Government officials are considering a plan to make graduates who become big earners pay a premium for their education as the coalition seeks ways to find extra money for universities.
The novel policy proposal reflects a desire by Conservative coalition members to appease Liberal Democrat MPs, most of whom are opposed to higher tuition fees and to ramping up student loan interest rates.
Novel? Is progressive taxation that surprising?
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A graduate tax is a stupid idea which would actually penalise the most those who came from the poorest sections of society. I imagine it would be received quite warmly by Middle England, most of whom would view it as a deferral of the current fee system.
Besides, those who benefit most from a degree are already subject to progessive taxation in the form of income tax. Why should those who have studied harder pay more for their tuition (other than through income tax) than those who have sat on their backside for 3 years and spent most of their time in the students’ union bar?
Methinks Mr Waterman must be living in the past if he thinks that students still did as he probably did when young “sat on their backside for 3 years and spent most of their time in the students’ union bar”.
Seems abject foolishness to me: it’s not progressive in any manner. After introduction, over a number of years, a trend would develop for a proportion of those expecting above-average future earnings to simply get their university education abroad.
For those caught by it, emigration would become a more attractive prospect.
Since the network of friends is selling point of the university experience, and both these forces would damage the network, I think that the proposals would reduce the value of a university education in the UK
Why don’t they start with existing graduates? They too have presumably benefited from the higher pay associated with degree level positions.
It’s not a good idea because it is not clear what it is trying to do. Is it a charge for having been to university in the UK, in which case a loan scheme is a better arrangement or is it a way of taxing higher income, in which case let’s just have simple straightforward progressive taxation. This is just going to be a complication with extra scope for avoidance.
I like Vince, but this idea is a crock.
@James from Durham
Agreed
I like grants
They’re called investment in our future
I would not be opposed to grants, so long as the proportion of young adults going to university fell back to 10-15%, as it was when we used to have grants. The idea that we can give grants to 50% of the population, however, is even bigger crock than the idea of graduate tax.
As a recent graduate, Carol Wilcox, I know what goes on. There was a very strong correlation between those who frequented the bar all night, every night, and those who graduated with lower second class degrees or worse.