• Hello Guest, You'll need to login or signup to be able to post on here.

General Election 2017

Who will you be voting for on June 8th

  • Conservative

    Votes: 15 32.6%

  • Labour

    Votes: 21 45.7%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 3 6.5%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 3 6.5%

  • Green

    Votes: 1 2.2%

  • Other

    Votes: 3 6.5%
  • Total voters
    46
Indeed... but there are plenty who still think it was implemented under a Labour government; presumably because of the union associations and then propagation of the myth.
 
TBH Nicki, I forgot how it started until your message. I had trouble trying to remember it as I don't recall a lot of effect personally. When I saw it was 1974 January - March I realised I was on a railway bridge replacement in London and we had to work possessions so we were allowed to continue. I used to go back to the office in Bedford occasionally and they may have been affected. Odd really, normally my memory works well thinking back to times like that but is hopeless for last week or last year!
 
Toddy - I am not a defender of student loans and never have been. Today's youngsters have been brainwashed into thinking that borrowing for your education is all good, whereas the truth is it may be good for some and not for a good many others. On top of that the interest rates being charged for loans is inexcusable. They key felon in all of this was the RT Hon Member for Sheffield who sold his principles to become deputy prime minister. All students should be made to complete a financial fact find before they are sold a university education, so they know what it will cost and what the benefits are of their chosen course

James - I absolutely agree that with you that all in the private sector is not good, but they can give a lead to the public sector in driving down costs. For example there is no reason that the council tax collection system couldn't be a nationwide shared platform as an example. There are some local arrangements as Alan pointed out between kindred spirits, but I think these are only lip service to a shared service agenda that could significantly reduce costs across a whole range of services if properly adopted. The trouble as i see it is that local councils may have saved some money by consolidating district councils and now see this as being job done - its just the tip of the iceberg - and as Alan points out jealously guard their own positions and power. If businesses across the globe can harness the powers available to them, doing it across the UK should be a piece of cake lol.
 
Kit said:
It's interesting that many people believe that student fees/loans are a Conservative policy. They were brought in by labour at very short notice (I know because I was in the first cohort to pay them) and increased dramatically over labour's 13 years in government.
Click to expand...
Kit, yes, Labour did bring in tuition fees but they set them at £3,000. The Tories trebled them and Lib Dems supported them in doing this despite a pledge not to. Clegg and his party were never forgiven for that.

Personally, I'm a bit 50/50 as regards to tuition fees. Yes, in principle, I support the idea of a universal free education for all and certainly wouldn't want our young people saddled with debt, which is what is happening all too often. However, I'd fear that by scrapping them altogether, funding would be starved from higher education, especially with Brexit looming and the threat this will mean to EU funding that goes towards our universities and research.

I fear that universities would turn away students from this country and look to bring in more foreign students, who I assume would be paying the fees. That's what is happening in Scotland to a degree, where Scottish universities are looking at bringing in people from Wales/England etc... to make up for the free tuition among the Scottish population. Also, I believe that inequality between the richest and poorest students entering university in Scotland actually hasn't gone down despite making tuition fees free. In this country, there are more students than ever from poor backgrounds going to university despite the Tories trebling tuition fees, not that I support that.

I went to uni myself and was lucky to pay £3,000 a year tuition fees, but even earning £20k a year which I'm on now, I'm still paying only a very small amount back towards the fees. Most students don't end up paying all the debts off anyway which end up getting written off after a certain period of time anyway.

Scrap tuition fees and how much would everyone else be paying for the cost of that in increased taxes, or cuts to services elsewhere?
 
One fundamental point about tuition fees which you mention there Ben is that many students end up paying little or nothing of their fees back because of the earnings threshold - which essentially means that the taxpayer foots the bill in the end anyway, just 20 years (?) on when the payment term runs out. But meanwhile the student has a massive debt against his/her name (add the maintenance loans to the total) which counts against them when applying for things like mortgages, albeit maybe 10 years down the line, if they are extremely lucky.

I freely confess to milking the system for all it was worth back in the 70s - free tuition and a student grant (in the days when you could withdraw £5 to finance the typical student weekend ;)), including 3 years' post-grad, and I will also admit that I then escaped the country for almost all the Thatcher era, but I like to think I have paid my dues since then in terms of income tax, corp tax, job creation etc.

I also happen to think rather unfashionably for left-leaning people that there are far too many people (18 year olds, employers and politicians) thinking a qualification has to be university-backed. To me, 50% going to university is part of the problem not part of the solution. The list of courses at Bournemouth University (or Dorset Institute of Higher Education as it was once called) is bewildering. Do you really need a BSc to be a Paramedic? Or a midwife? Or a video game designer? Or a retail manager? Or for golf management? Or for public relations?

Rant over.
 
Alan M said:
One fundamental point about tuition fees which you mention there Ben is that many students end up paying little or nothing of their fees back because of the earnings threshold - which essentially means that the taxpayer foots the bill in the end anyway, just 20 years (?) on when the payment term runs out. But meanwhile the student has a massive debt against his/her name (add the maintenance loans to the total) which counts against them when applying for things like mortgages, albeit maybe 10 years down the line, if they are extremely lucky.

I freely confess to milking the system for all it was worth back in the 70s - free tuition and a student grant (in the days when you could withdraw £5 to finance the typical student weekend ;)), including 3 years' post-grad, and I will also admit that I then escaped the country for almost all the Thatcher era, but I like to think I have paid my dues since then in terms of income tax, corp tax, job creation etc.

I also happen to think rather unfashionably for left-leaning people that there are far too many people (18 year olds, employers and politicians) thinking a qualification has to be university-backed. To me, 50% going to university is part of the problem not part of the solution. The list of courses at Bournemouth University (or Dorset Institute of Higher Education as it was once called) is bewildering. Do you really need a BSc to be a Paramedic? Or a midwife? Or a video game designer? Or a retail manager? Or for golf management? Or for public relations?

Rant over.
Click to expand...

Excellent point. Most of the people I know that went to university have gone down a completely different path in life to the qualification they actually obtained. But they are still saddled with the debt they accrued during that time...
 
I'd put paramedics and midwives up there with doctors to be fair.

I'd rather those professions learnt a good bit of theory before being let loose on the world.

Otherwise you could probably ask does anyone really need a degree? Maybe they don't...
 
Final words on Question Time tonight from audience member - getting to university should be academically hard and financially easy. Does the loan company really charge 6% interest? :( That's shocking! So when the students end up not repaying the loans, we the taxpayer pay the loan + a cumulative 6% to the loan company? Crazy economics.

I know a couple of student midwives Nicki, and they assure me they learn far more on their practical placements than they are ever taught in lecture halls. They can still learn theory without doing a 3 year BSc. They used to.
 
Can you name a vocation where that wouldn't be the case?

I suspect they actually just learn different things and learn things differently through their practical placements rather than learning more.

They perhaps learn far more about the bits they enjoy.
 
I did Civil Engineering in the days of 3 year BSc courses. Now to become Chartered you ideally need a 4 year MEng course. The underlying theory I did at University underpins the work I did since leaving but in truth I rarely used most of it. Understand load paths and stress distribution and you are half way there. What I am getting at is that I agree with comments about not needing 50% at uni, not necessary for many of us to go there - even for highly technical jobs. In fact the Institution of Civil Engineers changed their requirements for Chartership just before I left school, i.e. in the mid 60s, to requiring a Bachelors degree whereas previously you could get the requirements through a HNC obtained at day release. Some of those Engineers were pretty good (not all I have to admit) and doing it that way is much cheaper than the present situation.
Like Alan I got the benefit of Uni in the days of no fees and a grant. The full grant was £340 pa (370 in London and perhaps Oxbridge) and was means tested so I got somewhere in the region of 240. Hall fees (accommodation AND food) came to 180 and I actually saved a bit from the rest!! Possibly through working in vacs. Mind you rail travel was much cheaper in those days - as I recall a single from London to Cardiff was 39/9d! (£1.99 to those slightly younger than me) and a pint in the union was between 1/11 and 2/6 (12.5p) for the most expensive - happy days!
 
Going back to Ben's point about the minimal repayments whilst you are on a relatively low income, what you fail to acknowledge is that the size of your debts grows at 6% per year. So whilst you are making no repayments the debt escalates at an astonishing level. If your career follows a normal path and your salary increases as you get promoted, the amount of your repayment isn't just the percentage of the amount you borrowed, but all the accrued interest too. The projections in a recent TV news item were that grads would repay twice what they borrowed without ever paying back the full amount !! In my view its only a matter of time before the cut off at 50 (?) for repayments is removed and you carry on paying forever.

The points about the value of some degrees are well made, hence my point that all prospective grads should have a financial fact find done before they go to uni !

I think some organisations have adopted a grad minimum entry criteria in order to justify paying higher salaries. I agree with other sentiments that very often this is unhelpful and unnecessary. Clearly there are areas where the the advanced level of study is required such as doctors, but many other grads find their way into roles where their chosen discipline isn't relevant to their job so why enforce a graduate only entry scheme?

The bottom line is that universities have invested billions in buildings and student estates that now need to be paid for along with higher salaries and pensions for university staff. Its a house of cards built on student debt and its unsustainable.
 
I don't necessarily disagree with much that's being said - merely challenging it.

I bet you (Richard) have some course mates who used a completely different part of their degree in their work, and someone else who went on to use another still.

As you said, the course will have given a good grounding to everyone - each of whom will have gone on to 'specialise' in one area. The grounding allows people to decide what does and doesn't work for them. There will also be those who will have decided that Civ Eng just wasn't for them at all. In no way would those three years have a been a waste of time though; the benefits of going to university go well beyond what you learn in the lecture theatres.

You might even find the odd student midwife who decides that their psychology or public health module is what they found most interesting and ends up switching direction; saving the country £££s in mental health care thorough being in a job that's right for them. Though you might equally find I'm talking rubbish!

Anyway, I reckon we could just take one government department per week (such as Education) and pretty much sort out all that's wrong with it on here. People (so long as I didn't contribute) would come up with far better solutions than those that exist!

Work and Pensions next week! :)
 
It's not all doom and gloom. I see that house pries have fallen again. At this rate, today's youngsters will be able to afford to buy their own home by the time they retire... at 97.
 
I don't know how youngsters are supposed to be able to afford houses nowadays. My first house, a brand new 3 bed-roomed semi (admittedly in Rushden, not the nicest of towns but much cheaper than Bedford) was £8900 - 5% deposit and a 35 yr mortgage - easy on whatever we were on at the time - I think I was on about £2750pa. How times have changed - but we are talking 1974!
You leave Uni owing a fortune, cannot afford to but anywhere and have to work until whatever - 97 may not be far off by the time some of our supporters retire. Not a life full of promise as it was for me.
 
It reminds me of this... (an updated 2016 version)...

‘Remember when we cried as children & our parents said “we’ll give you something to cry about”? – We thought we were getting a smack – instead, they destroyed the housing market, quadrupled uni fees, melted the ice caps & voted Brexit.’
 
Not entirely guilty - I did not vote for brexit. The housing market has been bloody stupid over the years - until I pop my clogs I do not see how my son will ever be able to afford housing! And I ain't going to do that any sooner than I have to!!
 
Richard, my brother did his Engineering HND via day release at Hartford Tech back in the 60s ... how times change.
Nicki, DWP ... that's an easy one - we all work till we drop so we don't need to bother with the pensions black hole. Saves 40% of all benefits too. (I'll keep my teacher pension though, if you don't mind ;) )
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top