University tuition fees - Bit of a disagreement in London

[Lissa]

It's in the news again so what do you think? How should universities be funded? Should so many people go to university? Can we learn anything from other countries?

I can't help thinking a fundamental change in attitude is needed. American parents have college funds for their offspring. It's at least 10 years since fees came in here and people don't seem to have caught on yet that it's now an expensive thing to do. University is just another thing people think they can have now and pay for later.

:mobile

[Rob McCow]

Well I think the theory was that having brilliant graduates benefited everyone in society. So taxation was a sensible way to pay for University courses, everyone benefits and everyone pays. And students, by their very nature, are not earners until they finish their course. So how can they fund their way through University without support?

What's been proposed is unlimited fee levels. So to get into the best of higher education, you'd have to pay more. From some points of view, that's a good plan. The better the degree, the more you should have to pay for it - that kind of makes sense.

The issue is that for a lot of people, these degrees are going to be totally unaffordable. Effectively, the poor get priced out of higher education. Again, this is excellent as it will stop filthy, unaromatic plebs from getting in to Oxford and Cambridge. [/telegraph]

We had something similar to college funds in the UK, I think they were called 'Student Grants'. But they were unpopular because the ignorant, selfish students would take the handout and spend it on booze. [/dailymail]

From Directgov:

The maximum you can get through either grant in 2010/11 or 2009/10 is £2,906 for the academic year.

That would cover almost all of the tuition fees. A superb option if you're prepared to sleep in the lecture halls, spend the year naked and eat whatever you can pick off from under the desks.

So what we've got for the rest is a Student Loan. This is a natty idea that encourages students to borrow against their future. It pumps more 'invisible money' into the economy, allowing the banks and governments to pass around glorious debts. That couldn't possibly lead to a crash, could it?

While further education is a noble pursuit, there are far too many University places for the UK to sustain. A good set of A-Levels should be enough for anyone to get a decent job, but the market demands University graduates. As a result, the competition forces students to apply.

I don't think most people really want to study for an extra three years. I think the motivating factor is the quality of job available to you when you finish. There's a huge spectrum, of course, but most people go to University to get a good job.

[Lissa]

The last Labour government turned a university education from a privilege into a right. Admittedly, my knowledge of American higher education is mainly taken from fairly trashy television but over there they still see a college education as something to aspire to. Their parents save up for it their entire lives, the students get part time jobs to pay their way through and they change what they're studying as they go along to make the most of their time there. By contrast, British parents don't plan long term for the cost of a university education, schools and ministers encourage pupils to go regardless of whether they actually want to, they don't get jobs to help pay their bills, if they do they blow it on a round the world trip before they even go to university, they get stuck on a course they don't care about, they spend more time arsing around than they do studying and they emerge massively in debt and with nothing to show for it but a couple of oriental tattoos, a venereal disease and a third class degree in leisure and tourism.

Stephen Fry writes a splendid passage in his new book - so splendid in fact that I think he writes it twice - about what university education (and education in general) should be about and that the templated and rigid system we have doesn't achieve that. People shouldn't go to university because they want a better job - he opines, making exceptions for vocations like medicine and law - but because they want to learn. And people learn best when they want to learn. Essays that get in the way of drinking, lectures that cut into your sleeping time, seminars that really spoil the mood of the night before - that's what education seems to have become. Or how it's perceived at least which is why so many with no academic ambitions at all seem to willing to sign up for a lifelong debt in return for three years of hangovers and a worthless bit of paper.

On a similar subject, I'm not entirely sure how a part time degree which involves a few hours of lectures and a few hours of seminars each week can possibly cost more than a private secondary education which is full time and involves an awful lot more staff time. Does it basically come down to students subsidising academics' need to write smug articles in dusty journals? Or is there a reason why university tuition fees are so high?

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I think it was a somewhat shamefull thing New Labour did introducing tuition fees - after saying their priority was Education.

I don't really agree with them, and the idea of having some Universities charge what they like reeks of some establishments trying to keep the riff-raff out.

I think more importantly though, if you listen quietly you can hear the LibDems folding on another of their principals.

[Anthony Williams]

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy young man...

The problem with university funding started with the Major government, making every post-A-Level institution into a "University". Then, Blair had his grand idea to have 50% of people going to university. Why?

I've heard people of the older generation (50+) saying that when they were young, only 15% of people had degrees, and that they were by no means considered a necessity for a decent job. We now have the situation where you're going to struggle if you don't have a degree, and if you truly want to mark yourself out from other recent graduates, you need more than just a Bachelors.

So, we're left with a government that's trying to come up with solutions for covering an absolute mess. We have poor universities offering "Mickey Mouse" degrees (such as London South Bank), who receive just as much funding as Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and the other universities in the Russell Group and 1994 Group do. It's a poorly thought-out system that just doesn't work.

"Oh, but it's easy for you, Anthony... you went to private school and don't have a student loan." Seriously, this is what someone I know said to me when I was espousing my views on the education system recently. Certainly, my parents probably could have afforded to send me to university under the current proposals, but it doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion.

And my opinion on the current proposals is that, with everything that's happened to the higher education system in the last 20 years, they're not ideal, but I challenge someone to come up with a viable way of covering the costs, whilst ensuring that our universities stay as the world-renowned institutions that many of them are.

Finally... a note on the American higher education system. Many parents do save up for a long time to send their children to university. There are also a lot of bursaries and scholarships, particularly for those whose parents cannot afford to send their children to university. But they do have student loans too... Whitney has a small amount of student debt, that we're aiming to pay off in the first year after I have a job. But, students have a much better work ethic out there - they pay attention to their degrees. Virtually all of my American friends held down part-time jobs in excess of 20 hours a week to supplement their income.

Ant x

[Captain Tancredi]

There's something morally indefensible about people who benefited from the twenty or thirty-year window of free university education denying it to others- but then again, that's something the baby boomer generation has done consistently because they had everything handed to them on a plate but aren't prepared to fund the next generation.

I can remember a few years ago Alan Bennett saying that there's no way that his parents would have allowed him to go to Oxford if it had meant getting into debt, and while I don't think it would have been quite so bad for me, I suspect that I probably would have had to look at studying at Liverpool rather than Bristol and staying at home. Tuition fees are probably high because universities would prefer to charge each student the same (so arts subjects with a few lectures over the week and a couple of hours contact time with a tutor subsidise the likes of medicine and expensive lab-based sciences). Indeed, I think I read a while back that some universities are dropping chemistry, in part because of the expense of maintaining the facilities.

One option which doesn't seem to have been explored is one of breaking the cost down, so you pay a certain basic amount for use of the library, examination fees and so on, a bit more for lectures and more still for tutorials. It would at least allow some people to take a degree, and there would be an incentive to study in your first two years if you did well enough not to need the most expensive level of tuition in your last year but still come out with a decent degree. But on balance, in the fullness of time it'll probably be seen that there was a period of twenty or thirty years when we experimented with free university education and while it allowed some people to take a degree who might otherwise not have had the chance, it turned out to be financially unsustainable and resulted in a lot of overqualified graduates entering the job market not really qualified for anything when they might have been better training as garage mechanics or chefs.

[Si Hunt]

It's harder for kids today than it was for me, because more is loan based. I put most of my loan in the bank and earned interest on it - good times! (well, others got it and blew it on clothes, so I don't feel like I behaved unwisely). However, I still paid it back over many years following. They don't rush you and it's managable. It annoys me that the Standard had such a stupid headline today - "£90,000 FOR A DEGREE!". What a pathetic, nonsensical, misleading headline. That's a fixed price is it? No, it means for a certain student in London, doing a medical degree, over many years... perhaps. How about a headline that says "£500,000 JUST TO STAY ALIVE!", yet that's probably what most of us spend on food over our lifetime. What's the difference? You pay it back gradually.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

It seems we're all largely of the same opinion, that just too many people are going to university now. But it seems to me that it's not consider un-PC to say that - I seem to recall an edition of Question Time about 6 months ago (maybe a bit more) where they were discussing this issue, and none of the panel would address the issue of whether we should be sending so many people. No question, it shouldn't be a system where only those who can afford to go do so, it should be down to ability.

Whether the universities themselves would support that, I don't know, because obviously the more students they have the more income they have, so I can see it's not an easy or straightforward issue. I don't know what the answer is, but certainly there does seem something morally dubious about a set-up where every graduate comes out of university with debt. And as Lissa, and Mr Fry, seem to be saying, I think we also ought to be addressing what university is actually for.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

that just too many people are going to university now.

Against this there are certain subjects like physics and chemistry where there has been a huge drop in numbers applying for positions at Universities, with some Universities dropping these departments in their entirety ...

[SiHart]

Beacuse people are taking more vocational degrees I suspect, rather than the purer traditional subjects. I do wonder if there might be a better way of providng those kind of courses for students that want them rather than university... oh yes, a polytechnic of sorts perhaps...

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

And why are the majority of University courses three years long? What's wrong with a one or two year course?

[SiHart]

Perhaps we also need to change attitudes to paying for University and agree that while it was lovely that some of us didn't have to pay tution fees and all that, things have changed. Nothing stays the same forever, and perhaps it's right that people pay. There I said it!

I have to say that when I did my Masters a few years back i was much more dediocated to the study than I was on my BA, because I was paying for it. I worked damn hard them to make it worth my time and my money. Maybe that's somethign that everyone needs to think about too.

Si xx

[Lissa]

You were also older so you chose to do it, when you did it and you knew why you were doing it. I did a law degree because school said I was good enough, I wasn't really interested in it, didn't do a lot of work, went a bit weird in the last year, still managed to get a 2:2 and it was all a bit of a waste of time really. But it proved school was right - I was good enough and that meant I could do it without caring about it.

[SiHart]

Good points- maybe we should people to go and study when they're a bit older and have a better idea what they want to do with their lives.

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

And why are the majority of University courses three years long? What's wrong with a one or two year course?

That's because the Minister in charge of Universities met Patrick Troughton in the BBC car park, and he said...

Sorry.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I did a law degree because school said I was good enough

And because the world needs more lawyers?

Tuition fees aside, the subject of education is interesting. I did spend 6 years all told at University. Some things I worked hard on, others less so.

Most importantly I learned to learn and to question. I think I should have a PhD in Questioning. And that's helped me learn a lot more than just my paper degree. I've worked for 13 years in software engineering, but it's not my subject degree, entirely self taught.

However when it comes to skiiving, I learned the most working alongside the armed forces!

[Si Hunt]

Maybe we should make kids pay for High School as well, then they wouldn't spend so long dicking around and playing truant.

There, I've said it!

Si.

[Jon Masters]

Maybe we should make kids pay for High School as well, then they wouldn't spend so long dicking around and playing truant.

There, I've said it!

Si.

Actually I've long been an advocate of this (I wonder why ?) - pay them the minimum wage (and overtime if they stay back at school to study) , but only if they have acceptable attendance (ie the same you'd have in work) , make them buy all their own equipment including textbooks (bet they don't graffiti in them then ) and deduct fines for improper dress, lack of productivity in lessons or at home and behaviour.

Uni fees are not so easy to solve - what do you do about doctors who (a) have to get a medical degree to be doctors (b) Have to undergo further training once they done the basics , but (c) we want to encourage to work for the NHS , where wages are not as good as in private medicine ?

Similarly, do we want a load more people graduating in a variety of degrees and the just getting jobs in the city which (a) they could have got without their degree (b) they won't use their degree knowledge probably and (c) they've taken a course place from someone who might have gone further in their degree field ?

[WhiteCrowNZ]

deduct fines for improper dress, lack of productivity in lessons or at home and behaviour.

I totally disagree. The most important thing you learn in school is about how hard you can push back against the system ...

[Lissa]

Uni fees are not so easy to solve - what do you do about doctors who (a) have to get a medical degree to be doctors (b) Have to undergo further training once they done the basics , but (c) we want to encourage to work for the NHS , where wages are not as good as in private medicine ?

How about scholarships where the NHS, NHS trusts or even local hospitals sponsor students to train as doctors in return for a commitment to work in the NHS for x years after qualifying?

[Si Hunt]

Once you get past the issue of people paying for something they take from the state that everyone else got for free, it's hard to make it sound catastrophic no matter how hard the media are trying. The charge on Bbc Breakfast today started "So you leave University and you're earning 30k, you've got to pay back £80 a month... FOR LIFE!"

Well so bloody what! For starters, what graduate earns £30k?! You can pay off £80 a month easily! In fact you could pay double, even with a mortgage as well! Most graduates will earn less than £25k and won't even have to start paying immediately as the threshold at which you have to start paying it back has risen (a fact which has oddly been unreported!). If students are so poor then suddenly having a £20k a year income is a huge increase, so if they are sensible they will begin paying it back immediately anyway, and it won't be anywhere near £80 a month for life anyway. Finally, the debt is anulled after 30 years anyway, which is a trick my mortgage can't boast.

I know its easy for me to say, but this is just something people are going to have to get used to. It's not going to reduce them to poverty though.

Si. :mobile

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I know the reason you see a lot of young New Zealanders everywhere but New Zealand is because they run up quite sizable student loans and then leave the country for the next few years, as you don't have to repay them if you're abroad ...

[Jason Thompson]

Here's another point regarding the number of graduates we have in this country: many places demand graduates for positions, but just as many won't take graduates because they are 'overqualified'. So, you get a degree, and far from opening wide avenues of possibility, it closes off your ability to get a job in certain sectors. If you have trouble finding a job in which your degree is a benefit once you graduate, that leaves you unable to find a different job to take on in the meantime.

[SiHart]

Well, it's rather depressing news if you're planning on going to university now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11677862

Universities in England will be able to charge tuition fees of up to £9,000 per year, as the government transfers much of the cost of courses from the state to students.

Fees will rise to £6,000 - with an upper tier of £9,000, if universities ensure access for poorer students.

Universities Minister David Willetts said this was a "progressive" reform.

Labour's Gareth Thomas said the fee hike represented a "tragedy for a whole generation of young people".

The National Union of Students dubbed the plan, which will mean almost a threefold increase, "an outrage".

The announcement sparked a student occupation of an administration building at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Much of the proposed fee rise, up from the current £3,290 per year, will replace funding cut from universities in last month's Spending Review.

This will mean that many courses, particularly in arts and humanities, will almost entirely depend on income from students' fees....

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

So, the best they could describe it as is 'Progressive'. That's pathetic.