Students should be made to pay thousands of pounds more for degrees to offset the inevitable decline in government spending on universities, according to plans put forward by business leaders today.
The Confederation of British Industry said students should bear the brunt of a proposed funding overhaul to deal with a growing crisis in university finance. Under the plans, they face a triple blow of increased loan interest, fewer grants and higher tuition fees. One figure mooted is for annual tuition fees to rise to £5,000.
Let's be unambiguous about what they mean: they want university to only be available to a select few, all of whom might be the offspring of members of the CBI.
There is a deliberate campaign going on right now to ensure that class divisions increase in the UK, that opportunity for those who are not wealthy are reduced and that ordinary people must pay for the excess of the few.
When you have been paying private school fees university tuition of £5,000 is a bargain. For everyone else, whether paid by family or student, this is crippling. The result is the enforcement of privilege.
And that's what the CBI is promoting: have no doubt about it.
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Why does the CBI even get involved in this? The TUC have just had their conference and expressed their views on policy issues, but they have millions of members to represent. How many people does the CBI represent? None, they represent the interests of companies, or more narrowly, corporate interests as perceived by a probably fairly small but vocal section chief executives. Companies don’t vote, so why should the CBI even take a view in how people want to pay for education?