Teenage students lose high court battle to overturn tuition fees rise

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There is no human right which says the state must provide you with higher education. How dare they used rules designed to maintain peace and human dignity to demand such a luxury. There are people in the world who can't read an independent newspaper or travel freely, and these students think that a political decision on government spending is important enough to contravene human rights? The way to deal with tuition fees you don't approve of is through the political system, using the free media and political institutions to lobby for change. Human rights are there to protect your right to express political beliefs, not to be used to get what you want by the back door.

what a pair of *****

Yeah, in retrtospect it's a bit of an insult to all the other horrific human rights violations thats happening right now, they were never going to win it.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 23

Llamageddon

I agree with the idea that the individual should contribute towards the cost of their university tuition but I am a bit fed up with a disproportionate amount of cuts hitting the same generations whilst these generations also have to contend with grossly higher house/ rent prices and will be the ones who have to pay back the national debt.

Reply 24

Nick100

Being charged money for a university education contravenes their humans rights? First world problems much?

Reply 25

Architecture-er

Well they obviously just did it so that they could put it on their UCAS forms...

Reply 26

megaman70

Original post by hungryaardvark

I'm sorry, i just had to respond to this...

Judging from the tone of the above paragraph, university funding is not an issue for you. Fair enough, i wouldn't hold that against you at all. But think about this. A friend of mine is also applying to do medicine. He got 4 interviews, but 4 rejections afterwards. Thankfully, his biochem application was accepted, but thanks to the tuition fee rises he can't afford to pay the 20 grand fees that aren't covered by a student loan (he's drawn this conclusion based on the fact that vince cable has said that the current system for grad entry is being scrapped next year). Result: he's now being forced into fields he's not really interested in.

I kinda agree that degrees have been devalued of late, but what is happening here is that students are being forced not to take a degree because they come from a poorer background, rather than because they are less intelligent. that is not a valid hurdle to overcome.

Of particular concern for me is that the tories announced that along with the fee rises would come (in time) special places set aside for students who could afford to pay greatly increased fees. You see what this means? it means that if you are VERY rich, you get access to the pool of regular places plus a bunch of extra places that are only accessible to the ultra rich. that is not at all acceptable.

Bottom line: increasing the value of degrees=good. doing this by filtering out all the poor people=unacceptable.

Well said and I fully agree with you

Any sort of fees will bar some people from education and vocational training and trap them in professions they don't like if they are lucky, If they are not lucky they will be trapped in minimum wage dead end jobs and the perpetual poverty trap that comes with it. Unfortunately it is the ones who are born into the ranks of the very poorest who are likely to get the worse end of this stick.

as you have probably noticed this forum is full of idiots who think that this problem does not matter, all they care about is the fact that education is paid for out of tax payers money. If someone is born poor and does not have the reasorces to better himself then this is perfectly acceptable because to give him anything would mean spending tax payers money - and to believe that some people with this opinion think that wanting free education is selfish!

Notice how most of the post seam to support fees but give almost no discussion or reason why about it, the handful of people like us who are opposed to fees give in depth explanations and yet we are ether ignored or just fobbed off with clichés such as comparing free education to a free car or accusing poor people of being lazy.

I find the comments comparing education to cars and guitars most amusing, I bet these same people think that a person should not be given life saving medical treatment just because it comes from taxpayers money

as for those who think that education is not a right
well to those people I say that equal access to education is an absolute right under the human rights act, there is no right to a specific level of education but if a level of education is available in a country then there is a right of equality of access to it.

protocol 1, article 2 of the European convention of human rights states that
"No person shall be denied the right to education"

and in the case of Şahin v. Turkey this protocol was given the following interpretation which clearly states that equality of access to education is a human right.

"It would be hard to imagine that institutions of higher education existing at a given time do not come within the scope of the first sentence of Article 2 of Protocol No 1. Although that Article does not impose a duty on the Contracting States to set up institutions of higher education, any State doing so will be under an obligation to afford an effective right of access to them. In a democratic society, the right to education, which is indispensable to the furtherance of human rights, plays such a fundamental role that a restrictive interpretation of the first sentence of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 would not be consistent with the aim or purpose of that provision."

Incidentally it seams from the media reports that the court accepted that the government did not comply with its human rights obligations but its discretion to refuse to overturn the legislation merely because ii would cause "administrative chaos". I cant wait to get hold of a full transcript of the case to read it for myself.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 27

megaman70

Original post by bananaterracottapie

embarrasing.

indeeed
it makes me ashamed to be British

worst thing about it is that its not the case that the UK has always charged fees and is refusing to get rid of them.
But that we did have free university education for a very long time and it is now being taken away.

Reply 28

megaman70

Original post by prog2djent

WHAT DO WE WANT ..... FREE STUFF ..... WHEN DO WE WANT IT ..... FREE STUFF

I want a new guitar, so should everyone else pay for it? I mean, I make money from what I do with the guitar and pay taxes (hehe) with it, so surely the state (public) should subsidise that because I am inputting into the economy, right?

An interesting example, the usual example of this type compares education to a luxury car, but this is slightly different.

Buying a guitar so that you can make more money for yourself is comparable to starting a business. An individual invests some money so he can work to make more.

The key here is the need to invest some money before he can make any more through his own efforts - the problem comes with how does a person obtain the initial money if he needs money before he can start making money?

If a person has a wealthy family they can give him the money and he can then go on to earn more money.

In your example you are able to make money for yourself because you started with enough money to buy a guitar.

If a person is from a poor family he is not given the money he needs to get started.

In your example the poor person does not start with enough money to buy a guitar and so is barred from playing a guitar to make money for himself

In effect it means that if a person is born poor then he cannot aquire the money needed to get started.

now some people will probibly say that he should take a minimum wage job and save up, unfortunaly the guitar example was a very simplistic one and the money needed to get into a position where you can make a comfortable living for yourself ofen is far greater than what a person could ever save up on minimum wage jobs, this creating a glass cealing which a person ends up trapped bellow if he is born bellow it.

This has nothing to do with if or not the person will ever pay the money back or if he will ever pay taxes at all, quite frankly that is a complete irrelivance. it is about peoples life chances being limited to by the amount of wealth they are born into if they are not given certain things for free.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 29

Sovr'gnChancellor£

Original post by Snagprophet

I don't understand how black people are meant to be hit. Are black people incapable of getting jobs?

Neither do I - that was pretty insulting. What about 'member of black minority ethnic groups' who attend private schools and top state schools and perform well? Would they be completely barred from higher education? What a load of nonsense!

Reply 30

megaman70

I don't understand how black people are meant to be hit. Are black people incapable of getting jobs?

University fees have increased to a level far beyond what a person can realistically obtain with a job that does not require years of experience or some sort of qualification/education.

And this problem is starting to be introduced for bellow university level education as well.

This is the whole reason why there is so much anger about fees.

Reply 31

Phantom Lord

I agree with them but yeah the case was pointless.

Reply 32

Aj12

Original post by welshmun

Very substantial compliance? Did they see the protests?

Those protests were a minority of students. Over 300 thousand students applied to UCAS in 2011. The protests against higher fees made up of current and potential students among others numbered generally under 20 thousand.

Reply 33

Mbob

Original post by hungryaardvark

A friend of mine is also applying to do medicine. He got 4 interviews, but 4 rejections afterwards. Thankfully, his biochem application was accepted, but thanks to the tuition fee rises he can't afford to pay the 20 grand fees that aren't covered by a student loan (he's drawn this conclusion based on the fact that vince cable has said that the current system for grad entry is being scrapped next year). Of particular concern for me is that the tories announced that along with the fee rises would come (in time) special places set aside for students who could afford to pay greatly increased fees. You see what this means? it means that if you are VERY rich, you get access to the pool of regular places plus a bunch of extra places that are only accessible to the ultra rich. that is not at all acceptable.

What you're making here is a very specific point, that you think grduate entry for medicine or a second degree should be supported in the same way as for a first degree. There are arguments for and against that. You could argue that, given finite government resources, supporting students to do multiple degrees at the same level is not a good allocation of those resources, especially when that there is no shortage of well qualified peopel applying for medicine straight from school.

In any case, that's not really relatd to the general issue of whether tuition fees prevent poorer people going to university for their first degree. I've yet to see a convincing argument of why it should, other than that poorer people are less willing to take on 'debt', even when 'debt' in this case is very different to how we would normally define it.

Reply 34

kka25

Original post by prog2djent

Reply 35

Mbob

Original post by megaman70

I'm not sure that's true in general. I've yet to see a convincing argument why the new system is any worse for poorer applicants than the old one, except in a few hightly unsusual cases.

The people hardest hit are probably the lower middle class, those with parental income large enough so that they don't get the full maintenance loan. The poorerst in society are well served with loans and grants.

as you have probably noticed this forum is full of idiots who think that this problem does not matter, all they care about is the fact that education is paid for out of tax payers money. chaos".

I don't think that's a fair characterisation if you look through the various topics on tuition fees. While they might well be some right-wingers about, there have been plenty of 'idiots' on the other side of the argument, claiming that people can't afford to got university now they have to 'pay' £9k per year, which is clearly ridiculous.

There have also been people spreading lots of misinformation about how much money people will have to repay. These people are discouraging poorer applicationts from applying to university much more than the government.

Reply 36

kka25

Original post by Aj12

What the majority does, doesn't make it the correct thing to do... it's a fallacy to believe so.

Reply 37

Aj12

Original post by kka25

What the majority does, doesn't make it the correct thing to do... it's a fallacy to believe so.

I did not say it did. However the judge claimed that there had been widespread compliance the poster I quoted seem to be saying the protests were evidence there was not widespread compliance but these protests were a small minority of students.