*&#!ing infuriating (Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?)

Member Name: Pingu

Product:	Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?
Date:	08/10/01 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Work never hurt anyone

Disadvantages: Totally unworkable

First let me make it clear that I believe students should pay their owm way. I believe in teaching people the value of work, independence, self-reliance, etc. That probably sounds a little rich coming from someone who actually got a full grant, and didn't have to pay tuition fees. On the other hand I did work in all my holidays anyway, and had part-time work in the terms, and believe that I am a better person for it. Too many of my fellow students did nothing but drink the whole time, sat around believing they were the cream of the world's brains and then walked into jobs where they are probably being equally lazy.

On the other side though, the way our government have gone about administrating things just makes me want to shoot Tony Blair through the head. The grand Utopian philosophy I remember him spouting very pompously was that graduates got graduates' jobs, and so could afford to pay for their education later, when on the wages their degree got them. If the system were really based on this philosophy then everyone should pay exactly the same. Effectively every student would become independent of parents as soon as they go to university, and begin living from future earnings. And since all their future earnings are potentially the same, they should be required to pay the same.

Does it work like that? Does it 'eck as like? It's still means tested according to your parents' earnings. So the less well off pay less, and enter the world of work on a graduate's wage, but with little debt. Those with the wealthy parents have to pay more, thus entering the world of work with more debt. Of course, in reality, the wealthy parents probably pay the fees, so that their children have no debts at all, but if things ran as Blair described them, then he has devised a system for penalising the children of well off parents.

The other infuriating side to it is the downright idiotic things that our government does with the tax m
oney it saves through the whole scheme. Let's build an embarrassing great dome. Let's vote ourselves yet another 100% pay-rise. Let's screw up the education system. Our government are so utterly incompetent in all that they do (I'm speaking as a teacher who has seen the education system thouroughly ruined by the interference of ministers who believe they know more about teaching than teachers do) that I resent every penny of my taxes. I would much rather see them going towards free education - even though some students may squander it.

Another large problem is that Blair's vision for the payment of fees is essentially a communist one. But our society is about as capitalist as it gets, and the two don't mix. This idea that a graduate gets graduate wages, and so can afford to pay back the fees later. So a PhD gets PhD wages and can afford to pay back another 7 years of fees? Don't be stupid. The real money, in the world of work, goes with customer demand. Some of the highest paid computer consultancy jobs go to high school drop-outs, who enjoyed trying to crack the code for Donkey Kong. Or in business, the real pay is going to people who spend a very short time learning a few management skills. If you get a PhD, the likelihood is that you want to go into research, or lecture. The pay for either does not reflect the time you have spent educating yourself.

To make Blair's vision work, we would need a society in which people were paid according to the level of their education. A PhD student could then be expected to pay back 10 years of fees.

This will never happen, not least because MPs would largely be paid a pittance. And so long as it isn't going to happen then there is every reason to argue that education should not only be free to undergraduates, but to anyone who wants to educate themselves to any level.

Whilst I wish to see students pay their own way I think society then needs to pay them ba
ck according to the level of their investment, and in the absence of any scheme to make this happen then education should be free for all. Blair's claims to be making things fair are really just a cover up for yet another way to extract money out of the nation.

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