University tuition fees set to rise again

I'm just about okay with the present system, because it is at least possible to pay for your education and be done with it. Removing all limits, however, is mad, and would be maddening to many of the graduates whom we most want to keep in this country.

Removing which limits?

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It is simply unavoidable that there are plenty of people who exist who could have used their degrees to achieve success, but didn't. I'm not going to pay an unbounded amount for my degree while those people are rewarded for their sloth.

Others may have achieved highly at university, and yet chosen to go into a field that pays less. I still don't see why their education should be made retrospectively cheaper on that basis, while financially successful graduates pay endlessly more for theirs.

I'm just about okay with the present system, because it is at least possible to pay for your education and be done with it. Removing all limits, however, is mad, and would be maddening to many of the graduates whom we most want to keep in this country.

It's not endlessly more. There are clear limits on how much you'd pay. Worse case scenario you earn just enough to not have any written off but not enough to pay it off early, under which case you'd end up paying about 14k in interest over the 30 years.
It's also not a case of 'sloth' being rewarded. That's a poisonous attitude.
There's also the fact that low earning degrees generally subsidise STEM subjects that cost a heck of a lot more than 9k a year to teach per student. Swings and roundabouts man.

The limit of an absolute sum which can actually be repaid, in the case of the imposition of a graduate tax.

Unless I'm missing something?

It's not endlessly more. There are clear limits on how much you'd pay.

The regulations may change from time totime and this means the terms of your loan mayalso change.

Tuition fees can only increase in line with inflation, maximum, and assuming quality standards are being met by the university. It's not unlimited.

(If that's what you mean?)

No, I mean that the maximum amount that can presently be repaid by any given graduate is limited by reference to what they paid in the first place (with interest etc), because the matter is dealt with as the repayment of a loan rather than as a tax.

I'm opposed to the idea of a tax because in principle it could remove this limit on what may have to be paid after graduation by any particular graduate, although apparently there have been some proposals which still involve some limits on repayment.

This letter is particularly interesting!

It's an accurate attitude, but I wasn't aware it was limited to be fair. What you've described looks to me more like the present position, and less like something I'd call a 'tax'. I would still be surprised if it didn't involve a shift upwards from the present limits on repayment.

I don't mind subsidy for STEM courses, but it isn't the same thing. It rewards students for choosing to do something that we need people to do, not for earning less money. Everyone has the choice to take a STEM course, and anyway this is largely just a function of the standard fee cap (presumably all courses would be more expensive in a free market, at some universities at least).

So you are ok with the current repayment regime (and afaik it's unchanged in the white paper).

What do you mean? I was describing precisely the present system.
The reward for being a successful graduate is the large pay check. Why do you feel like you should get even more of a 'reward' on top of that, even though you'd be in a position to contribute more?

What do you mean? I was describing precisely the present system.
The reward for being a successful graduate is the large pay check. Why do you feel like you should get even more of a 'reward' on top of that, even though you'd be in a position to contribute more?

I don't know why that would be, given we've been talking about a graduate tax the whole way through, but, for the reasons you gave, I'm able to put up with the present system.

You're now arguing that not being required to pay an additional tax, on top of all the extra tax you'll be paying anyway, is a 'reward'?

My position is perfectly clear. I am not willing to pay an unbounded extra amount, under a graduate tax regime, for the same service that everyone else received. I do not see why my education should be priced retrospectively higher on the grounds that I've actually made productive use of it.

edit: if your 'reward' comment was aimed at STEM, I've set out my position, but because it's not relevant I'm not willing to get into a long argument about it.

I think it is ridiculous, imo. Instead of upping the fees, why can't they bring back the caps on the amount of students universities can accept?

Obviously I will. The debt is insignificant compared the the experience, knowledge gained, career opportunities expanded and the pay increases acquired from going to a decent Uni as opposed to not going. Not everything is about money. Paying back a few % of my salary, for the cause that got me that salary, doesn't exactly seem unfair to me.

Like I said, wait until you've graduated. Opinions change. It's incredibly naive to think you're going to walk out of uni and straight into a decent job just because you "worked hard". The real world doesn't work like that, but the Tories thrive by convincing poor people like you that one day you'll be rich, just like them, if you just "work hard". I can empathise with you, because I used to have the same naive views.

Graduates still pay off the cost of their degree multiple times over due to the extra tax, so you have absolutely no case. There is no net loss due to funding education.



Their motivation is not relevant. All that is relevant is that it is paid for multiple times over, over the course of the graduates life due to the higher income (which means there was no loss for the government), and any research produced benefits the country as a whole. I'm sorry if you think that there is no benefit to educating a population above GCSE level, but this is simply not true.



Irrelevant. Higher education still pays for itself many times over.