly short of funds, and if they don't get more cash from students, it will have to be provided from taxation, which would almost certainly be more unpopular with more people than top-up fees. What I would like to know is why it is considered to be such a bad thing for young people to buy their further education on credit, when they are only too eager to buy clothes, cars, holidays etc etc on credit.

[Quizmonster]

Of course they can't...not if they're honest. The current Conservative plan to cancel any charging arrangement made by Labour is supposedly to be funded by drastically reducing the number of young people attending university. This is despite the fact that we already lag behind many other countries in regard to the percentage of young people going into higher education. It also conveniently ignores the fact that they were the party in power when all polytechnics were granted university status. This act, of course, vastly increased the number of university students overnight! Is the answer 'more' or is the answer 'less'?

The plain fact is that our universities are desperately short of funds and, as a result, losing status in the world university 'league' year by year. Having graduates pay back the cost of their education once they're out in the world earning sufficient to do so is no bad thing. Whether university income comes from that source or some other, arrangements have got to be made to ensure it...and soon!

[Quizmonster]

A bit of simultaneous typing there, Geofbob! My apologies for any duplication.

[incitatus]

qm, with the exceptionof the chronology i disagree with almost evrything you have said.. personally i have never been botherd by the fact that we have less percentage of the population at uni because of the higher quality of our degrees. french universities for example were never our equivalent, only the grandes ecoles were. expanding the number of people going to university has had the effect of filling the world with sociologists and making a degree worth less than ever. also qm the number of students remained the sam when polys became unis. the poly students were all doing degrees on grants too. the only difference was to change the institutions name. Thye uni's are short of money, yes, but it is questionable wether charging the earth to teach leisure science to crowded rooms ha any benefit, becaue the money is then spent catering for the students on those courses rather than on something worthwhile. What is wrong with the loan system is that when a graduate gets a job 50% of their income or so will go on loan repayments at a time when a previous generation would be settling down in their own homes and breeding. this is why so many graduates return to the parental home now. And for the jobs where the need for qualifications is greatest the effect is the worst. Essentially i would suggest a return to a meritocratic elitist university system supported by grants, a reasonable levy from government per student, wage capping for university administrators, and if 50% of young people want to have experience living away from home they should go to butlins.

[Miss Zippy]

I agree pretty much with incitatus, we should return to the meritocratic system where only students with above average grades secure places in our universities, with those students from poorer backgrounds being given financial help, funded by the taxpayer. This, to me, seems the fairest system. We now have a system where people with a couple of 'D' or 'E' grades at A level can do degree courses, but the content of many 'degree' courses are being 'watered down' so that the students are able to cope. At least, this is my experience of lecturing at a former poly. As the saying goes, 'quality, not quantity'.

[incitatus]

longterm abers will remember that i lecture at one of the russell group

[Quizmonster]

Incitatus, I wrote a detailed response for you, but AB simply threw it away as too long! They don't say: "This is too long. Would you like to prune it down a bit?" Oh no...it just disappears off the screen! Life really is too short to bother trying all over again in the circumstances. Let me just briefly say: "I disagree with almost everything you have said." (Sound familiar?) Cheers

[incitatus]

duly noted qm. would be a boring place if we all agreed exits whistling "the red flag" whilst slipping the AB editors a tenner

[Quizmonster]

Can they be bought that cheaply, I? Shame on them!

Seriously, AB Editor, couldn't some rather more courteous approach be used for overlong responses? It's damned annoying to write what seems to be a reasoned reply to someone only to have it hurled away beyond recall and without ceremony. Obviously, I appreciate limits must be put on length, but is your current approach the right one?

[incitatus]

i fear a tenner may have been overegging it. a packet of sunflower seeds and a new wheel to scamper in might have been enough. I too once fell foul of this rule when arguing with some peon about evolution. all i can suggest is that if you fear for you answer, copy it to your clipboard before button pressage.

[Quizmonster]

Yes, I, That technique has been made use of in the past. However, I did not believe my response could have been longer than yours - no criticism intended - so I blithely posted it into oblivion!

[incitatus]

if only they could fix it so that the x00th word flashes red when you type it...