Posted by kozmicstu on Thursday, 02 November 2006 14:23:48

"Whilst I accept that students need to pay more, I'm worried about the effect of variability in pricing on student access."

This acceptance is worrying to me, luckily I started university last year before the topup fees were introduced, but it seems to me that University education is pointless if it is financially crippling to the students. The position that we are rapidly moving into is one where the various universities will begin competing with each other based on pricing. The laws of supply and demand dictate that in-demand universities such as yours will be more expensive, causing the self fulfilling prophecy that higher tuition fees will indeed lead to better teaching (more funds for equipment and so on). On the flip side, of course, lower-demand universities will be forced to reduce their fees to get students, and the teaching quality will suffer accordingly.

Of course, I mean not to be condescending - I'm sure this is no news to you, I'm just clearing the air! My issue is with your happiness that students must pay more to go to university. The problem, I fear, is not one of universities having not enough money: the way I see it there are too many university students. Blair's government made a huge drive to try and get young people to consider university, seemingly without planning for the day when university attendance rose drastically. The only way to deal with this blunder in the end was to punish those students who followed New Labour's advice by raising tuition fees.

My own personal gut feeling is that the solution to this problem lies in either opening more places and creating more universities (expensive) or going back on the mistakes of the past and beginning to advise vocational qualifications to those whom it would suit. Fewer university students, more FE students doing vocational courses, and MORE APPRENTICESHIPS. This would help the universities overcome their financial difficulties (as they'd have fewer students to worry about), and has the added advantage of helping stop the decline in the value of a Bachelor's degree.

Perhaps it's too late for this and the solution really does involve putting 50% of the population into what will probably be around £20,000 of debt before they are 25, but I have difficulty believing that this is the best idea

I do apologise for the length of this response, but, to paraphrase Churchill, I didn't have time to write a shorter one.

Here's to Mr Cameron responding to our worries!

Stu

Posted by Sally on Thursday, 02 November 2006 18:45:37

I couldn't agree more with that comment, and I think a lot of people feel the same way

Posted by Paine on Saturday, 04 November 2006 11:24:26

"The laws of supply and demand dictate that in-demand universities such as yours will be more expensive, causing the self fulfilling prophecy that higher tuition fees will indeed lead to better teaching (more funds for equipment and so on). On the flip side, of course, lower-demand universities will be forced to reduce their fees to get students, and the teaching quality will suffer accordingly."

I'm not sure that this is strictly true in the case of the higher education system, but if it were - would it be the right way of doing things?

The general consensus is that Cambridge is the second or third best univesity in the world at the moment, specialising particularly in science-based subjects. Cambridge IS underfunded. The shortfall is estimated at between £3000 and £6000 per student, depending on the course they do. If the cap on tuitition fees is lifted in 2009, then current speculation suggests fees would rise to the region of £10-12,000 p/a to fund this. I have no doubt the University, hypothetically speaking, would alleviate this hike by investing huge sums of money into bursary schemes. However, the figure alone will be enough to terrify many people from my sort of background from applying, and money should not be a barrier to personal development (I cringe as I quote the NUS: "Education is a right, not a privilege").

Universities are underfunded, but market factors are leading them to diversify to raise funds from elsewhere - e.g. through research, conferences, sponsorship, etc. Raising money in this way is a completely acceptable approach, and it's the method being used to help bridge the shortfall seen in my University, for example. These funds pay for specialist facilities, and keep the university competitive - not just on a national level, but internationally too.

You also said "lower-demand universities will be forced to reduce their fees to get students, and the teaching quality will suffer accordingly." - is this really a good thing?

There is a small amount of variability in fees at the moment - the University of Greenwich in Medway charge £2000 to attract students from the deprived local area for example, compared to the University of Kent who charge the full £3000 if I'm not mistaken. I think this level of variation is acceptable, because of the existance of a cap. I wouldn't want to see variations in fees of over £8000 between Universities, not just because of the access effect - but the way it would affect regional inequality.

"Perhaps it's too late for this and the solution really does involve putting 50% of the population into what will probably be around £20,000 of debt before they are 25, but I have difficulty believing that this is the best idea"

I totally agree with you - setting quotas for fees is a very bizarre way of organising HE. I'm not entirely convinced, though, that the quota is solely to blame for the massive increase in people attending university (although I accept they're partly to congratulate). We've got to consider the fact that more people are getting higher grades than ever before. More importantly still, we've got to understand that the labour market has changed quite significantly over the last twenty or thirty years. I'm tempted to go off on a tangent and explain these changes (nature of jobs, semi-dependency induced by house prices, liquidity of "careers", saturated employment, etc), but I'll resist owing to the fact I've waffled on far too much already! I'm in absolute agreement with you about the role vocational education can, and should be playing.

So, in short - keep a cap on tuition fees so that our society's poorest don't lose their right to higher education, and look again at the Government's quota for higher education (but keep in mind complex changes in the UK's labour market which mean our economy depends on HE)

Posted by Zambuca1 on Tuesday, 06 February 2007 18:53:45

Well, this relates back to money and funds. Most Europe has cheap and superior education with a smaller budget. Most students in mainland europe dont in debt themselves for years just to get an education

Its obvious to there governments, that the country can not prosper with in debted students who see not much future on working themselves out of debt.

At the same time, the difficulty for our younger generations will be to aquire property. We will have to further in debt ourselves with mortgages and loans.

In my opinion, this is a big scam

Why dont you ask politicians, to not spend all this wealth on TRIDENT defense system, Costing a huge amount.

Also, why put so much wealth into security, support officers, and M16?

If all these funds were actually used to sustain and maintin the strong intelligent workforce, and education and skills, britain would probably be better off.

I mean Europe is right in front of all you, use there systems as an example. There not worried about debt, cause not all there economies are fractional reserve banking.

In the end, England is spending ridiculous amounts on weapons, war and defense and spying.

I think the obvious is right in front of you, We need to have funds redirected towards helping all these students and many other social services

Or how about individuals can choose where there income taxes goes.

I pay taxes, i am not british, but it kills me to know how so much is wasted in my daily life for such petty things

Also, Certain services that are provided for people will on purpose run at a loss, like the NHS cause it provides a service that will sustain many other things.

its design is not to be a profit making machine.

I say you ask you politicians, to stop wasting cash on weapons, guns, war, and much more wasteful sinister stuff we dont need in a global economy

I am with you 100% David, I went to school in the USA, the debt there is nothing compared to in britain, and nothing compared to mainland europe

The French, go to school free, i am sure germany is easy, switzerland its very cheap, sweden norway etc, all are great examples

The problem again, is that you want to fix the system from the level intelligence that created it. This cannot be, you must look outside the box and maybe even reform the whole education and fund system.

I cant believe in USA and England, the richest countries in the world, yet they cant supply education for university.

Its a scam, conspiracy or not, its a scam, How would creating a whole generation of in debt students do for the economy?
We will end up paying off other generations debt, and to add to the mix our own.

Also, Thanks for discrediting my post as if it meant nothing on banks. Fixing the banking would solve many problems and weed out the corrupt and provide people with a debt free money system.

Its funny cause Tony blair said they would help with education.

What they offered was subsidized loans with a bank. This is ridiculous, since almost all euro countries universities are very cheap, almost free in most countries, yet britain and all its wealth cant provide these basic things.

I say to you, to not touch a loan, or a credit card with 30 foot pole.

The banks are not your friend

Best of luck to you, and i hope we can think of some solutions