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Raising the cost of university
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Thousands of overloaded cars were on the move on Britain’s motorways at the weekend, as parents ferried nervous teenagers and mounds of possessions to their new university homes. Another wave is due next Saturday.
Weeks of waiting are over, both for the students who have been straining at the leash ever since A level results were announced last month and for parents, some of whom will have been sad to see their little darlings go, others quietly pleased to get them out of the nest at last.
But their bittersweet relief at seeing them go will have been tinged with worry at the news that the employers’ organisation, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), has said students should pay more for their tuition and for their government-backed maintenance loans.
The universities are facing a cash crunch and the CBI says students should bear the brunt of a planned overhaul of their finances due to start this Autumn. It says a rise in annual tuition fees to around 5,000 pounds from the current 3,200 is not asking too much and points out that Britain is one of the most generous countries in the world towards its students.
The National Union of Students, unsurprisIngly, does not agree, calling the idea ”gross hypocrisy” from the “fat cats at the CBI”.
“At a time of economic crisis, when many hard-working families are struggling to support their offspring through university, I am astonished that the CBI should be making such offensive recommendations,” said NUS president Wes Streeting.
What do you think?
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The “ideal” solution would be for university to cost more for students who waste places in order to take unnecessary degrees that they’ll never use, and less for student who will put their degrees to good use creating wealth and jobs in the future.
To some extent, old-fashioned Oxbridge bursaries and scholarships addressed this, but “before the event”, making university cheaper for the brightest and best. One way to tackle it after the event is to make student loan interest rates dependent on the graduates’ salaries – the more you earn, the greater the use to which you’re putting your degree, the less you have to repay.
elephant in the room here…
the point about university is it’s supposed to be for the brightest people to get the best education. surely if you want every man and his dog to go to univeristy then you’ve got to expect the cost of privision to rise… and someone then has to pay for this. so now this country is full of ‘graduates’ (university of weston super mare et al) who are all in debt and who can’t find jobs!!
the answer? fewer places at university, pick only the best and give them a damn good education. for the rest, brush-off the A-level and get a sensible programme of practical skills-based training so people can learn something that will actually be useful… we need plumbers/carpenters etc adding to the economy, not more media studies graduates £20K+ in debt working in call centres!
big picture thinking, people…
There are intelligent people at every economic level. Raising the price excludes larger numbers of intelligent people with great potential from university.
As an aside, A-levels may not be a fab way of measuring intelligence; some people mature their studying later, and the syllabus veers further and further away from the university subjects every year, to the dismay of both teachers and lectures.
One of my lecturers, who also works towards getting more school pupils to choose hard science subjects (in particularly, his) is of the opinion that tuition fees to students should be zero.
Tuition fees, currently, as I understand them, are about £12,000 per person, of which just under £9000 is subsidised and just over £3000 comes out of the student loan company, and therefore the pockets of students and their families.
In what world is an increase in cost of 56% “reasonable”, anyway? If fuel prices (another government-controlled number) were announced to rise to 160p/l next year the nation would practically break into anarchy. Graduates are just as vital to the nation as petrol, and will eventually become more important as they themselves work on solutions to the coming fossil fuel crisis.
This post has been rather rambling and I’m sorry if there seems to be no central point.
Havving been to University and a VP-Finance & Commercial Services in the Students’ Union, I have seen all sides of this. I have a brilliant solution:
1) Increase the cost, on loan, of going to Universiity (quiet at the back!)
2) Those who achieve a job paying over the national average or take on a specialised career that requireds their degree have the debt written off after 5 years of professional employment. Exemption for certain low-paid careers that have social/environmental merit could be looked at.
This way, if you’re going to Uni for a doss, it doen’t look as attractive. If you’re going to drop out, it’ll make you think twice. It also gives an incentive to go for the better jobs and if you go on to be successful and earn more (ergo, paying more tax…) you will pay for your own education!
I am sure I can assemble a decent Quango to look into this idea by the way if anyone from the Govenment is interested in sensible and logical ideas…?
Thought not…