..

Doonesbury has already told us that a course costs the universities £18,500 annually on average. There is no profit.

Charging £12,000 annually per head is a recipe for catastrophe.

They could always follow suite by giving out loans in addition to government loans.

Who will lend to whom? You cannot sustainably plan to make up for lost revenue by borrowing.

Sorry, I didn't see that post.

They could always follow suite by giving out loans in addition to government loans.

but without maths, the empirical net benefit between consumer and college won't be known.

How much does Nat Sci cost compare to English?

The labour government does

So, your plan is to privatise them and they will charge £12k for a service that costs £18.5k, and borrow the shortfall. Who will buy the shares of an obviously massively loss-making industry? How long do you think this will go on for before it collapses? How can the taxpayer be asked to pump such large amounts of cash into private industry?

In all Fairness, the tax payer actually indirectly pays for a lot of these universities research - once they do they research, they pass it on to the private sector to do something with it - hence the number of Cambridge uni spin off companies for example.

There's also the case of people falsely attending college to get fees to buy cars and etc, so really the fee system is leaky currently too.

I currently can get a max £20,500 in tuition fee and maintenance loan. If you're at the economic bottom, you can get all that in grants via the govt. that surpasses the average for tuition fees and then you'd likely be left with working part time and studying - which isn't impossible.

Alternatively, why don't they just seek exemption status instead of private status and not charge as much as an Ivy, but charge more than other unis - since frankly, its graduates are making the most. So the student is paying that extra bit, while the uni is still getting money from the govt.

Edit: all hypothetical of course, I wouldn't dream of drafting a bill for this - when you consider that a cabinet of Oxbridge grads (admittedly when it wasn't too competitive) created a fee system and are now in talks to significantly change it because of how negative it is, I think I should get a C at least

You lost it.

Also more research money
Also more places to study at university

How? Please explain how a private company running an unsubsidised service at a loss can use those losses to extend research and provide a wider service.

Change from privatised to exempt from normal fees to get govt subsidies

That is the intention of the govt after all, to allow higher quality institutions to charge higher fees, problem is that its legislation is weak that every uni frolics to charge higher fees because even the poorest UK university is still good by global standards.

Also less staff strikes like this one over pensions because of the $$$

Nah, if you go to Oxbridge or the London unis, you'll struggle to find someone economically poor;

"struggle to find someone economically poor"? About 1 in 3 qualify for the Cambridge Bursary.

I'm sorry but your argument gets less and less coherent. I have no clue what you are now advocating, and I'm not convinced that you have.

Its a minority and you can qualify for it if your household income is above average

What's the average household income for the subset of households that include a student? And 1 in 3 might be a minority but it's also not a "struggle" to find them.

And those 1 in 3, and a significant proportion of the other two-thirds will be unable to pay the much higher fees you are planning.