[Fynch101]

(Original post by kopite493)
when the tories get it out of theres that you can just fix an economy by cutting costs and sacking people resulting in no-one having money to buy things resulting in the economy collapsing further

That is not how an 'economy' works.

[Heavenly_Blues]

I remember when they tried to organise some stupid walkout to protest the fees.

I'm all for protesting the fees, but why would I walk out of a class I've already paid for? How much thought even went into that stupid idea? I mean, a worker can go on strike and his employer loses profit, but the university still gets our money either way

[marcusfox]

(Original post by daphodil)
I just don't get it myself. The gov is now lending out triple the amount in loans and a great deal of students won't pay a substantial amount back...so surely it'll just become worse?

Fully behind any protests against this gov though, most of them get no air time unless there's riots involved but there's no other way to show you're unhappy with how things are other than just sitting back for 5 years & taking it.

Lets hope the course you are planning to study isn't economics.

The government has only cut back the subsidy that they provide the universities.

Instead of just giving this money to universities, they are telling the students they have to borrow it to pay to the universities, making students liable for the amount, instead of the taxpayer, should they earn an above average salary on graduation.

There is no tripling the cost of education and no increased cost to the taxpayer in the writing off of any losses, it just means that students need to pay a greater proportion of it if they are capable of doing so.

For graduates earning £21,000 or less, the taxpayer will have paid the entire cost of their education.

The more you earn, a bigger proportion of the cost of your education that you pay, but you will never pay back more than the total cost of your education, adjusted for inflation, of course.

[Empire08]

(Original post by marcusfox)
But the one who will be getting the most from this education is your own good self, so by extension, why should you not pay for it?

Society benefits hugely from Doctors, Scientists and Engineers, etc. What is wrong with tax money going towards this?

[Ham22]

Riiiiiioooottt.

[Flying Cookie]

(Original post by marcusfox)
But you are suggesting that your university education should be free and the rest of society, the vast majority of who had no responsibility for any sort of souring of the economy or [potentially] criminal behaviours should bear the cost of that out of general taxation.

You expect the government to pay, but you fail to understand that the government doesn't pay for anything. We pay.

Your position that the youth had no part in a global financial crisis which has now somehow caused university education to be 'not free' and so by extension shouldn't have to pay for their education has no basis in reality, and by continuing to argue this, well, people can draw their own conclusions as to whether you are really suitable for a university course.

In any case, students have had to pay a significant part of the cost of their university education for the best part of fifteen years, and the increase in the amount students have to pay for university has nothing to do with the downturn and everything to do with paying for the vast increases in the numbers of students applying to university year on year.

Nice sidestepping of all the rest of my points by the way.

^ You want to think about that again?

Too many people have indeed been allowed to go to university. I am not arguing for free university, at least not in the current situation. All of the difficulties faced by young people today have been brought directly by the government's reaction to the economic crisis. This includes the scrapped free part time university courses for those who couldn't otherwise afford to pay (now the poor must take out a loan). Why must they take out a loan? Because there are too many poor people doing part time university courses? No, it's because the money available to universities last year they do not have this year. That's reality. In fact, my course will not be running from this year onward due to staff retiring and no money being available to employ new staff. And that's funny you know why? Because this course is a science course which trains people to do the exact jobs that this economy needs to get itself back on track.

Why is it literally impossible for so many young people to get into employment? Why is housing benefit going to be banned for young people? Everything goes back to the horrendous economic crisis that specific people have contributed to, none of which are under 25 year-olds.

Anyone who's masterminded the way in which banks gave out loans within a specific timeframe should pay, along with everyone who's signed on the dotted line and taken out a loan they knew they could never pay back.

I don't see how this topic has any relevance to my suitability to be at university. It's a simple matter of who gets to pay this country's debt. You think it should be blameless kids, I think it should be the guilty. ANYONE even remotely connected to the spiraling out of control of this situation is more indebted (figuratively as much as literally) to this country than a young person.

I never said the government paid anything to anyone. Thanks for patronising me though. The taxes pay for public services, and last time I checked, being responsible for someone else's DEBT is not a public service. The banks are not a public service, in fact that is their problem to a small degree. It doesn't require much maths to figure out that a banker's tax contribution (if they can be bothered to pay it in full, that is) is easily more than the measily £180/w saved from denying someone housing benefit.

[Bellissima]

if you disagree with something the government is doing then you are 100% in your right to protest and SHOULD do so. you should stand up for something you believe strongly in.

[Xhotas]

Sorry, but why should the government be paying for us to take degrees? Degrees are expensive. The loans we pay back are peanuts compared to the actual cost of it, not to mention they are written off after 35 years and we don't even have to focus on paying them back til we're over £15/21K and is on a scale so we never pay too much. Hell we don't even have to worry about forms or anything as it's PAYE.

Everyone is entitled to loans, everyone is allowed loans. If you're from a poor background, you will be given loans that cover the cost of, up to £6K a year for maintenance which is a lot of money. If I got given that much from grants, I probably wouldn't need to work over my holidays. I get £100 after my rent and make roughly £500 depending on how many shifts I get.

I'm strongly for the rise in fees as I believe when you turn 18 and go to university - this is your choice. Up until you're 18, you get a free education but should we be given it til we're 21 or past that? If you have the academic ability, you should excel and go to it and invest in your future yourself. Not get handed everything to you.

If you don't want to pay the fees, don't go to university. It is expensive, but you'll be getting more out of uni if you apply yourself than that £9K you won't even be struggling to pay back it. It's done for you.

I am a student and I say we need to stop bitching. If we have to pay an extra £6K a year for university so that someone can probably keep their job, for **** sake don't be so selfish. The world isn't about you and there isn't a seperate, untouchable fund of money the government has that it's keeping just for students. It's all the same and if you can't accept that, I don't think you should be going to university.

Plus protesting costs thousands in damages and policing, I strongly believe in the people's right to protest and support the protests for job cuts. But student protests? Stop being *****.

[marcusfox]

(Original post by Empire08)
Society benefits hugely from Doctors, Scientists and Engineers, etc. What is wrong with tax money going towards this?

Not as much as the doctors, scientists and engineers benefit themselves.

Indeed for some graduates, tax money will be paying entirely for the degree. But for the bigger earners, they will shoulder a bigger proportion, not only through tax, but the proportion of their loan that they repay.

[marcusfox]

(Original post by Flying Cookie)
^ You want to think about that again?

Not particularly. What I said was: the increase in the amount students have to pay for university has nothing to do with the downturn and everything to do with paying for the vast increases in the numbers of students applying to university year on year.

If you follow that link, you can see that the wheels started turning on this in 2004, even though the review itself wasn't launched in 2009.

(Original post by Flying Cookie)
Too many people have indeed been allowed to go to university. I am not arguing for free university, at least not in the current situation. All of the difficulties faced by young people today have been brought directly by the government's reaction to the economic crisis. This includes the scrapped free part time university courses for those who couldn't otherwise afford to pay (now the poor must take out a loan). Why must they take out a loan? Because there are too many poor people doing part time university courses? No, it's because the money available to universities last year they do not have this year. That's reality. In fact, my course will not be running from this year onward due to staff retiring and no money being available to employ new staff. And that's funny you know why? Because this course is a science course which trains people to do the exact jobs that this economy needs to get itself back on track.

Nope. You were saying that why shouldn't society pay for your education as the downturn and lack of money is society's problem, not the problem of the youth.

Too many people have been going to university for years, at least since Labour got in, this number has increased exponentially. Many of them studying for degrees that will be useless, or too specialised for them to be any use to employers. A degree in mathematics has many uses, a degree in golf course management has only a use if you are going to be managing golf courses.

Nevertheless, people have had to be taking loans to pay for fees, including the poor students, since 1998, and some have even had to take loans for living costs even before that.

I'm sorry if the university you planned to attend has chosen not to run your course due to staff retiring. That's a business decision made by a business, universites are in it to make money and aren't charities. Universities have been making decisions not to run courses for monetary decisions for many years. I experienced it when one of my six UCAS choices withdrew the course at the last minute and I had to choose again.

No one is being priced out of education. You still don't seem to get it that it doesn't matter if the poor have to take out a student loan, what matters is if they remain poor (although I don't know how anyone could be called poor if they are earning a salary of £21,000) they will never ever have to pay it back. That is reality.

Perhaps it's this repeated insistence by you which shows your failure to understand the system is a reason why you may consider yourself patronised, but I am trying to spell it out in as simple terms as I can without having to resort to single syllable words.

(Original post by Flying Cookie)
Why is it literally impossible for so many young people to get into employment? Why is housing benefit going to be banned for young people? Everything goes back to the horrendous economic crisis that specific people have contributed to, none of which are under 25 year-olds.

Irrelevant to the argument about university funding, but more to do with the welfare reforms, which do have to do with the economic crisis, and are aimed some way at getting the ballooning spending on the welfare budget that went on under the last government under control.

If you object to the need these reforms, (it's fine to object about which specific aspects are being cut) then you need to justify the massive increases in the welfare budget under labour that should only have increased in line with inflation, vastly more so than would have been explained by a simple increase in the unemployment figures.

(Original post by Flying Cookie)
Anyone who's masterminded the way in which banks gave out loans within a specific timeframe should pay, along with everyone who's signed on the dotted line and taken out a loan they knew they could never pay back.

Well, if they can't pay for their mortgages, they will have their house repossessed. I agree that these mortgages were a major cause of the downturn, and the only person to blame for them is Gordon Brown, but that's a whole other thread.

(Original post by Flying Cookie)
I don't see how this topic has any relevance to my suitability to be at university. It's a simple matter of who gets to pay this country's debt. You think it should be blameless kids, I think it should be the guilty. ANYONE even remotely connected to the spiraling out of control of this situation is more indebted (figuratively as much as literally) to this country than a young person.

For the third and final time:

You keep on using the words 'debt' and 'indebted' with reference to students and student loans like a stuck record, I don't think you fully understand the situation, or are at least being disingenious if you do.

1- 'blameless kids' have had to pay a proportion of the costs towards university by taking out loans to cover their university course fees for the best part of fifteen years now, your complaining has come a long time too late.

2- before 2012 entry, people have had to pay back 9% of anything they earn over £15,000, now it's 9% of anything over £21,000. That's a better deal for the poorest students, make no mistake.

3- you've presumably read (and hopefully understood) the reasons for the Browne Review by now.

(Original post by Flying Cookie)
I never said the government paid anything to anyone. Thanks for patronising me though. The taxes pay for public services, and last time I checked, being responsible for someone else's DEBT is not a public service. The banks are not a public service, in fact that is their problem to a small degree. It doesn't require much maths to figure out that a banker's tax contribution (if they can be bothered to pay it in full, that is) is easily more than the measily £180/w saved from denying someone housing benefit.

This has nothing to do with the student fees issue and everything to do with the welfare reforms which is another topic entirely.

If you have anything more to add to this topic, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

If it's just irrelevant ranting about bankers, the welfare state and re-iterating your 'the youth are being forced to pay for the downturn even though they had no part in it, so why doesn't society pay for my university fees' argument, I have the feeling it would be better to let you have the last word on the topic.

[Reformed2010]

(Original post by Darkphilosopher)
That has gone through my mind however unless the country brings down its deficit and starts to pay off the debt (over £1 Trillion - http://www.debtbombshell.com/) , we'll end up loosing out even more in the long term.

The recession and financial crisis caused our deficit. It wasn't the deficit that caused the recession. If we don't grow as an economy, produce more and employ more people. How will simply cutting our deficit fix our economy? Let's just raise unemployment, raise less taxes, increase demand on welfare benefits and THAT will solve the problem. Because it's working for Greece. You can't cut your way out of a recession.

[Fynch101]

(Original post by Reformed2010)
The recession and financial crisis caused our deficit. It wasn't the deficit that caused the recession. If we don't grow as an economy, produce more and employ more people. How will simply cutting our deficit fix our economy? Let's just raise unemployment, raise less taxes, increase demand on welfare benefits and THAT will solve the problem. Because it's working for Greece. You can't cut your way out of a recession.

No it didn't. Years of reckless spending and two major armed conflicts caused the deficit.

[ANARCHY__]

(Original post by Darkphilosopher)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18607279



How exactly does one protest against reduced employment..?

Besides, causing havoc in the center of London certainly isn't going to do any good for our economy and economic woes.

The university fee hike is unfair but the current fees are unsustainable. When will they get this through their heads?

The fee hike is not necessarily unfair although I can see why it would be popular belief to think the contrary. You are right in saying it makes no logical sense to protest against a lack of employment; especially against the government when it's primarily the banks' fault for not lending.

[Reformed2010]

(Original post by Fynch101)
No it didn't. Years of reckless spending and two major armed conflicts caused the deficit.

Have you had a check to see what the financial crisis did to our deficit? come back to me when you have. This recession we are in is being paid by youth, the low paid and so on. It's just shocking to think some people on here are happy to have their generation pissed on. Sad times.

[Fynch101]

(Original post by Reformed2010)
Have you had a check to see what the financial crisis did to our deficit? come back to me when you have.

Don't be patronising. I have a first class degree in Economics so you would do well to listen to your betters. These are essentially investments which the government is very, very unlikely to lose on. Its not like the reckless spending which essentially had a multiplier effect of less than 1, or Iraq and Afghanistan which contributes very little to the economy as a whole.

The truth is, when you take away the reckless spending from 2002-07, the economy probably would have started flatlining much earlier than it has now, the banks never would have started offering mortgages at 5x earnings, the housing bubble would have been less severe, and thus the recession wouldn't have been so severe.

[Miss_Scarlett]

I think that as much as we all dislike this, the simple truth is the cost of university HAD to rise. Due to the current economic climate, the cuts, so and so forth.

I think my individual issue is that, instead of the government saying ok "You can charge UPTO 9k" which made it seem like they werent specifically saying right its now 9k...they put it onto the uni's...of course the uni's went straight to 9k. I think a compromise should have been reached around 6k.

And Im sorry Scotland, but it really isn't fair.

As regards to this, the strike about unemployment is a little misguided. But I think most people are still reeling from the fees.

[Reformed2010]

(Original post by Fynch101)
Don't be patronising. I have a first class degree in Economics so you would do well to listen to your betters. These are essentially investments which the government is very, very unlikely to lose on. Its not like the reckless spending which essentially had a multiplier effect of less than 1, or Iraq and Afghanistan which contributes very little to the economy as a whole.

The truth is, when you take away the reckless spending from 2002-07, the economy probably would have started flatlining much earlier than it has now, the banks never would have started offering mortgages at 5x earnings, the housing bubble would have been less severe, and thus the recession wouldn't have been so severe.

Oh please, you have noble prize winning economists failing to predict, explain or suggest winning policies. Don't flatter yourself.

[thegaffer91]

(Original post by DarkWhite)
Absolutely support the demonstrations and I hope that hundreds or more students from my institution will also be joining me.

The current fees system as a whole is unsustainable; the fact that fees have effectively been trebled is just making the loss-making aspect of it even worse.

Fixed tuition fees and the arbitrary cap decided by the government is such an unsustainable model for higher education funding that its existence serves only to show how incompetent the coalition really is.

Under the current system:

• Those who fail to pay off their student debt in full cost the country and thus the tax payer by not paying for the education the state has decided to pay for.
• The removal and reduction of grants means universities are left with funding gaps even when charging the higher rates under the £9k fees regime.
• No consideration is given to the "value" of a degree (albeit I dislike the marketisation of HE).
• There is a lack of sensibility for more flexible courses - part-time, distance learners etc.
• It relies on a number of assumptions about the economy and growth in particular.
• There is no protection for students whatsoever - future governments could change the Ts&Cs of graduates' loans to fix future economic issues.
• Prospective students are put off - the prospect of what could be £60k debt from the Student Loans Company alone does make you question whether a degree is worth it or not.
• It bears nothing on what exactly is offered by the university in return, and takes advantage of the high applicantlace ratio.

Something along the lines of (not necessarily strictly the same as) NUS' Blueprint proposal would prove far better. When you graduate, you pay a percentage of your salary which falls above a minimum threshold based on both the teaching received during your studying and your annual income. The more you benefit from your award, the more you pay back, and thus the greater encouragement for universities to strive for excellence in teaching and programme delivery.

But what's worse is that the government time and time again fail to consult properly - with students, unions, and institutions. The same can be seen with the shelving of the HE Bill, despite it being promised to us 3 times; the proposed removal of funding for mature students undertaking access to HE and foundation courses; just to name a few.

The proposed changes in the HE Bill would have drastic effects, and as students, the most affected by the proposals, are being shut out of it, and without parliamentary debate and scrutiny, we'll also all struggle to lobby anybody to raise any issues with them.

On top of this, the government continues to completely ignored postgraduate students. Unlike undergraduates, PG students do not receive funding for their education, which is a clear time for them to be priced out of education. Some of the best teaching and research at PG level is unfunded by research councils, partly due to their public spending budget cuts, and it's a shambles that we should lose the brightest of students because they can't secure the huge loans required, they can't afford it even whilst keeping down multiple jobs, and they know that even whilst studying they will start paying interest and repayments at a commercial rate, meaning those wishing to go into industry are having to think twice before furthering their education because it's going to be a bit dent in their income.

NUS also represents FE as well as HE, and take a clear stance on the removal of EMA, rather than a change to the system.

And let's not forget - when students graduate, where are they going to go? We'd all hope to find a job, but the rising unemployment and diminishing job prospects through overly harsh austerity and lack of growth means that unemployment is a real concern for NUS and its members.

Yes, the government ignored us the last time we protested, but that's no reason to stop, in fact it's the complete opposite. We need to stand up against a government which is piece-by-piece marketising our education sector as a whole from secondary to higher education and everywhere in between. We need to fight against the lying and deceit rising from broken promises made both in elections campaigns and in coalition agreement. We need to make ourselves clear: we will not allow our brightest and most able to be priced out of education or awarded segregated qualifications allowing for greater divide.

Can I just clarify that your proposal is a straight up graduate tax? A tax that punishes success and rewards failure? The system that is currently in place is a limited graduate tax, and should be seen as nothing else. Those who are successful after university already have to pay more in tax, both due to increased salary and higher tax rates, are you proposing lumping another tax onto them?

If this is the case, is this really fairer than what is currently in place? Or are you of the mindset that the rich have too much money so taxing them up to the eyeballs is fair game?

[marcusfox]

(Original post by thegaffer91)
Can I just clarify that your proposal is a straight up graduate tax? A tax that punishes success and rewards failure? The system that is currently in place is a limited graduate tax, and should be seen as nothing else. Those who are successful after university already have to pay more in tax, both due to increased salary and higher tax rates, are you proposing lumping another tax onto them?

If this is the case, is this really fairer than what is currently in place? Or are you of the mindset that the rich have too much money so taxing them up to the eyeballs is fair game?

I already took that post to pieces a couple of pages back...

[Fynch101]

(Original post by Reformed2010)
Oh please, you have noble prize winning economists failing to predict, explain or suggest winning policies. Don't flatter yourself.

And you have politicians who end up being chancellor/prime minister, but still forget you can't spend more money than you have in the vaults.