IF YOU WANT TO TAX GRADUATES, TAX PAST GRADUATES TOO!!! (Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?)

Name: djdanny

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Product:	Higher Education - Free for all or Fee for all?
Date:	22/06/04 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Of fees? Well it raises revenue so we can... attack other countries on the basis of lies again maybe?

Disadvantages: Puts people off doing course they are capable of doing but cannot afford

Free for all or fee for all.
Well, although of course this is only an opinion, it would be nice to believe that people?s opinions actually counted for something once in a while and this is just such a case for me.

As a current university student, I attended the main London demonstration against ?top-up fees? last year, wrote to my MP, signed petitions etc to try and stop the introduction of top-up fees. So now you know my view, I?ll present my reasoning.
First of all though, I wish to address one point that I always encounter in people?s attitudes when they talk to students who oppose fees, which is that ?of course you are against them because it will mean several thousand pounds further debt for you?. I don?t know why people insist on holding this opinion. Firstly, not all people solely look at issues and arrive at the conclusion that personally is most helpful to them. Some (shock, horror!) have other ways of finding a conclusion, perhaps morals or principles. Though, I suppose most politicians would find this hard to believe. Secondly and most importantly, top-up fees will not affect those already at university, as they will not be introduced until current undergraduates have finished their degrees! Aaaaaaaaaaaah!! Glad I?ve got that off my chest.

Ok, now we?ve sorted that out, here goes. I believe that education, up to university level, should be provided by the government for everyone who desires it. There is no doubt that the education to a high standard of as many people as want it is helpful for the country. Better educated people equals a better performing country/economy. Or that?s my opinion anyway (if it?s not yours then I reckon I?ll be getting some not usefuls for this op). Most people I have spoken to tend to agree on this point, but some raise the point that it isn?t fair that people who don?t want to o
r aren?t able to go to university are paying for other people?s education. Well, I would say that if you choose not to go to university but take up some other profession straight away, the government could help you out by paying for job training. If you don?t want to do some kind of job training but wish to jump straight into a job, well yes you are subsidising others, but it has been your own decision to not pursue anything of benefit to yourself and everyone else. The opportunity was there. The basic idea is that after finishing compulsory education, people should be free to choose what they do, receive some government help to do it, but if they choose to, for want of a better phrase, sit on their arse and do nothing, they shouldn?t moan when others are helped in order that they can contribute to society.

However, instead what we are seeing by the introduction of top-up fees is the discouragement of those capable of attending university but who cannot afford to, by a government who?s party is supposed to represent these people. Just by putting off payment till a later date, when graduates will start working and then also be facing all kinds of other pressures will not encourage all these people to attend university. The argument that they will be earning more money and thus should pay more tax seems to me to be the same argument as that for a progressive taxation system that is already in place and that a majority of people accept as fair enough. When students starting their courses in 2006 graduate and eventually work their way up to earning a good salary, they will be paying more tax than Tony Bliar and they will do so for quite a bit longer than current graduates paying back their loans. I would be far more in favour of a graduate tax if Bliar were to say, we believe that all graduates benefit a great deal from their degree and so all graduates, both past and present, will pay an extra 10% income tax
until they pay a certain amount back to the country. If Bliar is right and a graduate tax will not put anyone off going to university now, it would not have put off anyone in the past either surely. Why not tax everyone who has ever attended university then? Does that not seem fair, rather than Bliar deciding that the youth of today should pay while he and his colleagues received their education for free? To me, this seems a fair compromise between my position and his, which although clearly not a vote winner, does seem to reflect a greater amount of fairness than the current government policy. Strangely enough, it is not an idea I have heard from any politician during debates on this issue. I find it sad that me and others can laugh when I raised this point in discussion on the subject, laughing at the very notion of a politician advocating a policy that would be against their own personal interest, but I?m afraid that such is the way politics seems to work. Oh well, I?m feeling depressed about the general situation in politics already, I should probably stop. Back to my studies then?

Dan

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