tuition fees?

What are peoples thoughts?

Im pretty pleased with the outcome. I think far too many people go to university anyway. Far too many go, have a doss few years, finish and do nothing but doss for another few years. Probably the sort of people who are the ones vilotently protesting?

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

don't forget that you'll lose a lot of people who would deserve a good education as well.

anyway, the amount of money you might have to pay made me wonder a bit. i have to pay 1300 euros per year. in some parts of germany you don't have to pay fees at all. one could have the impression that we're swimming in money.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Probably the sort of people who are the ones vilotently protesting?

When you actively try to screw over an entire generation, don't be surprised when they get violent.

And for todays protests: The police treated them like animals. We now have the restarted situation where the Met Police is demanding students go home, but are holding them in the streets, not allowing them to leave.

Im pretty pleased with the outcome. I think far too many people go to university anyway.

Yeah, only the rich should be allowed to have an education...

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I'm against as I'm going to university in 3 years So I'll have to pay much higher fees

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DaveEllis Wrote:
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> Im pretty pleased with the outcome. I think far
> too many people go to university anyway.
>
> Yeah, only the rich should be allowed to have an
> education...

You have used irony here...but I think that we have, just at this very moment, started heading towards the Middle Ages again - only the rich will have money to receive good education. Remember - the uneducated masses are prone to manipulation, that's what those oligarchs are waiting for.
I'm not British but I'd protest as well... Gosh, it's so damn great I graduated last June and won't study again.

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My views are that everyone has a right to an education, but in this country (UK) I'd say at least half of uni students go to uni for 3 years of partying and do a worthless degree alongside, its funny that they can afford to get drunk every night, plus when I was doing my job (I.T. Engineer) in a shoe shop in leeds, there were countless numbers of students quite happily blowing £150+ on a pair of shoes. I never went to uni as when i was younger i didnt have a particular career in mind and thus didn't need to go to uni to do a relevant degree. Since then Ive had to fork out over £7k in training for my new career, so not going to uni isn't the end of the world, in fact if I went I think i would be 3 years behind in terms of a work career.

heh, i graduate in June, and am then leaving the country. if they think i'm using my degree to further Britain, they can get stuffed...

people seem to be forgetting taht international students have been paying 9 k for years... University is already far too expensive (we calculated that my engineering course works out £74 per student per lecture... no way was it worth that)

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

thestig88 Wrote:
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> My views are that everyone has a right to an
> education, but in this country (UK) I'd say at
> least half of uni students go to uni for 3 years
> of partying and do a worthless degree alongside,
> its funny that they can afford to get drunk every
> night, plus when I was doing my job (I.T.
> Engineer) in a shoe shop in leeds, there were
> countless numbers of students quite happily
> blowing £150+ on a pair of shoes. I never went to
> uni as when i was younger i didnt have a
> particular career in mind and thus didn't need to
> go to uni to do a relevant degree. Since then Ive
> had to fork out over £7k in training for my new
> career, so not going to uni isn't the end of the
> world, in fact if I went I think i would be 3
> years behind in terms of a work career.


Yup... The new system will filter out those students who want to learn and those who dont, and hopefully the courses.

Dave, as a tax payer you must have been bothered that students were wasting your money (i suppose no differnet to some people who abuse benifit rights)...

The increased fees will not apply to everyone. Only select courses, its upto the uni's decide which, and of course they need to balance between how many students they will recieve and the fees. The SLC should still provide the money to pay the fees, the students will still have to pay it back but the interest rates will still be greatly favourable. Paying not alot over a very long period. You can assume having a degree costing £9,000 / year (must be a useful degree?) that you'd have a good enough job to pay the debt back.

It wasnt so long ago that the interest rates were so good that instead of paying of the loan, people were getting money from it (if that makes sense?). Now that this has been passed, the details will still allow the rich and poor to go IMO. I dont like the new governement but I think this is one thing that is pretty good, and hopefully the details to be sorted will show that.

I dont see future students being any worse off (or not so much worse) than current graduates. I know many people paying only £10 / month back with the current system. Is paying £20-£30 / month back really going to make much more of a difference. IF the interest rates stay similar to now, then this isnt as bad as people think IMO. I think more than deter the poor, it will deter the students who would be there to have fun rather than learn.

I do think that the fees for education is too high. 90% of my current class are international meaning they pay £16,000 (for just 1 year only! and minus living costs) , a rough calculation means when i have a full class theres about £80,000. Crazy right?

I dont know if im looking at the whole picture here, but I dont see this as bad as some think and I dont think the poor will be at a disadvantange so long as the SLC still provide the loans at a decent interest (and why wouldnt they?)

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2010 12:00AM by chet.

I'd like to point out how expensive higher education is here in the US. The crappiest uni you can find are local community colleges. Those run at about US$4,000 for a single year, and they don't have dormitories or anything else, just lecture. To go to a state university you now have to pay easily over US$15,000 for a year, that includes dorms and sometimes meal plan fees too. Here in the state I live you can't hope to pay any less than US$18,000 a year, excluding books which are obscenely overpriced.

Here a lot of kids who deserve the education and work hard for it get massive loans (then even bigger debt) to be able to pay, and a lot of "lower class" gang members from the inner cities get thousands of dollars on grants and other scholarships. At uni several of them proceed to commit minor crimes, annoy others, and take space out of deserving people.

And then there's collegiate sports, annoying basically mafia, that NCAA - stands for the association for college athletes.

And adding to it, being very against any kind of royal families, I'd love to see some kind of rebellion/revolution* , to cut down the budget those bastards have. It's ridiculous how much land and resources they take.



*non-violent

You know what would filter out the lazy @#$%&? Having an education system in schools which didn't give As to every student who are almost automatically then rewarded with university offers. Devise a system to reward those actually put effort in throughout their education (rather than those who just work for a few select weeks to do the minimum required) and give them the opportunity to further their education and hopefully lead to excellent future job prospects.

That way maybe the financing could be structured so that only those focussed on learning and their futures would be rewarded with placings for lesser fees, while those who aren't fully committed but are rolling in their parent's cash or those sponging the tax payers would be up a certain creak, minus paddles and university placings.

To put what others have recently said into some perspective; When I started my Uni course in 2004 there wer about 160 on my course. (2 semesters in a year in case some dont know). End of semester 1 that was down to about 130. End of the first year, down to just under 100. By the time I got to my 4th year there were about 40 of us left, and that drop off is pretty common. 8 of us got 1st class degree classifications (me as well, just thought I'd get that in there lol) and about 10 got a 3rd class, which basically means you turned up as far as Im concerned.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2010 01:19AM by 97kirkc.

Gotta say I'm with chet here, glad to see someone else is of the same opinion.

As for the rich kids thing, as Gui pointed out it is still far cheaper to go to Uni here than in many places in America. And anyone who gets free school dinners doesnt have to pay for the first two years of their degree, which IMO is fantastic

Sim

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DaveEllis Wrote:
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> Probably the sort of people who are the ones
> vilotently protesting?
>
> When you actively try to screw over an entire
> generation, don't be surprised when they get
> violent.

Damn straight!

This is happening all over the western world. All the industrialized developed nations are plagued by a sharp decline in birth rates. Many of them struggle with large segments of the population that are strongly opposed to immigration. That poses a radical political dilemma.

Huge chunks of the electorate are going on pension during the next 20 years. They still retain their votes though. They have to be supported by an ever smaller generation of young tax-payers.

Since democracies are ruled by the majority vote, politicians cater to the largest groups of the electorate. Since those groups are the senior citizens of tomorrow, cutting into the services and benefits they enjoy is out of the question. Just look at what happened in France a few months ago, when they raised the age of retirement. The whole damn country was shut down with protests.

Most politicians simple value their careers too much to embark on such endeavours! With the rise of nationalism, immigration is ruled out as a valid political choice, for adding to the source of tax revenues... so there really isn't much left to do.

Either:
a) Spiral into uncontrollable public debt
b) Milk the younger (and most importantly: SMALLER) generations in every way imaginable

Since most people (hence a large chunk of the electorate) will eventually oppose uncontrollable public debt, the choice for the politicians who value being re-elected is obvious.

Personally I am aged so, that I was at the very forefront of this development. But during my youth, I have seen countless public services and benefits be shut down within months or even weeks of them being eligible for me. The amount of pressure that has been put on the youth that came after my generation, to get education done with fast, and to be in constant employment, to be good, docile and flexible citizens, is frankly mind-boggling. I don't think any of you young people can imagine the freedoms those that came before you have enjoyed.

Unfortunately, they still want to enjoy those freedoms and they aren't sharing. So the worst is yet to come. This is just the beginning.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2010 07:03AM by Morbid.

Yup... The new system will filter out those students who want to learn and those who dont, and hopefully the courses.

No it'll filter out anyone who can't afford it. There is no relation between money, ambition, talent and intelligence. This system basically rules out anyone who is poor.

Dave, as a tax payer you must have been bothered that students were wasting your money (i suppose no differnet to some people who abuse benifit rights)...

As a Scot, they aren't wasting my money. Scottish Students do not pay to go to Uni at all, as we value education far higher than the English governments. The Welsh assembly also promised they would match the current rates, as the English hike (which was forced upon the Welsh) was a "disgrace". So the English in here should give themselves a big hand - your country now values education the lowest out of all of the countries in the United Kingdom.

Of course that argument is stupid because it's a LOAN. They pay it back. So they didn't waste money. That money went back into the economy and was paid back to the government anyway. No money was wasted. However the new loans are so steep that the amount paid back is ridiculous.

The increased fees will not apply to everyone. Only select courses, its upto the uni's decide which, and of course they need to balance between how many students they will recieve and the fees.

Almost a copy from the Tory speach really. When the maths are done, almost all fees will be £9000.

, the students will still have to pay it back but the interest rates will still be greatly favourable.

That's a joke, right? They have to pay interest rates on LEARNING? What kind of backwards society even thinks this stuff up? Shame I can't find the link anymore because the Guardian website is bollocks, but if you earned around £30k a year (respectable enough) and paid back the 9% which they propose (raising with inflation), then you'd never actually pay it off by retirement. This proposal insures that students will be in debt until they die.

I'd like to point out how expensive higher education is here in the US.

The US system is a joke, but that doesn't mean we can dumb down our system to match it. Some European countries pay students to go to University. In England, they care so little about the education of the youth that they are going backwards in development.

And anyone who gets free school dinners doesnt have to pay for the first two years of their degree, which IMO is fantastic

A fantastic diversion. The fees have tripled, but the poorest get 2 years free. In a 3 year degree you pay the same as before. In a 4 year degree you pay more. So how is that better?

This entire discussion even taking place is disappointing on so many levels. We have TOO MANY people going to University? We have TOO MANY Smart people? REALLY? That's the best people can come up with? No, that is retarded beyond all belief. If you want people to try harder than simply change the grading system. The entire point of grading is to tell people apart. If it's too easy to get top marks and pass, then clearly we need a way of differentiating that can develop with the raising IQs of the population. There is no point in giving everyone an A, because if everyone has an A then it is worthless. So rate them on percentage. Top 20% get As (random number, not something relevant), 20% Bs, etc, etc. Tune that system up and instantly you get a way of telling students ability apart without sacrificing the intelligence level of the country.

The very idea that we should exclude people from education based on money alone is a disgrace. Welcome to 200 years ago.

As for the riots, I don't condone violence, however once again the Met Police have proven they have NO idea to handle a crowd. This happened with the G20 riots, where they kettled protesters into a street and then attacked them with horses until they fought back. The first student protest was peaceful until the Met got involved, and since then every protest has involved violence. On the first day, the protest had no violence, the Met Police arrived and held them in a street for 6 hours. This street had no facilities such as bathrooms, no food or water (making the Mets actions illegal), and as the temperatures dipped below freezing and the police refused to move, it turned violent. They beat down people who attempted to leave, even people who were not part of the protest.

During last nights violence, the head of the Met Police urged students to go home. At the same time, the police force she was running was once again kettling protesters into streets with lack of facilities and freezing conditions again, and it quickly got out of control. Chalk this violence up to the Met, along with G20, the death of Ian Tomlinson and the execution of Charles de Meneze. The Met Police need to held accountable for their actions.

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Yeah, that's the spirit. Education should be the privilege for the rich. Peasants and working class shouldn't be allowed books. How else will the upper class keep their God given status to control the illeterate masses? Let's move on to the past.

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

If you want less people on uni, then change your demands for grades, or the grading system. Here we have a system that forces you to quit your course if you haven't done well enough. That filters out a lot of people. Or you could give out fines if people take too long (of course, there are exeptions to that like illness etc).

Increasing tuition fees to keep costs down actually decreases the level of education. It's often the poorer people who know what it is to work hard who are tomorrows talents. You want to filter them out? I'd rather have a poor, smart doctor than a rich stupid one.

Quote
The Universial Declarationof Human Rights

(Article 26.1

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

[www.un.org]

An educational system based on separation, selection and external differentiation is only a benefit for the privileged and thus a time traveling ticket that takes us back to the days of feudalism.

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

all i'll say is that going to uni isn't necessarily the best route you can take with your life. I went to uni, did a course that thousands and thousands of people across the country did, and have had no luck in finding a job in that field since graduating in 2004, and have had to work for the past 3 years in another industry, albeit using some of the basic transferable skills learnt on the degree course. i did a Master's degree in 2005/6 also, but that was so specialist that the industry doesn't have the room for more people in it, so i've basically educated myself out of a career.

when i look at my friends who went straight into work at 16, or did 2 years at college and then into work at 18, they are in a much much better financial and social position than me, and don't have a student debt to pay off either.

i enjoyed my 4 years at uni but if i had to live my life again, i would seriously consider going into a trade at 16 or 18, because at the age my mates and i are now (28/29) i'm the one in the "worst" position.

but i do agree that you shouldn't price people out of education, it should be accessible and affordable to all.

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RIP Jules, never to be forgotten. #KeepFightingMichael

I can empathise a lot with current students. especially as those imposing the fees on them went to university for free...


However i must temper these notions that the fees disadvantage the poor. On the face of it an extra £6k looks unmanagable when you concider present earnings.. however...

although there are other factors, which have always been a problem, paying back tuition fees has no correlation with how poor you are now. Fee repayments are contingent on future earnings not present earnings.

Therefore how poor your parents are should not have as much weighting in the desision as future earnings.... It is effectivly the present value of future earnings... i.e if a degree is going to be beneficial and inflate future earnings it will give you the leverage to earn enough to pay back the initial capital, flexibly all be it over a number of years. You either have a choice of letting a set amount be deducted from your salary each month and take the hit on the (lowish) interest rates or you can pay off in chunks to reduce the interest charges and monthly deductions. Either way, it is in the individuals control and contingent on future income.

For me, university was a major benefit. I just let a set deduction come off my salary every month and don't worry about it... they arent going to chase me for it, no worries. It gave me 3 years of hard work, great fun and a platform to go onto further professional qualifications, funded by my company, to masters level.

On the other hand person x could have gone to work at 18, worked their guts off from the bottom and had to study for lower levels of the same qualifications without the mind expansion/academic grounding and personal development university offers, all in their spare time (all be it potentially funded by the company). I would come out of university on the same or greater salary, with better opertunities and qualifications and all the benefits of having had a great 3 years. wheres the logic in going to work at 18 there? there isnt any competition!

However, I very much think it depends what degree you do, Because in life, some degrees are pretty much redundant unless in very niche industries, or as a teacher, certain degrees are fairly irrelevent (other than the transferable skills mentioned by muks). Now Maths, Engineering, Business, Law, computing, i.e the degrees you really have to work hard for (in my opinion) will always provide a grounding for a good career, because lateral thinking and problem solving are exactly what companies are looking for and this is what these degrees teach. In these cases it is more than worth the investment as it will payback in higher salaries, benefits and opportunities.


as you can see... it never did anything for my spelling though!

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24 Heures Du Mans 18-19 June 2005



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2010 09:00PM by andrew_S.