DHM wrote:
The quality of HE is dependent on the money that goes in, and quality was going to suffer without fees of some kind, or a vast increase in taxpayer input. Labour made the call that more University places should be available and offset some of the cost with fees. These were noble sentiments but there were two crucial factors they overlooked IMO. 1. economic slow down (recession anyone?) that would result in less public money and potentially more students trying to get an advantage in a dwindling youth employment market. This has resulted in the absolutely inevitable increase in fees - and it's going to get worse.
There was nothing inevitable about it. The amount the government was spending on the teaching grant with fees at their previous levels was a tiny proportion of the overall tax take. The move was purely political and the idea it was inevitable due to cost is rubbish. If you think that you have fallen for government propaganda.
2. Fees will eventually result in a two tier system where only the rich can get the best education and the rest end up with a uselss piece of paper from a converted sixth form college and a debt that crushes them until middle age. This could have been avoided. When fees were introduced there should have been a scolarship scheme introduced that guaranteed the top performing students (5-10%) were exempt from fees and received some form of maintanance grant. The object of HE (again IMO) is a chance for the country to invest in it's resources (people), and higher fees will lead to large numbers of talented, bright kids from less well off backgrounds (even the middle classes must look at fees and uni debt with horror - I know I do) will be lost to the system. What a waste. Exactly what grants and free HE was intended to put right - just like it did for me.
A scholarship scheme is not the answer to participation from the less ell off. Well off parents will simply employ tutors and will be able to devote the time to endure their kids qualify for the scholarships.
I got fees paid and a grant when I went to Uni. I went to Aberystwyth with middling A level grades. No way was I scholarship material. In fact I didn't get the grades and only went because the prof wrote to me offering a place based on my interview. I walked out with a 2:1 in Computer Science, have never been unemployed in the last 32 years (so have paid a small fortune in tax) and I also work part time for the OU teaching 3rd year Computer Science students myself. I am one of the best examples you can find of the benefits of free higher education. I can say for certain under the current scheme I would not have been able to go. My son is at Uni now in his first year (same place, same department funnily enough) and even with a loan for course fees and a loan for substance which will leave in £56K in debt by the end of the course we still have to subsidise him to a degree my own parents never would have been able to afford.
If any coalition politician ever tried to justify their fee policy to my face they would regret it.
