Students doing what they have become famous for... not studying
Introduced in 2006, tuition fees were aimed at allowing universities across England and Wales to charge students an amount much closer to the actual costs involved in delivering a course. Prior to this, students were expected to pay anything up to around £1,500 a year for their courses (means-tested according to family income). This sum was expected to be paid to the university up-front by the student. Because of the fact that it was means-tested, there was no financial support available for this fee.
With the introduction of the £3,000+ fees, the Student Loans Company incorporated a Tuition Fee Loan into their usual offerings; enabling students to study without having to worry about paying the fees up front. The idea was that this money would be added to the rest of the loan, which would then be paid off at a favourable rate (9% of gross income above £15,000) once the student was earning over £15,000. i.e. If a student with such a loan earns £16,000 a year their payments on the loan will total just £90 a year.
Pretty reasonable, eh? The students get to pay for a service at or below cost-price with a low-interest loan, and then get to pay it back when they can afford to do so.
Not according to the NUS and the Liberal Democrats. They would have you believe that every graduating university student is completely and utterly crippled with debt, which will ruin the quality of their life for years to come and will leave them wishing that they'd never gone to university in the first place.
There is currently quite a bit of strife regarding this matter thanks to the Coalition deal between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Because of the two parties' differing views on the matter, students are now upping their protests, demanding that Liberal Democrat MPs vote against their new colleagues should the matter come to a vote in the Commons in the next five years.
I am personally of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with the current system and that, in fact, to change it would risk the quality of the education system that we enjoy here in the UK.
Even in this day and age, there are still perks to being born British. One of them is the wonderful higher education system that we have. There are precious few countries where anyone, regardless of beliefs, social standing or background, can freely apply to study at a university of their choice and be accepted on merit. Testament to the standard of our system are the thousands of international students who flock to the UK every year to study at our world-renowned universities.
It is a fact that nothing is free in this day and age. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can understand that the days of students only having to pay a small amount (if anything) towards the actual running costs of a course could not last forever. If you decide to operate anything at a loss then the day will come when even the biggest of start-up funds will run out. It is only fair that people should be expected to pay their way.
The biggest question for the anti-tuition-fees brigade is where they envisage the money to sustain a world-class education system would come from should the decision be made to scrap tuition fees. The only logical conclusion would be that they intend the fees to be paid for by the taxpayer.
This, of course, would be catastrophic. In 2005, a Labour MP claimed that for the taxpayer to foot the bill for university fees would result in the standard rate of Income Tax having to be raised by between three and four pence. In the current situation where families are having enough trouble making ends meet as it is, losing another four Pounds for every hundred earned is unthinkable. Furthermore, why should those who aren't using the system be expected to pay for those who are?
Such an increase in taxation would result in an average worker (earning £25,000 a year for 45 years) paying an extra £36,000 (or the tuition fees of 13 students) in order to fund universities over the course of their working life, regardless of whether they had taken advantage of the system.
One of the key arguments used by the anti-brigade is that the tuition fees discourage students from poorer backgrounds from going to university in the first place; meaning that countless talented brains are lost for the want of a fairer system.
I put it to them that the main reason that these people are put off going to university is not the fees situation (they would still have to fund their living costs of course) but rather the skewed view of the system presented by its main detractors. The fact that these people are led to believe that they cannot afford to go to university, and are even told outright that "tuition fees mean that students from poor backgrounds cannot go to university", means that they do not even investigate the avenues open to them; rather choosing to believe that the rhetoric spouted by the NUS and the Liberal Democrats is gospel.
I hazard that if these students were instead told the truth, i.e. "if your financial situation warrants it you will be given a loan to cover all your costs that you will only ever have to pay back when you can afford to do so", we would see a lot more students from poorer backgrounds graduating with the degrees that they deserve.
It would appear that the Liberal Democrat policy regarding tuition-fees is a hangover from their pre-government days; the days in which they could promise the electorate the moon on a stick, safe in the knowledge that they would never be called upon to deliver on said promises.
And as for the students?
It is high time for them to realise that nothing is free in this day and age and that maybe they should get off their high horse and actually get on with studying for the degrees that they themselves are paying for.
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I disagree, for one thing free education has always been a cornerstone of the nation, many countries have their own things our has been free open education.
ReplyDeleteAlso it says something that students are being encouraged to go to university but to then be ladled with debt, the whole problem we have had in the recession is people living above their means , I'm sure it makes sense for vocational courses but so any students who would have taken up lower paid careers because they have a passion are afraid to because of the added pressure of debt.
Lastly in order to implement fees the government cut funding to university to make it look for reasonable. Who loses? the universities because they still lose funding.
Oh and lastly the moment you make students pay they expect the degree handed to them look at America, over there nobody fails, they aren't allowed to, wouldn't that destroy the high standards of education here?
Thanks for your comments, Anonymous. You make some interesting points that I'd like the opportunity to counter.
ReplyDelete1) You talk of 'free education'. The key problem here is that there really is no such thing as free when it comes to state funding. The money has to come from somewhere (those lecturers aren't going to work for free!) and that's where the increase in income tax comes in. Now it's all well and good as far as services that everyone uses are concerned (State Schools, the NHS etc.,) but it seems completely unfair to charge everyone for a system that certain members of the population will never be able to use. As for my example, would you rather pay £9,000 to go to university for three years or £36,000?
2) Your comments about debt illustrate perfectly the skewed image that the NUS and the Liberal Democrats are sending out. The fact that students opt not to go to university for fear of debt says far more about the mis-truths and negativity of the aforementioned two organisations than anything else. Surely you have to agree that £90 a year out of a £16,000 pay package really is nothing.
3) As for the government cutting university funding in order to make room for tuition fees, a perfectly logical decision. The tuition fees were meant to replace funding, not supplement it. The problem here is twofold. First, the NUS'/Lib Dems' negative stance serves to discourage prospective students from going to university, thus meaning that the universities get less money. Second, if a university wants to pay its scientists to conduct a study to work out the formula for the perfect bacon sandwich (don't laugh... it's true!) then I'm afraid I won't even entertain their pleas that they're hard up.
answered like a true politician, however if we want to ask whats 'fair' we can ask whether it is fair one generation pays what another does not.
ReplyDeleteTo explain the point about cuts, the government cut university funding before instating fees and has done so whenever they wish to raise them, the detriment to universities caused by the goverment is their own proof of justification for fees, its neither fair nor a justifiable action.
You also have to consider that this country is a world leader in genetics, environmental sciences, medicines and numerous others. Can we really say that the human genome wasn't worth cracking? or that many of the inventions that made this country successful and great were just a waste of money?
sure £90 year doesn't seem like much, but its more then that, it wont be 16k they really earn, these people pay their taxes, contribute to society and have mortgages and debts £90 goes a long way and you can just as much argue does the government need another £90 a year to spend on another level of management? Why should those who work to improve themselves have to come second to those who cant be arsed to work? or those who haven't been bothered and in one way or the other have to be bailed out by the state? Nobody is saying its essential but its a dam site more beneficial to society to tell people they will be rewarded for excellence then supported through mediocrity.
As for a level which not everyone can use thats not true, anyone can go to university, sure its harder for some but do we sacrifice the ability of the gifted for that? no of course not!
so say £90 a year is nothing is the disregard of money which causes debt, its the slippery slope argument, after all if fees go up so does that £90, what about the medical students? or the courses that require further training? the courses which often provide the most benefit are the most heavily penalized. What about the next £90 what about the small debts which make a big one? By saying a small debt is OK, or required you justify a larger one and a larger one still. If asked people dont want debt no mater what its for and shackling these graduate into a well paid job to pay for it all does nothing to help the class divide either, university shouldn't be about moving up a pay grade but when finance is involved that becomes all to easily the reality, the best go to private sector and too few join a public sector which penalizes them for the greater contribution to society (health being a prime sector example)
Two points I'd like to make here:
ReplyDelete1) You assertion regarding fair. Based on your reasoning, Clement Attlee's government should never have created the NHS in the late 1940s, as it would be unfair on those who'd had to pay for healthcare in the previous thousands of years.
2) You say that £90 is a lot for someone earning just £16,000 a year. They'd be paying a lot more if the university system was government funded (£16,000 minus the tax-free allowance of ~£6,000 leaves £10,000 of taxable pay). The 3p/4p in the pound that would be needed to finance such funding would cost this person between £300 and £400 a year more in tax. And this is then regardless of whether they even want to use the system in the first place.
I totally agree with your article. It certainly seems that students from poorer backgrounds are being brainwashed into thinking that they cannot afford university when in reality they'll be the one who will receive the most grants to help them through it, and in the long run it's still going to dramatically help their career prospects. Say two students, one from a well-off family and the other from a poorer background, study English at York University, for example. After three years of studying, talent prevailing, they're both going to come out of uni with the same degree, giving them pretty much equal career prospects, and consequently an equal chance of earning the money to pay of their loans. The moral of the story is that if you have the talent and are willing to put the hard work in, then tuition fees really shouldn't limit how much you achieve. It sounds a bit corny, but ultimately, it's true.
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