Stop TOP-UP fees - topple Blair

If i had a choice beetween subsidising students (who are disproportionatly middle class/upper middle class) and getting pre-school education/care for the most needy inner city areas then i would choose the klids over and above the posch students. As for the economy, what is holding back the economy is not the lack of university students (or the level of their debt) but the lack of people with good literacy and numeracy skills. On the toppling blair front? who will he be replaced by? brown at best, Dr john Ried at worst! What is often forgotten about student debt is that students are actually in a better position to pay off the debt than anyone else. Graduates earn about 50% more than non-graduates so at an average wage of £18 000, they are earning £27 000 so they can pay off the £20 000 of debt in less than three years. I know it takes time to get to that kinds of money but the interest rate is subsidised and because the fees are charged if they graduate and after graduation they are not 'lumbered' with debt untill they are out of university and free.
Here is a question for the students, Why should a shop assistant subsidise a city slicker?
the logic is there for all to see and that is why working class opinion is for top up fees of up to £3 000, it is only the middle class MPs (i.e all of them) that are worried for their middle class voters. If the MPs wanted a working class issue then why didnt more rebel against foundation hospitals, even the vaguely working class trade unions were against them whole heartedly.

sorry but i just dont see why students shouldnt pay for university. after all, almost 60% of us dont get any opportunity to go. if youre parents have good money in the bank, tough, pay for your education. it gives you the possibility of a future and better wages.
there are hundreds of kids that go to uni simply because mummy expects them to, or because their mates are going, or because they cant think what else to do (dont even try to bs me that there arent loads of kids with these reasons, ive met loads of them). they think that somehow they have a RIGHt to a uni education, regardless of whether they really want it, or whether it'll do any good for them. ive met kids who dont even know the title of their course when theyre starting, let alone what its about. maybe those kids will see how much it costs and think a bit bloody harder about whether the course or the timing is right.
the majority of people in the uk cannot afford a uni education NOW. if we can get the rich kids to pay their way, maybe we can free up some money to support those with less opportunity and money.
in answer to your factettes:
1/The Dept for Ed and Skills says that over the course of a lifetime graduates will earn at least 50% more than non graduates. Graduates leaving university in 2003 can expect a starting salary of £20000, according to the Associate of Graduate Recruiters. Seeing as the median wage in the UK is £21000, which means 50% of the people in the UK earn less than this, I couldnt care less if you had to pay £20000 in uni fees for the opportunity of a starting salary almost in the top half of UK wages.
2.You know studets are not the only people paying increased living (and other) costs. And you dont even have to pay council tax. The students I know go out every weekend, they have cars and regularly travel around the UK to visit family and friends, they drink in the Unio bar a couple of times a week. My working (usually in callcentre, data entry or stacking/sorting jobs) cant afford any of these things. Its not about what costs you pay, its about what you have left after those costs. And from what Ive seen the larger portion of students are doing okay.
3.This is a worse case scenario. In most cases, there will be a vast proportion of these costs paid by parents, who can afford it. I know people whose parents are paying for almost everything, and they still take out loans so they have more play money. I even know one guy who is putting it into an account that pays much higher interest than what he would be expected to pay back.
4.So? I assume this means they would have maybe gone somewhere closer to their parental home so they could keep living costs at a minimum. I think if you have the opportunity to live at your parents for a minimum of living and rent etc costs then you should count yourself as extremely lucky.
5.I agree that London is too expensive a place to live. But when there are people working bloody hard for long hours in London who cannot afford the cost of living there, to be honest students are at the bottom of my priority list. If you cant afford London, go somewhere else, and be glad you have the option at all.
6.SO? How is this an argument?
7.Well lucky them that they have the opportunity to do that. How many of these people, when they do move out of the parental home, move straight into their own place (i.e. no landlord!)? At least they dont have to do the endless circuit of shitty bedsits that so many of us are forced to do.
8.since the elimination of grants the amount a graduate can expect to earn has gone up from around £16500 to £20000.
9.They can afford it. Did you know that 7% of the UKs children go to Independent Schools? Most of the parents of these children pay between £3100 and £5600 PER TERM for their childrens education age 11-19. And then they whine about Uni fees...
10.In 1992 we wasted a lot of money. Three quarters of Uni students then and now were considered middle class, and only 2% were from unskilled family backgrounds. We were paying for rich kids to have better opportunities and Im glad that we've stopped.
11.Which is why we need to make wealthier students pay more, so we can offer less wealthy students more support.
12.Thats partly because to get the real benefit of medical qualifications you need to complete more than the standard uni 3 years, and poorer students just cant raise extra funds for the extra time studying.
13.Which is one of the things that top up fees are trying to address.
14.There hasnt been much change to the social order in Unis at all since there were grants. And the top up fees would bring some of that help back to the less wealthy student. What students 'believe' and what is true are not the same thing.
15.Yep. But they wont be charged top up fees, and they are likely to recieve more financial help, so this is hardly an argument for your case.
16.Yeh but most of Uni courses require less than 16 hours study a week actually in Uni, plus the same out of Uni (which I havent seen many students get anywhere near completing). Thats still only 32 hours a week, and the 13 hours work brings it up to 45hours. Which is about the same as a full time job. So whats your point?
17.See 15.
18.Well it depends what you call basic essentials. Does beer and pills and club entrance fees count? Do you mean those expensive clothes, the ones that most definitely werent bought in a charity shop or ASDA? The cost of running a car? New playstation games? See, basic essentials vary greatly depending who you talk to.
19.In inquiries? Im more interested in the actual migration of students than how many made a phone call.
20.I really dont see the problem. Most students parents do help them out with Uni costs. The rewards of having a degree (including the wage) are many, why shouldnt you pay for this?
UNIVERSITY IS A PRIVILIGE NOT A RIGHT.

I'll be brief. Education is not all about jobs... this idea is what I'm opposing. The current proposals put a huge incentive on students to study soley for financial reasons... students are forced into getting corporate or city jobs rather than going into teaching or other socially benficial professions. Do you think that there is nothing good for society about education? It also makes it much harder to change the cross section of society that go to university. If you are working class these proposals make it harder to go to uni, even with their reduced grants!

Yes rich kids and the middle class should pay more!! If you read the alternative proposal it suggests raising income tax for the highest band by 4.6% or making a new band of 50% for the richest proportion of society. This could also go for foundation hospitals which are equally shit. Top-up fees are designed to keep poorer people out of education, Foundation hospitals to give them second class healthcare. its the same!

All you are arguing for by supporting top-up fees is stopping the very rich contributing enough to the wider education of society and putting all the costs on the student whatever their social background. Rich kids can easily afford to go to Oxbridge and will continue to in great numbers. Its the poorer ones who will lose out.

Whether it reflects todays realities or not I think the idea to get more people into university based on merit (rather than wealth) is a good thing. If you want to tackle this the way is abolish private schools not privatise the universities!

Finally on Blair. I say one down (the worst one) whos next? Still one very nasty man out of power. I would have liked to have toppled him on foundation hospitals or the war in Iraq or the anti-terror laws or the Asylum legislation. I would like to never of had him in power, I would like to have none of them in power! Sadly this is the only issue (other than war) where we have had a real opportunity to oust him. I don't want to miss this one.

you are right, education is not just about getting people to earn more money, it is also about getting people brain washed into the liberal lar-de-dar thinking (i believe some call it a flase conciousness?). *If* i was going to transform the social fabric of this peice of dirt (aka the UK) i would start bottom up and attempt to give everyone a fairer start to life. This can be done with things like drop in centres so that kids can get supervised play and parents can work (or go on courses to improve skills etc...). Secondly i would get free pre-school care and education in order to improve literacy and numeracy skills so that working class kids arent going to school on their first day illiterate and being humiliated so they decide to mess about instead of learn (cue: cycle of poverty).
Personally i think that picking a few extra working class kids and putting them in the middle class does not transform the social cross section. On the other hand giving a fair start for kids from all backgrounds does.

I have a lot of sympathy with most of the arguements against top-up fees and generally am not in agreement with what the government are proposing, although I do think those who can afford it should make some contribution. As an FE tutor who was an administrator in various departments of two universities for several years and a student for a short while, I'd just like to add a few points to the arguement which never seem to be discussed:

- Funding for HE has dropped dramatically and this needs to be addressed, however the appalling inefficiency of some parts of some HE institutions also needs to be addressed. I have witnessed enormous wastes of money from staff being given expensive computer equipment they don't need or use when student facilities are inadequate, to such as staff incompetence, lack of training and the retention of extremely inneffective staff (an insult to them as well as a waste to the institution). Obviously these problems exist in every large institution, and the introduction of QAA inspections may have helped, but there is a long way to go.

- Although large numbers of students work extremely hard and gain an awful lot (not just academically)from university, many really are there just for the hell of it and have very little respect for the education they are receiving, regularly abusing regulations created to enable students with genuine problems (eg illness)in order to scrape through their courses. These students then often end up in jobs which they could have been in without a University education.

- The government's proposal of 50% going to university seems based on absolutely nothing at all. Education is a wonderful thing, but education at HE level is just not appropriate for many people (regardless of intelligence or qualifications - I have 4 good A levels but University was definately noty the right thing for me at 18 and still isn't at 28). There needs to be a huge input into educating sixth form and FE students and helping them to decide whether university really is what they need right now, or indeed ever, rather than just assuming that it is the best thing to do - university has many benefits but young people need to know the whole story and have expert help available, or at least someone to talk it through objectively with.

i do not think top up fees are going to solve all these problems. but i do believe theyre a good way to start.

personally, i believe our universities offer too many (almost-the-same-but-slightly-different) courses of too varying quality. im not saying they should get rid of hundreds of courses. but does every university need several different courses in each subject? why cant we encourage specialisation later?

i also believe that the time taken to achieve a degree is too long. Why not make students do more hours in Uni so that the time taken to complete a degree is 2 years instead of three? Then if people want to do a specialisation maybe a third year would be the time to do it. This would mean students would have to work harder, putting off the ones who are there for dubious reasons. it would cost them less (living costs for that extra year).

i dont understand the 50% figure either. most of blairs results and targets seem to be plucked out of the air, and then 'evidence' provided made-to-fit the claim.

i would love the rich to be taxed sensibly (ie more). but i still think they should pay for university too. and i would love to see a more educated society, but i dont agree that university for all will get us that.

education should begin properly when children are young. it should be fun, because people learn better that way. if you want to make the population more well educated through qualifications, then i suggest making it easier for people to go on to do a levels would affect more people than the university option.

actually, i believe we get it wrong from the start. we bore the kids. we overwork the teachers. the whole system is screwed. gcses are worth nothing. nvqs are a joke. i have actually had to write reports on how i use a fax machine or answer a phone for an nvq. its all nonsense. we educate people by getting them to regurgitate facts in essays and exams. some of the most intelligent and wise people i know left school at 16 and educated themselves through genuine interest and debate.

and why does educated always mean qualified or vice versa? life outside of uni can be educating too you know. tim nice but dim was most likely uni educated....

i am working class but i am not stupid and i know the effects of the IMF/WTO/etc... and mayday is a great day for me and the miners strike was actually a working class strugle. It was the miners that led it and because of their actions the fuking trots and middle class anarchists followed (to sell their papers probably). Although to be fair the black flag use to be a top quality journal but it has declined recently (i believe through irregularity and lack of imput). Hobbit, you are welcome to believe what ever you want but you are as bad as the trots and the rest of them who claim to be the leaders of the working class and the w/c' interests.

I agree with many of the criticisms of educations system in total, funding, pressure to go to university. But firstly making it cost more and making the better funded universities like Oxford charge more seems like a good way to continue having rich kids going to uni just coz they can while poor kids don't go (even if they really want to).

I think they need to change a lot of things. They need to scap Thatchers competetive funding system, bring back polys that gave people skills not just filled their heads with trivial knowledge and gave them pieces of paper after proving that they can sit in silence and regurgitate facts for three hours.

But TOP-UP fees only deal with the end result of that system they simply make university more unfair without dealing with anything else.
The funds freed up from students paying will not go towards social welfare or anything else. I mean look, Gordon Brown has been giving tax breaks to big business, we've spent over 1.25 billion pounds of taxpayers money on invading iraq and killing children!

If top up fees go through that will be one more victory for neo-liberalism, another step backwards from where I want to be.

i agree about the corporates etc. yes we should make them pay/. yes we should reign them in. yes we should put less money into shit and more into a proper education. i agree that taking away the polys was a stupid mistake. but is still think that no matter how much we put into the uni system, people who have got plenty of money should pay for their uni eduaction. whats wrong with that? you all keep saying how a uni education is worth more than your future wages. well i agree, and i think its something you should feel honoured to have and it is therefore worth paying for! i resent all the fuss being created about having to pay a few quid towards something so absolutely worthwhile. maybe it doesnt feel worthwhile if youre on some waster course but then if you had to pay for it you'ld be more careful what you chose. theres no denying that unis, although some people are serious about it, are rammed with kids that really dont appreciate or value it. ive always thought that people go to young, and taking a year or two out often seems to help people make better decisions about their course or about going at all. but all those kids that go for dubious reasons, and do a few hours a week work in uni, rush their essays the night before etc.. they all seem to think that the education is only part of the uni experience, and the larger part is getting wasted, meeting girls/boys, having a laugh... i think not only is paying your way (and theyre only asking for a fraction of the actual costs opf you being there) the right thing to do if you cann afford it, but also its a deterrent from making hasty decisions about your course.
its all very well talking about other problems with the education system, and corporate taxes, but these are seperate issues. i know that they affect each other, everything does. but using them as an excuse for not paying for something you can rightfully afford.... thats crap.

The very phrasing of the question of university funding in terms of middle/upper/working class contributions seems to me misguided and open to all kinds of personal sentiment/resentment etc.

Whilst the Gvt are more than keen to whitter on about how much better off graduates are than their non-university-attending counterparts, who really benefits from an annual harvest of ambitious money- and status-hungry graduates?

It's gonna be business (and often the big sort), no?

Why aren't the gvt demanding that businesses contribute to the funding of students, given that they're the ones that really benefit from having a pliable, educated (well, sometimes)and eager workforce? ....Instead of pissing off all those people who pay taxes and don't have anything to do with University?

If the Gvt are really so keen to make sure that nobody ever studies anything non-vocational (and say bye-bye to humanities and arts subjects at ex-Polys, but don't shed any tears for Oxbridge, York, Warwick etc. as people will always 'value' a degree from these corporate, over-funded blocks of shite...even if it's in post-modern silk-weaving), we'll end up with rabid hoardes of computer/business/management studies graduates who are just perfect fodder for the Nu-Labour sausage machine.

....in the end, it's business who benefits, and it's the Gvt who try and make the issue one about personal 'choice', (i.e. will I be able to earn more in three years if I do this pet-hair management degree or not?).

Divide and rule! And definitely make sure no-one reads Marx any more...even though Blair got to for free.

Q. Why should a shop assistant subsidise a city slicker?

A. If higher education was paid for by income tax they wouldn't have to! Simple.