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November 26, 2003
Top-up, back-to-front
The proposal to allow universities to charge differential 'top-up' fees, the centrepiece -- and maybe the nemesis -- of the government's new parliamentary programme, is quite simply a mess whichever way you look at it. No question that the universities are going bust and need more money. After that, all is confusion. Old Labour oppose top-up fees because they think they are unfair and will penalise poor students. The government's insistence that it's got nothing to do with poor students because the fees will be repaid by a graduate tax which will only kick in if graduates earn £15,000 per year is completely undercut by the fact that it has nevertheless exempted poor students from paying these fees at all. The Tories line up with Old Labour (the fact that this is simply a crass piece of opportunism, playing to the popular fury at the proposal, is of course, a thought too unworthy to be mentioned here). This position completely contradicts and renders incoherent the Tories' whole shiny new policy position, which rests on a radical premise of decentralisation and increasing consumer control over the financing of public services. The universities oppose the Tories and Old Labour on the grounds that they need the money and it isn't ever going to come from taxation (true). The universities say if they don't get the money, they will cut student places. This whole crisis has arisen, however, because of the lunatic premise that at least half of all 18 year-olds should get a degree, a policy which has sent standards in the universities plunging ever downwards while they gently go bankrupt under the pressure. The universities remain publicly silent about this socially-engineered catastrophe, although plenty of university teachers provide graphic chapter and verse in private about the standards they are being forced to collapse. They are also silent about one of the very worst aspects of all this, that the universities -- the very crucible of freedom of thought and action -- are under the cosh of an ideological government that is forcing them to discriminate against merit in order to shoehorn in students with the right social cachet (ie from poor areas and rotten schools), and that the extra cash will be used to tighten that control even further. If ever there was a trahison des clercs, this is surely it. Meanwhile, as Martin Stephen, high master of Manchester Grammar School, points out in a Telegraph piece today (not yet online, for some reason), the pressure on universities is forcing them to consider pupils with low A-level predictions who clearly will never make the grade, but whose applications threaten to paralyse the entire process. This is because the government is gerrymandering the university admission process to conceal the real reason why not enough bright children from poor backgrounds are going to university -- because it has signally failed to improve primary and secondary schooling, and indeed has made it in many respects even worse than it was when it came into office, aghast at the low standards it found in the classroom. So, having failed to provide poor pupils with the classic ladder up out of disadvantage, it is kicking that same ladder away from pupils who deserve their university place, an act that combines ideological spite with deep political mendacity. Simply despicable. And anyway, even with the wretched top-up fees, the universities still won't have enough money to make ends meet. Posted by melanie at November 26, 2003
Comments
Under my perfect system I'd have a special high top up fee for poorer students, which would help weed out those students who don't take their courses seriously, ensuring only the best poorer students with the most drive and ambition make it to the top. Do you think Blair could get my proposal through parliament? Posted by: Brian Smith at November 26, 2003 01:05 PMMelanie is right that trying to put 50% of people through university is crazy. But the idea that universities are discriminating against merit by lowering the entrance standard for students from poorly-performing schools is dead wrong. This is surely a step towards discriminating IN FAVOUR of merit and against the privilege of wealthier parents being able to buy a better secondary education for their offspring (whether through the private school system, or because they can afford to buy a house near the better state schools). Posted by: JT at November 26, 2003 03:28 PMIt is a typical cartel. You use the pricing to preserve weaker members of the cartel; ie. weak universities. It is amazing how we have moved from Technical Colleges and Day-release to Full-Time Courses at Universities for many subjects best taught as sandwich courses and paid for by employers. If an 18 year old goes to University and sacrifices 36 months income; he borrows a Student Loan to pay for his living expenses (which the Government classifies as 'income' for benefit purposes) and now must borrow on a deferred basis for tuition costs. In the meantime the University uses the halls of residence as a cash cow and jacks up the prices. So, if you forgo income for 36 months and borrow to live as a student; why not the 18 year old unemployed ? Lend them 36 months of living expenses in place of Income Support and make them pay it back when they have a job ? On the other hand, today the Times had a case of a Medic with £50.000 debts. Suppose we get Medics (75% medical students are women) with that debt. Can they really afford to work for the NHS ? It means you need to keep a wife earning below £16.000 if you have a family, or childcare costs plus servicing her debt will eat you alive, particularly with such pooor tax allowances. We know the government will uncap these top-up fees, and probably charge market interest, and maybe even raise the income tax level too. Who can trust them after they promised not to bring in fees ? This is Labour's very own policy.....even Thatcher didn't. So, by raising the input prices in the economy, so our Medics carry debt as in the USA, maybe we can move to a US system of healthcare. Why be a GP, why not specialise on well-paid (private) specialities - like fertility treatment, hip relacement, cardiac surgery ......and go to do postgrad in the US for a few years....and be hired back to a Foundation Hospital on a super package ?
If Indian graduates work in call-centres, will our call-centres require graduates ? What about the 50% the government thinks will NOt go to University ? What jobs will they get ? It is an interesting idea to have lots of highly-indebted graduates dissatisfied with employment prospects. BTW Melanie, do you think true love conquers all when highly indebted male graduate means highly indebted female graduate and they apply for a mortgage and car loan ?
If most people are earning c £26.000 - I think that is the mode or the median.....it seems quite a heavy burden to impose on the graduate a higher tax rate than the non-graduate; or worse still; a higher tax rate on Child A than on Child B, because their respective parents had different income levels......a sort of 'sins of the fathers' tax. If Child A's father pays higher tax, and Child B's father lives on benefit; Child A pays higher tax after graduation than Child B, even if Child B works for Goldman Sachs and Child A works as a teacher !!!!! By this token Chris Gent at Vodafone could be in a lower tax bracket than a trainee teacher !!!! Posted by: Peter Williamson at November 26, 2003 06:13 PMJT, The government predicates the cash to universities upon adequate numbers of "poor" student admissions. University admissions tutors will, therefore, bias towards the cash. How, in an age of unprecedented student numbers and a record drop-out rate, is this meritocratic? It's nothing more than class warfare. I am reminded of the audit report for the first phase of Excellence in Cities, published earlier this year. Despite its phenomenal cost and Blair-flagship status, the programme had delivered no educational improvement whatsoever among its target racial groups. Only white females had registered a small gain. Nonetheless a government advisor, when interviewed, shared with us his opinion that EiC must be hugely expanded and run for a long time. The reverse would have been the natural conclusion to draw from the audit. But class warriors aren't interested in anything that cramps their style. From this I construe that university access regulation will, as intended, genuinely harm many middle class children. Degree standards will be substantially lowered to prove both the programme's success and that of its beneficiaries. Universities will pay a heavy price even though they may have more money. Posted by: Guessedworker at November 26, 2003 11:23 PMFirst: Student Tuition (not 3rd Way German SPD is now copying this policy)
Fourth: Means-test Pensions So when the family has finished filling in forms for: Working Families Tax Credit
Listening to Any Questions on the radio just now, it was sickening how no-one, not even the Tories' frontman Tim Yeo, had the guts to address the real reason why this funding crisis has arisen: namely, due to the widely held, crass idea that it is some kind of human right for a young person to go to university. Instead they all use this sentimental, victim argument about poor people being put off university. It wouldn't be such a problem if, firstly, less people went there in the first place, and second, that they were probably educated before they went there. (I'm at university, and many of my colleagues can't even spell and use punctuation properly.)It would be better if they brought back selection in state schools which would ensure the brightest proportion go to universtiy, meaning a smaller, but brighter, university intake. What we have at the moment is a huge mass of young people, mostly unacademic, going to university simply because they think they'll get a glamourous job at the end of it, who actually end up in call-centres. All this makes higher education increasingly meaningless. Posted by: Piers at November 28, 2003 09:40 PMYes. It used to be that education was "targetted" to the academic, and that benefits were universal. New Labour wants to reverse this with benefits being means-tested or "targetted" and Universities made Comprehensive, with students loaded with debt. It will destroy British Universities as they become degree mills. It was John Major's cynical trick of making Polyechnics Universities, and Laour's lunacy in keeping them. We have too many universities, too many students, and too many doing the wrong subjects. This will destroy the NHS as tuition fees (Student Tax) becomes uncapped and medical graduates carry debts of £100.000....they will then become specialist consultants to build a good private practice and noone will become a GP because there is no private practice there. Changing the input prices in the economy will destroy some lives with debt, and disillusion many. Did anyone see that 22.3% recent Japanese graduates are unemployed ? Posted by: Peter Williamson at November 28, 2003 10:05 PMFor every place at Uni there needs to be at least one apprenticeship with same per capita funding [circa £5,000]. There are more qualified architects than there are apprenticed bricklayers. Importing cheap craft-skilled labour from the third world is a pretty lousy alternative to vocational training of british men and women - it is actually quite shameful. Britain and the its treasury denigrates low-skilled people - which of the following do you regard as 'unskilled'. plumber The treasury thinks British people no longer need to aspire to such jobs - 50% of people go to university who is kidding who ? ? ? ? Posted by: jimmy at November 30, 2003 03:49 PMThe poltroons in The Treasury decided manufacturing was dead. They liked ETS Princeton and its money machine GMAT. LSAT, MCAT< SAT etc and decided Britain ought to have some of that. So they warapped up the Exam Boards into Edexcel and such things to create a new marketing tool selling British Exam Know-How (ie answers) around the world. Then, ever since Mag Thatcher fleeced foreign students by raising fees they saw this as a money-spinner, but first the Universities had to become corporates with CEOs instead of Vice Chancellors. For this they needed budgets....so they needed to create a fee income. It is privatisation by degrees...if you forgive the pun. The next stage is to uncap the fees so they can run real businesses....but the Govt is the biggest employer of graduates, so the costs will explode. You cannot forgive doctors their loans to work for the NHS - it is a taxable benefit - so no more GPs (75% medical students are women)....so specialise in areas where private fee income comes in. There is such a big shortage of GPs that some practices are de-listing and many closing down. The way to stimulate this market is to cut the period of training and charge fees !!!
He who gives up freedom for security deserves neither. Posted by: Arle Genevieve at December 10, 2003 09:24 PMOften the test of courage is not to die, but to live. Posted by: Allen Anthony at December 10, 2003 09:24 PMI can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. Posted by: Castellano Steve at December 21, 2003 01:48 AMHe does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing. Posted by: Boroson Bram at January 9, 2004 04:26 PM |
