David Willetts hints that university students will face higher fees | Education | The Guardian.
David Willets, universities minister, has said:
that the cost of hundreds of thousands of students' degree courses was a "burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled".
And this from a man who in opposition argued that the bay boomer generation (of which he and I are a part) had alreadystolen younger people's future prosperity.
Now he's in office it looks like he's determined to kick the young whilst they're down.
And at the same time end investment in the knowledge economy.
And consign our young people to a lifetime of debt slavery.
Was there ever a government more intent on using government to service the needs of the financial services sector for ever expanding debt than the current bunch of ConDem cronies?
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Hopefully the real effect of this (and given the fact that Labour would have trod the same path your conclusions are well off the mark) will be the demise of all those non-courses. The Blair aspiration for everyone being university educated was always a bad policy, which our more able offspring will bear the scars of for some time to come.
But what I can’t work out is how you link this to the financial services sector. The structural deficit problem is what this is about – that would be the continued overspend on the public sector you are so fond of.
@alastair
Define a non-course
Define time wasted pursuing one
Define the scar of being exposed to higher education
And as for the financial sector – the new policy, like the old, but to greater extent, is intended to force students into debt to make them compliant, obedient employees living lives of quiet desperation as they try to balance the conflicting aims of career, relationships, children, mortgage, pension, increased health costs (to come), unemployment and more
Unless of course you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth
@Richard Murphy
you paint such a rosy picture of the world!
but next time you come over all melancholy then try and reflect on the fact that by being born in Britain you gain the silver spoon as a matter of course – don’t need a university education (or indeed any education a school is likely to provide) to make the most of that.
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Australia introduced HECS (Higher Education Contributions Scheme) in 1988 whereby students can pay for their education up front, or pay it after they graduate through the tax system. As I recall, the tax depends on income levels and either way, the education is still subsidised in part. However, the amount payable by students up front or through their taxes is still considerable.
And how has the past 22 years panned out? Was there no future for that benighted country?
How’s this:
One of the lowest unemployment rates in the OECD and a very light recession with no banking crisis.
6 cities in the top 50 of the best cities to live
Number 3 in the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings
Number 2 in the 2009 Human Development Index
And as a minor point, since 1988 2 rugby world cups, 3 cricket world cups and possibly the best Olympics in history.
To suggest ‘there is no future’ when attempting to pass on the cost of education to students is, based on this example, somewhat of an exaggeration.
@Adrian
So the sun shines as a result of your university payment plan?
Amazing
Weather was pretty much the same pre and post and not always as nice as you see on TV (droughts, cyclones etc).
Needless to say, the world didn’t end as the title of this post suggests. People still get educated to a high standard and realise the costs are small beer relative to the benefits.
One suspects a similar result if we implement it here in the UK.