'High quality' unis to increase tuition fees

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Where will we be in 10 years :afraid:

People are getting angry and of course it was inevitable... The government is working towards making the poor poorer and the rich richer
Raising tuition fees with inflation?! What will all of this money go towards? Our education? I don't think so...

Reply 121

4:20

Original post by serebro

Making HE free is unfair on those who don't need it, yet still have to pay for it. Given that only few people went to university in the days you mentioned, it was considered acceptable. But now that university is almost a cultural norm, there's way more students and universities to fund. This leaves us with some options:

- Create US-style tuition fees (graduates have to pay upfront)
- Borrow money (tried and tested; responsible for a recession)
- Cut money from other departments (e.g NHS)
- Limit student population (limits equality to HE access)
- Create tuition fees and loan system (graduates pay, but only if they can)

Naturally, the last option is the one that the government have chosen.

Your point doesn't hold ground. If we want to start doing policies based on people using it, then everything should be charged for. Driving to incur toll charges as it is unfair on those who don't drive and pay for public transport. Those who live an healthy lifestyle and will most likely not need the NHS service should thus have not have any money going to NHS = full NHS privatision. Why is it only fair to start charging at HE level and not at FE level? Many people stop at GCSE and education isn't compulsory past this stage.

Moreover, this sort of hermetic thinking also ignores that some profession (reality is that any profession worth pursuing requires a degree unless nepotism) that the populance highly needs requires university certification. You can't become a doctor, nurse, without going to university.

Can I ask why the Scandanavians, Germany, France, Switzerland, Benelux......(e.g. every other Western European - Eire) model didn't deserve a mention? Why can't we go their path- politicians like to tell us how they're all smarter than us.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 122

Maker

They should do the reverse, bad universities should have their fees cut until they improve and the top fee will stay at £9k per year.

Reply 123

robynwithawhyy

Original post by Daftpunker

You guys hold the power. No one is putting a gun to your head making you go to uni. If you want to see a stop to a rise in fees unite and make a stand and refuse to pay it.

That's absolutely ridiculous. No. No-one is forcing you to go to university, but am I gonna be a dickhead and not get a degree, so i can't get into my dream career, so I can't earn the kind of money that I want?!

Reply 124

Arran90

Why are so many people missing the point?

1. Where exactly does that £9000 you hand over every year actually go?

2. Is university for education or is it for qualifications?

3. Are there any ways that technology can be used to make degree courses less expensive?

4. Are high tuition fees a cunning way of privatising universities? Hint: If a private university offered a degree course you wanted but only charged £1000 a year would you be tempted to go?

Reply 125

Blackstarr

Original post by serebro

If you say so.

Reply 126

Blackstarr

Original post by infairverona

I said it explains a lot because BTECs are more vocational which explains why the person I was talking to seemed to prefer the nursing diploma over the nursing degree as the diploma is known for being more vocational than the degree option.

[e] I have been in full time work since July 2014 so please don't preach to the choir. I also find working much easier than studying and I did a law degree/am currently in a management position so opinions on that point clearly vary.

Is this meant to be indirected at me.

I never stated I orefered the diploma than the degree.
Please dont put words in my mouth.

Reply 127

Fevaz

Tory voters hang your head in shame

Reply 128

TimeWalker

Original post by robynwithawhyy

This is where it gets difficult. They've got a stranglehold on the means by which students can actually get a career (university). 9000 is inflated as I've said in a few other threads, yet it's difficult to get a good degree anywhere else. If I were to advise people, it would be:

- Know that some things aren't worth paying for if you don't plan to become a teacher or anything.
- Try and get things subsidised. Or save up.
- Prepare really well for your degree

Reply 129

Joinedup

don't forget the idea of the £9000 fees was that £9000 would be exceptional and most places would charge around £6000...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12985889

if you think the reason for providing loans is to produce high earning graduates, then one of the more interesting ideas about is risk-sharing which afaik originates in the USA. The idea is unis have more 'skin in the game' - they're forced to back their future graduates incomes... this will most likely mean a reduction in arts places though.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 130

nulli tertius

Original post by Joinedup

Ultimately OFFA was not prepared to condemn any university's fair access plans. The university in the cross-hairs was Durham whose statistics for access for poorer students were considerably worse than comparable institutions.

Isn't the same going to happen with these proposals? There are one or two leading research universities notorious for a "can't give a damn about the students" attitude. Unless the regulator is willing to fail them, it isn't going to fail anyone.

Reply 131

ImNotReallyMe

They can do what they want, at the end of the day only stupid people would go the extra mile to pay it all off while the rest of us will give the bare minimum till it's written off

Reply 132

serebro

Original post by 4:20

Why so naive then?

I simply appreciate that money doesn't grow on trees and respect the fact that people are taking their time to teach me, rather than expected to be entitled to everything.

Reply 133

Joinedup

Original post by nulli tertius

well with the £9000 fees I think they were trying to mash up too many different objectives into one law... perhaps it was a product of coalition government.

1. transfer more of the real cost of tuition onto the student.
2. force unis to improve access to applicants from traditional low participation backgrounds.
3. allow more of a market to develop in HE, with lower quality unis undercutting the prices of the higher ranking ones.

Vince really did seem to think that £9000 fees would be a deterrent though - it's quite strange to read the old news reports knowing what we do now about what happened to admission.
---

Currently unis are quite good at forming effective lobbying blocs and minsters are rather squeamish about bashing them. As can be seen in a few minutes on TSR, sixth formers are beguiled by research driven league tables and dismissive of measures of undergraduate experience - like getting your work marked on time. The current market in HE doesn't select for good teaching.

I doubt there's a silver bullet, but probably they could bring in measures that'll make PVC's breathe more heavily on the necks of lecturers who aren't turning around the coursework fast enough and eventually effect a cultural shift among academics.

Maybe the government needs to start hitting 'em where it hurts instead of fiddling with the fees - no pay rises or bonuses for VC's unless they hit some teaching quality targets.

Reply 134

serebro

Original post by 4:20

I disagree, however I believe most things ought to be privatised.

All workers are beneficial to society. Doctors/medical graduates do not deserve free education on the basis that they will contribute to society.

As far as I'm aware, very few of those countries have a wide range of top performing universities. They might have 1-3 top universities, but nothing like the range that the UK, US and Canada has. European universities are free/cheap, but at the expense of having a wide choice and access to more than one top institute. In fact, it's pretty common to simply be a home student at your local university.

FE education is different to HE. FE typically happens between 16-19, during which a person reaches the age of majority. It's unreasonable to expect 16 year olds to stand by themselves, especially since the law limits what they can do for their age. FE education (A levels, apprenticeship, NVQ) helps bridge the gap, giving them some skills ready for when they become a legal adult. What they want to do then is up to them. They can go out and work. If they want to enter HE, the current loan system is very reasonable. It's not as if you have to pay upfront for university.

Reply 135

DanieleZ

Original post by serebro

As a European student, I think I have to add my two cents and defend our system.

I'd like to point out that university rankings are usually biased in favor of American and British universities. They're taken as the baseline against which other universities are measured, which is why European universities end up lower when ranked on such lists. These comparisons aren't useful since American/British and European universities are such different institutions.

It's true that many Europeans attend the university nearest to them and often live at home; this shouldn't be seen as a weakness, but as a strength. The US' and UK's systems have certain universities (i.e. the Ivy League and Oxbridge/Russel Group) that are seen as much more desirable in terms of learning, student experience, employability, etc. But because society perceives such large differences between universities, students attending lower-ranked universities find themselves at a comparatively large disadvantage after graduation. In many European countries, universities are seen as an equalizer, and the competition between different institutions is much smaller, since they're all financed by the government. This makes the university experience much less stressful for students. People are able to pursue what truly interests them. This doesn't mean that everyone pursues 'useless' degrees (which in itself is a problematic term); plenty of people study sciences despite the low cost.

This European view of the university as a common good - not a competition - and its low cost mean that the playing field is much more even for European students entering university and graduates entering the workforce. Universities aren't seen as some kind of magical place of learning, but as an institution like any other. Students often live alone, working on the side, paying their bills, and learning to get to grips with the real world, as opposed to some coddling, hermetically-sealed university campuses in the Anglo-Saxon sphere. (The fact that European universities often lack campuses in the classical sense and don't offer accomodation lowers their costs as well, of course.)

And the fact that all workers are beneficial to society only strengthens the case for university tuitions to be subsidized. Who's to say that someone of lesser means should be discouraged from studying a humanities subject because of the cost it would entail? If they want to become productive in a certain field, they should be able to do so, regardless of their later income. Poorer students shouldn't be told to study something 'useful' (as in something that will help the pay back loans faster). The idea that everyone should pay their way through society is simply unfair, as it will always be biased against those of lesser means. Common goods, be they roads, medical care, parks, or university access, are essential elements of a fair society.

Reply 136

VV Cephei A

Original post by returnmigrant

This is just Tory flag waving. They havn't got a clue what 'quality teaching' means - or how to measure it.

And they haven't actually grasped that most 'good learning' at University doesn't actually happen in a classroom, because the whole point of University level study is INDEPENDENT study. Which makes you wonder what sort of University (if any) the initiator of this press release actually went to.

****ing lost it. Are you actually this deluded? University is about studying a standardised syllabus to pass standardised examinations to get a standardised certification. "Independent study" is neither necessary nor rewarded in any significant capacity.

Reply 137

Josb

Original post by parrot16

I'm my opinion there are 3 options:
either:
1. Tories are planning to make the rich richer and the poor poorer which is very unfair to poor families with kids that are planning to attend university.
2. They are sick of people who go to Uni to get a social life- if fees rise people will only go to Uni for a good purpose.
3. They are trying to discourage people from going to Uni so that they will have less career options.

4. They want to cut the deficit.

Reply 138

VV Cephei A

Original post by looseseal

"Why should people pay for someone else to go to university?"It's quite disappointing how frequently I've seen this kind of ignorant, narrow-minded and self-serving line in the thread.I'm sure all of those doctors, scientists and engineers produced by universities contribute absolutely nothing to your general well-being right?Education should be seen as a common good that benefits the entirety of society so to think that university solely benefits the student is a ridiculously short-term way of thinking. It would be very unwise to increasingly raise fees to prohibitive levels that dissuade students from going to university.Many people on this thread seem to have a complete disconnect with real life if they think such humongous loans are nothing to worry about. Students will end up being over 50k in debt before they even start their career. How will this affect them starting a family, buying a house or a car - things previous generations pretty much took for granted as normal adult life.Students may only start paying the loans back after they start earning over 21k but someone spending the majority of their career earning around 25-35k will feel this loan as a huge burden. People need to remember that not all students go on to be bankers earning 80k+ a year. Research scientists and engineers salaries rarely rise above 40k yet these two groups provide vital services to the country. Not only that - many middling jobs now require a degree so the people saying "oh they should just get a job after secondary school" clearly have no idea what they're talking about.Apprenticeships used to be an option for school leavers but now the majority of them are only available in the retail sector who use them as a way to pay poverty wages to shelf stackers - who of course are learning a vital skill that will lead to a long and prosperous career :rolleyes:

Why have people in this country suddenly forgot about the common good? It seems like we're slowly moving away from a more collective European mentality to that of America - one of the most unequal societies in the western world.

Doctors, scientists and engineers can pay for their own degrees when they earn the money to do so. They also represent only a minority of university students; do we also have to pay for every useless liberal arts degree at a **** tier university as well?

Of course, your alternative, which would require a significant rise in tax, does not actually leave anyone financially better off, so the whole "bb...b...b...b.ut student debt!" argument doesn't fly. It just leaves the taxpayer forking out endless billions for students to spend 3 years destroying their livers while scraping 40% in a pointless subject, whilst further devaluing university education to a greater extent than it already is.

GTFO with your socialist bull****.

Reply 139

Daftpunker

Original post by robynwithawhyy

Do you agree with the cost of university these days? If you don't but you still pay it you will forgive me the dickhead is you and the government has successfully tamed another sheep.