Hospital porters and street-cleaners should not pay for a lawyer's education.
Everyone benefits from a well educated society, but not to the same extent. Those who get the instant benefit (a large salary) should pay the cost.
A university degree is both expensive and valuable. Since the greatest beneficiary of the value is the graduate, the graduate should burden the greatest part of the expense. Hospital porters and street-cleaners should not pay for a lawyer's education.
As long as there is a system to ensure that graduates do not have to pay more than they can afford (such as a loan agreement where all repayments are deferred unless the the borrower is earning >£20k pa), I think it is entirely reasonable that they pay for their degree.
No, it isn't. But if that was the case, then to hell with the loans - the students should pay the full amount upfront.
im under 20, going to uni soon. Clearly I don't want a rise in tuition fees but at the moment most people arguing against them have no other plausible alternative and money cannot just appear.
This is what your saying here:
Example: Graduates pay the full cost of their courses (something like 25k per year). Cleaners are very happy because they do not pay from their taxes to contribute to this and nearly everyone stops going to university as they will have £150k worth of debt. They can see even cleaners better off than them and so they look for similar jobs.
Everyone stops going into further education (apart from Eton boys) or migrate to a different country that have different costs. Most of the society is full of ill-educated people that are not as productive, slowly decreasing our GDP and the economy is worse off.
[clt]so lets say you were a smoker for many years and developed a lung condition (god forbid), you needed surgery to survive.. you should foot the bill, why should I have to pay towards it? It doesn't benefit me in anyway.
How about if you were a poor mother, your husband was seeking custody of your kids but you have little money for a lawyer. Why should I pay towards a state lawyer to defend you? Doesn't benefit me in anyway?
There is a good reason why higher education was free for all those years, an educated population means a wealthy economy. We want to encourage people from all classes to seek higher education.. saddling potential students with a lifetime of debt will put many off, and we will ALL be poorer for it.[/clt]
Your first two paragraphs: Ok, that is a reasonable arguement. There are, however, three major differences between the examples you give and higher education funding.
1. There isn't an alternative (or at least a fair) method of funding for the smoker's health care or the mother's legal help. There is an alternative for the student's tution fees - the state loans them the money, and they repay it when they achieve a high level of income. A similar system wouldn't work for the smoker or mother.
2. The cost of higher education for a large proportion of the population is massive. Legal aid costs, though considerable, are not comparable.
Your last paragraph: Yes, society benefits from a well educated population. Yes, we want to enable everyone to have an opportunity for a good education. I do not agree that this system is "saddling potential students with a lifetime of debt". We are talking about a loan that will only be repayed if they are able to.
Compared to mortgages, bank loans, credit cards, even utility bills - it is a completely "safe" debt. If you can't pay, no one will come after you. "An educated population means a wealthy economy" - not if the country has been bankrupted by it.
To me it is a no-brainer. Higher education is a luxury item. It would be great if everyone could have access, but sadly it costs far too much. If we want to bring about some form of equality in the education system we should save the money for primary and secondary schooling - that is where the real social divide lies, and that is where the taxpayers' money will have the greatest impact. If you want the poor to have access to HE, a state-loan or graduate tax is the only way it can work.
Military is already being slashed Adellion however it will cost more to scrap the aircraft carriers atm.
The government isn't increasing fees, it is raising the limit that universities are allowed to charge. The universities want to raise their fee income. There are three choices: 1) fees stay capped, the quality of university tuition and research continues to decline, 2) fees are increased, the size of student loan obligations also increases, 3) fees are increased, the exchequer covers the cost. I absolutely agree with "the whole 'why should i pay, it doesn't benefit me' attitude is not the spirit of our nation", but there has to be a limit. We can't afford free food and clothing for everyone, we certainly can't afford free higher education for everyone.[clt]We aren't disputing student loans, or trying to achieve free education. (Loans for tuition fees were only brought in 6 years ago!) What we disagree with is the government increasing fees by up to 3 times as much. The two examples i gave were very specific and were meant to illustrate a point, the whole 'why should i pay, it doesn't benefit me' attitude is not the spirit of our nation.[/clt]
No, but... I think the total legal aid budget is about £2b per year (set to decrease, I think). That would pay for 80,000 lots of £25k. I think there are about 2m students. Unless I am massively out with these figures, my statement is correct.[clt]I'm assuming that by making this statement, you have seen these figures yourself?[/clt]
Who the hell does? Does the tax man? Do utility companies? Do mortgage lenders? Does the petrol pump? "u cant take a month off if your car has broken down" - you think those earning £25k have a harder time budgetting than those on the minimum wage?[clt]Bolded. The student loans company don't take your financial situation into account, they dont look at your out-goings and make a decision based on what you can afford, you make it sound very sweet and friendly. All that happens is you pass the salary threshold, and they begin taking their percentage. You can't negotiate the percentage, u cant take a month off if your car has broken down and u need money to fix it, you get absolutely no flexibility in any way and it will be like that for these students for most of their working lives.[/clt]
The country wont be bankrupted because the treasury isn't going to pay the full cost of higher education. If it tried to pay for a good higher education for everyone who wanted it, it would. I'm not blaming the universities or students for this - I'm blaming the maths. In much the same way that the NHS can't offer every possible treatment to whoever might need it, I'm not blaming the NHS or the sick - there isn't enough money to do it properly.[clt]No-one needs to come after you because it comes directly from your salary, it never even touches your bank account. The only way to stop the payments is to not earn money. You are given no choice in the matter. That's not safe thats financial imprisonment. Like i said, im not against student loans (although i dont agree with their inflexibility) im against raising the costs of going to university to such a degree.
The second part of your statement... you dont honestly believe that this country would be bankrupted because of funding of universities do you? I'm pretty sure that graduates have benefited this country more than other sectors... all the money we pay into the NHS, does that pay back into the economy? OK slightly through the maximisation of available working hours by employees and maybe a little R&D by not even close to the same level as graduates potential. Of course we should fund the NHS, but its wrong to pin national bankruptcy on one particular institute.[/clt]
Yes, we need a higher education. But we need a good higher education, not a get-them-through-uni-on-the-cheap system, which is all we will be left with unless the universities are able to raise the money.[clt]Tell me, what does Britain make from export? Our mines dried up long ago, our timber and natural resources are scarce. What is it that we provide to the rest of the world to stay on top, to stay as a strong economy and an influential country? I'll give you a clue, Concorde is an example of what higher education has brought to this country. Yes its now sitting on the front lawn at BA's headquarters, but it was a technological advance way ahead of its time. Higher education is not a luxury item... its what is keeping us in the game, because unfortunately, we can't rely on our export power like some other countries.[/clt]
Maybe my point wasn't clear. Tertiary education relies on secondary education, and secondary education on primary education. A poor primary and secondary education can not be made better by any higher education. The investment needs to go to there. Your statements about the value of higher education to the population at large are true, but decent schools will have a far greater impact on that than universal higher education, whatever the quality of it.[clt]About primary and secondary schools, yes, i do agree that funding is much needed, especially in some schools in urgent need of repair. However, what exactly would you suggest to tackle the issue of class divides? I think in general our state funded schools are really good, yes, poorer children arent benefitting as much as those children receiving private education (in all cases), but thats not to say they are really worse off than the other children around the world in state funded education... btw Tony Blair's kids went to a state funded school.[/clt]
I was taking an example, however, the government could slash other departments MORE in order to fund educaiton, which is more valuable. The growth of our economy is dependent on an able and intelligent workforce, as we are very much a services-based economy. The biggest contributor of taxes to this country is our business sector. Who runs businesses? Graduates. Why? Because only graduates are clever enough (in most cases) to do so.
Whereas military is a drain on resources. Social security is a drain on resources. Education of some children who are clearly not genetically able to learn properly is a waste of resources.
Human beings are not born equal. Thus, favourism should be shown to those who are of most use to the economy to bring it back up to scratch. Then we will be able to re-fund our lavish social security, military ventures, and other expenditures.
Cannot disagree more with the bolded statement.
Having served in the Armed Forces I regularly found myself having to purchase my own equipment as what I was issued was sub-standard or not in large enough quantities for the job in hand.
When I left the Armed Forces I was in receipt of State funded benefits for about 2 months whilst settling into civilian life again, this is a double edged sword as some people do get too much in the way of state aid. IE: A couple having 6 children and getting more benefits that the family next door in which both parents work.
I was only entitled to £36 a week from the government, barely enough to feed myself let alone find a house to live in.
As for saying those that are less intelligent do not deserve the same amount of education as more capable members of society, this I cannot stand for, many of the greatest minds that have contributed to science, medicine, engineering, art, music etc. had no formal qualifications of any kind. This is still true today many of the engineers I work with do not hold recognised qualifications as they could not grasp some simple concepts that are imposed on us by the education system. Yet given the right environment their talent and flair shines through with innovative designs and concepts.
Basically with the statement you have just made you would disadvantage people on their abilities in a pre-set of tests, HOW DOES THAT DIFFER FROM SOME OF THE EXTREMIST VIEWS OF SOME PAST GOVERNMENTS AND REGIMES?? that is the equivelant of ethnic cleansing in my eyes
Before you post another statement like that please think about where this country came from and some of the great minds that would not have existed had your standards been applied.
This is a simple one to field,
Have you ever heard of a Grammar School??
This system is something i am in approval of. Everybody still gets the right to the same base level of education. At the same time every student has the right to apply and be tested for a position in a grammar school.
This can lead back to an elitist view but every person has had the chance to go down that path.
The government isn't increasing fees, it is raising the limit that universities are allowed to charge. The universities want to raise their fee income. There are three choices: 1) fees stay capped, the quality of university tuition and research continues to decline, 2) fees are increased, the size of student loan obligations also increases, 3) fees are increased, the exchequer covers the cost. I absolutely agree with "the whole 'why should i pay, it doesn't benefit me' attitude is not the spirit of our nation", but there has to be a limit. We can't afford free food and clothing for everyone, we certainly can't afford free higher education for everyone.
Who the hell does? Does the tax man? Do utility companies? Do mortgage lenders? Does the petrol pump? "u cant take a month off if your car has broken down" - you think those earning £25k have a harder time budgetting than those on the minimum wage?
The country wont be bankrupted because the treasury isn't going to pay the full cost of higher education. If it tried to pay for a good higher education for everyone who wanted it, it would. I'm not blaming the universities or students for this - I'm blaming the maths. In much the same way that the NHS can't offer every possible treatment to whoever might need it, I'm not blaming the NHS or the sick - there isn't enough money to do it properly.
Maybe my point wasn't clear. Tertiary education relies on secondary education, and secondary education on primary education. A poor primary and secondary education can not be made better by any higher education. The investment needs to go to there. Your statements about the value of higher education to the population at large are true, but decent schools will have a far greater impact on that than universal higher education, whatever the quality of it.
Down to second in the list now, but wow!By the way, check out the top result in google for searches regarding raising tuition fees :icon_cool:
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe...=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=e9dc9346fefa80ff
