Promises promises

[french frank]

Another issue connected with the raising of tuition fees to its current level is that it creates a situation where the student becomes someone who is paying for an expensive product rather than someone who is at university to learn, with all the implications this has for the way things are taught, the way courses are organised, the expectations of the students (ie that they'll "get their money's worth" and pass their degree), and so on, as I'm sure has been discussed here often before. This was one of my prime considerations in leaving the British higher education profession (though I hadn't been in it for very long).

Yes, tell me about that one. I was horrified on talking to ex-colleagues to discover (and this is only one of the issues you raise) that students considered that they should have the final say on what they were taught.

But (at the risk of bringing down further opprobrium on my head!) the Lib Dems in Scotland backed the SNP in bringing in free tuition, which is why the proposed strategy to abolish fees in England was proposed (for all the support that got). But alongside that has to be a policy to ensure equal participation, otherwise it just becomes a way of subsidising the middle classes. And it isn't just the cost of going to university (real or perceived) that is a barrier to some.

[P. G. Tipps]

No it isn't, because these are precisely the people who most need economic assistance from the government, and under this scheme they don't receive any more assistance, whereas people on higher incomes do.

What's that got to do with income tax when those who most need economic assistance already don't pay any?

Direct financial assistance to the non-tax-paying poor is a matter for government social security departments and no longer anything to do with the collection of income tax!

[Flosshilde]

But alongside that has to be a policy to ensure equal participation, otherwise it just becomes a way of subsidising the middle classes. And it isn't just the cost of going to university (real or perceived) that is a barrier to some.

But the grants system did just that, along with the introduction of comprehensive schools. In the sixties and seventies many people went to university who were the first in their family to do so.

[teamsaint]

But the grants system did just that, along with the introduction of comprehensive schools. In the sixties and seventies many people went to university who were the first in their family to do so.

....and what really needs breaking is the stranglehold that the top private schools have on the most prestigious universities.

The loans schemes have done nothing to address this.

But then that isn't the point of them.


£9k a year, or borrowed at preferential rated, is a gentle landing after Marlborough or Winchester at £30k PA.

[french frank]

But the grants system did just that, along with the introduction of comprehensive schools. In the sixties and seventies many people went to university who were the first in their family to do so.

Including me. But then as now there were cultural barriers and the participation rate was by no means equal then. Even Blair was only aiming for 50% participation in the 1990s.

[Flosshilde]

Indeed, and there are plenty who have taken the loan who didn't need it and then have got jobs paying less than the threshold needed to pay it back.

The whole system is corrupt from top to bottom.

(Replying to ts)

[Flosshilde]

Including me. But then as now there were cultural barriers and the participation rate was by no means equal then. Even Blair was only aiming for 50% participation in the 1990s.

Yes, but if ghe present system isn't any better than the old system, & is worse in many respects, why not go back to the old?

[Dave2002]

Indeed, and there are plenty who have taken the loan who didn't need it and then have got jobs paying less than the threshold needed to pay it back.

The whole system is corrupt from top to bottom.

(Replying to ts)

If you think that people deliberately take jobs which pay less than the threshold to pay back a student loan you should think again. This is not a sensible strategy for most young, or even older people, unless they have some other form of private means. Many people take jobs which pay little because it's not possible for them to find other employment, let alone appropriate employment. Some, perhaps many, get trapped in careers which they didn't really want, and/or which are not the best match to their skills. Probably (possibly?) most eventually get work in the "best" compromise, and accept what comes, but it takes time, and in some cases a great deal of "acceptance".

[french frank]

Re raising tax thresholds,these no doubt feel good for those on modest incomes,and actually I think thus far have had something to be said for them, but it is in fact a regressive measure, dressed up to look beneficial for the less well off.

The higher you raise the threshold, there becomes progressively less benefit to those who have fallen below that threshold already (though Cameron is pressing to take over the policy by raising it even higher).

But I don't think the fact that it also benefits the better off is valid - unless you favour the abolition of universal benefits altogether, and a return to means testing.

[french frank]

Yes, but if ghe present system isn't any better than the old system, & is worse in many respects, why not go back to the old?

Because if the ambition is to get more and more school leavers going to university, the grant system as it then operated wouldn't be adequate? Certainly in the 1960s there was still only a small minority going to university.

[Richard Barrett]

Direct financial assistance to the non-tax-paying poor is a matter for government social security departments and no longer anything to do with the collection of income tax!

Hmmm... where would the money come from to pay that direct financial assistance, do you think?

[aeolium]

But the tuition fees policy seems to me to be part of a programme to introduce a marketised system and move away from higher education as a public service ideal. Once the principle of tuition fees is accepted, it can be developed to the point where the students effectively pay for the whole of their higher education and the burden on the taxpayer is progressively removed. At that point it seems to me that higher education as a public service idea has pretty much died the death. And with the policy to increase tuition fees to £9000 max (I think Browne recommended an unlimited upper level?) this has also become a plank in an overall austerity economics programme: the intention to shift the burden of higher education costs from taxpayer to student, and also (since it was accepted that there wouldn't be full recoupment of repayments) shifting the taxpayer loss to future generations. If it had also been possible to privatise the student loanbook - and despite Cable's announcement earlier this year that that plan had been scrapped I'm pretty sure it would resurface under a Conservative government - then the government could have got a lump sum up front and let future governments worry about the implications.

What I think is wrong is the idea that in some way this policy was inevitable, in the politician's dreadful and stupid phrase "there is no alternative". There is always an alternative, and usually more than one. Let's remember that in the days when higher education was free, though more restricted, income and capital/inheritance taxes at the upper end were far higher than they are now. If you choose to reduce income and other tax rates significantly then you are making it more difficult to fund higher education as well as other public services - but it is a choice, an ideological choice, just as it is an ideological choice to raise taxes. Here is a dissenting voice on the current higher education funding policy:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/07/high-tuition-fees-why-inevitable

England is the only country in Europe IIRC where tuition fees are so high, and Germany has recently abolished tuition fees. Shouldn't we be at least looking at how the funding model works elsewhere rather than concluding that the English way is the way it has to be?

[Richard Barrett]

exactly

[MrGongGong]

exactly

exactly

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

There is always an alternative, and usually more than one.

(cut these out to give to prospective politicians who might come knocking on your door)

[french frank]

I don't disagree with any of that. And, with a policy to abolish tuition fees, neither did the Lib Dems. But Labour did and the Tories do. The Lib Dems would do just as well to become an external protest group and leave the electorate to switch between Labour and Tories as they always did. To me, it seems like the system that kills democracy. And I would still back the basic party policies.

But the tuition fees policy seems to me to be part of a programme to introduce a marketised system and move away from higher education as a public service ideal. Once the principle of tuition fees is accepted, it can be developed to the point where the students effectively pay for the whole of their higher education and the burden on the taxpayer is progressively removed. At that point it seems to me that higher education as a public service idea has pretty much died the death. And with the policy to increase tuition fees to £9000 max (I think Browne recommended an unlimited upper level?) this has also become a plank in an overall austerity economics programme: the intention to shift the burden of higher education costs from taxpayer to student, and also (since it was accepted that there wouldn't be full recoupment of repayments) shifting the taxpayer loss to future generations. If it had also been possible to privatise the student loanbook - and despite Cable's announcement earlier this year that that plan had been scrapped I'm pretty sure it would resurface under a Conservative government - then the government could have got a lump sum up front and let future governments worry about the implications.

What I think is wrong is the idea that in some way this policy was inevitable, in the politician's dreadful and stupid phrase "there is no alternative". There is always an alternative, and usually more than one. Let's remember that in the days when higher education was free, though more restricted, income and capital/inheritance taxes at the upper end were far higher than they are now. If you choose to reduce income and other tax rates significantly then you are making it more difficult to fund higher education as well as other public services - but it is a choice, an ideological choice, just as it is an ideological choice to raise taxes. Here is a dissenting voice on the current higher education funding policy:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/07/high-tuition-fees-why-inevitable

England is the only country in Europe IIRC where tuition fees are so high, and Germany has recently abolished tuition fees. Shouldn't we be at least looking at how the funding model works elsewhere rather than concluding that the English way is the way it has to be?