GOGSoc goes forth

Just in case anyone's interested, after reading yet another annoying and frankly fallacious Clegg/Cameron comment about fees and cuts and what they'll do, I wrote a note about it. I think it's public, but let me know if anyone has issues accessing it.

This bottom url is wrong. I googled the university and it should be nanzan-u.ac.jp. They've moved their website around and so the real link is here:

http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/jjrs/pdf/46.pdf

Thanks very much My google competence was lacking Got it now!

I think your friend commenting at the bottom made a very good point about misinformation, as actually increasing the repayment threshold to £21k will make a big difference to a lot of people (it would make a difference to me, for example, I'd still be paying right now, but I'd be paying less). As Shiny says, it's just another form of tax that comes straight out of your pay packet, so I barely notice it most of the time.

But I think his comment about NUS campaigns, the media and the Labour party is a good one, and one that isn't made often enough.

But paying that extra tax for life, while you wouldn't notice it as debt, makes you quite a chunk poorer. Most grads can expect a decade or two of repayments currently, but that'll hit 40 years when this goes. And even with that, funding will drop significantly. That's my main issue and what I was trying to push with the article - this hits university funding and will lead to a reduction in the quality of British universities. I can cope with paying for quality a lot easier than I can paying more for less. Add the intergenerational equity point and the perverse incentives and it's clear why I think this is a terrible idea; plus the political issue for the Lib Dems especially of both missing the point protesters are making and doing a complete u turn on the promise you made.

No, current liability is 25 years, this will change to 30 (on BIS website)

I equally disagree with the cuts to funding. However, this dos also help part-time students, as well as ensuring that no one is paying anything back until they're earning over £21k which is better than now.

Opps, 25 years max (I think it's student loans that go until you retire). I can see the point about helping part-time students, which is positive, but is not that necessary. I say this as a part-time student, as having a full-time job means even if my employer wasn't paying my fees, I could very easily do it. Now I'm not in the most normal position here, I realise that, so I do support extra help, but even taking a minimum wage full-time job pays for a student lifestyle quite easily, with fees being able (as I understand) to be paid in the same was as for undergrads, ie. after graduation.

On that note, I'm also keen not to disincentivise being a full-time student too much, as I think university is a great time to immerse yourself in study, societies or other things and work out what you want to do. Without having had that time at uni to explore different things, I'd almost certainly now be a pretty unhappy trader working for some investment bank. That was what I was interested in before I went to uni and what I expected to go into, yet having had the time to look into economics and extra-curricular stuff I realised I was more interested in using the behavioural aspect of economics in policy or the public sector, rather than just to make money putting numbers in different places.

But paying that extra tax for life, while you wouldn't notice it as debt, makes you quite a chunk poorer. Most grads can expect a decade or two of repayments currently, but that'll hit 40 years when this goes. And even with that, funding will drop significantly. That's my main issue and what I was trying to push with the article - this hits university funding and will lead to a reduction in the quality of British universities. I can cope with paying for quality a lot easier than I can paying more for less. Add the intergenerational equity point and the perverse incentives and it's clear why I think this is a terrible idea; plus the political issue for the Lib Dems especially of both missing the point protesters are making and doing a complete u turn on the promise you made.

I totally agree. The stupid thing about it is that R&D is an important industry, and now that our Universities, including Oxbridge, won't have the same funding and resources they've had, we will be massively crippled on the international market and lose loads of revenue that way, which then sets off a negative downward spiral in terms of getting Universities to generate their own resources.

Its utterly retarded. I take small comfort in the fact that its so chronically stupid that it may well blow up in their faces in the near future, sparking an about turn.

Though the one positive is we may find a lot more students voting at the next election, and thus being taken more seriously as a political group.

I totally agree. The stupid thing about it is that R&D is an important industry, and now that our Universities, including Oxbridge, won't have the same funding and resources they've had, we will be massively crippled on the international market and lose loads of revenue that way, which then sets off a negative downward spiral in terms of getting Universities to generate their own resources.

Its utterly retarded. I take small comfort in the fact that its so chronically stupid that it may well blow up in their faces in the near future, sparking an about turn.