All in all it's just another brick in the wall
Is education a right or a privilege?
Last week all of the main party leaders appeared on Question Time and faced a question and answer session with an audience made up of a cross-section of the public (one by one - Tony Blair refused to have a presidential style debate). It was pretty much a damp squib: no one asked Charles Kennedy a particularly challenging question and he performed well, Michael Howard looked and behaved like a creature of the night and Tony Blair was booed when he came on, struggled to manage the hostility of the audience and started to sweat under the pressure of some pretty tame questions.
It was rubbish really, but one thing has stayed with me. Blair was challenged by an angry student over the introduction of student top-up fees.
In the good old days, not only was Further Education completely free, but each student was given a "grant" each term - a cash handout to help them through the term. By the time I was a student (1992-1995) there had been some changes to the system: my tuition was paid by my Local Education Authority, but the grants were now means tested, and the student loans company had been set up to provide borrowing at a "reasonable" rate. This remained the case until the Labour Government came to power in 1997. Acting on the recommendations of the Dearing Report that had been commissioned by the John Major government, an up-front, means tested tuition fee of £1,125 was introduced, and student grants were abolished altogether. This was extended by the Higher Education bill, passed in 2004, will mean that Universities will be able to 'top up' this tuition fee charge to £3000 from 2006.
This has had a massive impact: the average student in England & Wales now leaves University with a debt of £12,069. It is estimated by the National Institute Economic Review that the introduction of top up fees will triple this.
When I left University (after completing a Masters degree), I was not in debt, thanks mainly to the generosity of my parents, but also to the succession of holiday jobs I had taken on (silver service waiter, barman, warehouse worker, the post office night shift... and so on and so forth, until I landed a full-time job working in HMV as I applied for graduate jobs). It staggers me to think that young graduates are now leaving university with a degree and something like £30,000 worth of debt. If they are lucky they will get a graduate job at around £15,000 a year. They face years and years of debt.
And all this from a Labour Government. Not all that surprising then that this guy was so angry at Blair for introducing these changes.
Hang on though.
Tony Blair also made some interesting points in his defence. He had received his education free, but only 1% of the population attended university at the time. Now the numbers were closer to 40% of the population, and the state simply cannot afford to pay for that number of people to have their Further Education for free, and who else should pay for it if not the main beneficiaries?
The inquisitor was not pacified by this. He refused to see this as the answer and thought it was unfair. He had spoken to several graduates, and they had all indicated that they would be more than happy to pay some sort of graduate tax....
What?
I believe that the opportunity to go to University should be open to everyone, not just to those people who can afford it. That is not the same thing as saying that everybody should go to University. The only benchmark for access to University should be your intellect. This is where Labour have got it wrong - it has been a key Labour policy to get as many people into University as possible, so frankly they have only got themselves to blame when some of these people get angry about how these places get funded.
There are now hundreds of universities and colleges of further education in this country. Thousands of impoverished students are graduating every year and the job market is flooded with them. Whatever the Government may think, no one can tell me that all degrees are created equal. There is no way that I am going to pay any kind of "graduate tax" for some pissante on a cultural studies course at the University of Luton.
and now that I've started to rant about it:
The polls are open from 7am until 10pm tomorrow, and in spite of my dissatisfaction with the whole election campaign, I will be making use of my mandate at some point during the day. I disagree with the Labour government on several key issues (the war in Iraq and ID cards being the two big ones that spring to mind), but I think I will be casting my vote for them again this time. Tony Blair is not perfect by any means, but I still think he represents a better bet than any of the alternatives. Actually, forget Blair; this election should not be won or lost solely on the basis of personality. Labour have made some massive mistakes, but they have also done some good stuff over the last few years, especially with the economy, and I haven't forgotten what a unprincipled bunch of shits the last Conservative government were either... this lot are angels by comparison. It's not much to go on, I agree, and my little gesture won't mean much in a safe Conservative seat, but... well... it's what I'm going to do.
Last week all of the main party leaders appeared on Question Time and faced a question and answer session with an audience made up of a cross-section of the public (one by one - Tony Blair refused to have a presidential style debate). It was pretty much a damp squib: no one asked Charles Kennedy a particularly challenging question and he performed well, Michael Howard looked and behaved like a creature of the night and Tony Blair was booed when he came on, struggled to manage the hostility of the audience and started to sweat under the pressure of some pretty tame questions.
It was rubbish really, but one thing has stayed with me. Blair was challenged by an angry student over the introduction of student top-up fees.
In the good old days, not only was Further Education completely free, but each student was given a "grant" each term - a cash handout to help them through the term. By the time I was a student (1992-1995) there had been some changes to the system: my tuition was paid by my Local Education Authority, but the grants were now means tested, and the student loans company had been set up to provide borrowing at a "reasonable" rate. This remained the case until the Labour Government came to power in 1997. Acting on the recommendations of the Dearing Report that had been commissioned by the John Major government, an up-front, means tested tuition fee of £1,125 was introduced, and student grants were abolished altogether. This was extended by the Higher Education bill, passed in 2004, will mean that Universities will be able to 'top up' this tuition fee charge to £3000 from 2006.
This has had a massive impact: the average student in England & Wales now leaves University with a debt of £12,069. It is estimated by the National Institute Economic Review that the introduction of top up fees will triple this.
When I left University (after completing a Masters degree), I was not in debt, thanks mainly to the generosity of my parents, but also to the succession of holiday jobs I had taken on (silver service waiter, barman, warehouse worker, the post office night shift... and so on and so forth, until I landed a full-time job working in HMV as I applied for graduate jobs). It staggers me to think that young graduates are now leaving university with a degree and something like £30,000 worth of debt. If they are lucky they will get a graduate job at around £15,000 a year. They face years and years of debt.
And all this from a Labour Government. Not all that surprising then that this guy was so angry at Blair for introducing these changes.
Hang on though.
Tony Blair also made some interesting points in his defence. He had received his education free, but only 1% of the population attended university at the time. Now the numbers were closer to 40% of the population, and the state simply cannot afford to pay for that number of people to have their Further Education for free, and who else should pay for it if not the main beneficiaries?
The inquisitor was not pacified by this. He refused to see this as the answer and thought it was unfair. He had spoken to several graduates, and they had all indicated that they would be more than happy to pay some sort of graduate tax....
What?
I believe that the opportunity to go to University should be open to everyone, not just to those people who can afford it. That is not the same thing as saying that everybody should go to University. The only benchmark for access to University should be your intellect. This is where Labour have got it wrong - it has been a key Labour policy to get as many people into University as possible, so frankly they have only got themselves to blame when some of these people get angry about how these places get funded.
There are now hundreds of universities and colleges of further education in this country. Thousands of impoverished students are graduating every year and the job market is flooded with them. Whatever the Government may think, no one can tell me that all degrees are created equal. There is no way that I am going to pay any kind of "graduate tax" for some pissante on a cultural studies course at the University of Luton.
and now that I've started to rant about it:
- How come parents are now buying their kids houses in University towns? I didn't know a single person at university who owned a house.... how is it cheaper to buy a house than to rent one for a couple of years?
- When I was a student, I ate a whole lot of baked potatos and pasta and did the whole weekly shop on £10. How come a load of the students that I see in Sainsbury's each week are buying Stella Artois and Ben & Jerry's?
- and they all seem to have cars....
- and don't even get me started on their haircuts.....
- gah!
The polls are open from 7am until 10pm tomorrow, and in spite of my dissatisfaction with the whole election campaign, I will be making use of my mandate at some point during the day. I disagree with the Labour government on several key issues (the war in Iraq and ID cards being the two big ones that spring to mind), but I think I will be casting my vote for them again this time. Tony Blair is not perfect by any means, but I still think he represents a better bet than any of the alternatives. Actually, forget Blair; this election should not be won or lost solely on the basis of personality. Labour have made some massive mistakes, but they have also done some good stuff over the last few years, especially with the economy, and I haven't forgotten what a unprincipled bunch of shits the last Conservative government were either... this lot are angels by comparison. It's not much to go on, I agree, and my little gesture won't mean much in a safe Conservative seat, but... well... it's what I'm going to do.
posted by swisslet @ 21:39
9 Comments:
At 12:12 am,
swisslet said…
I agree Fox - education should never be the sole domain of those who can afford it. The questioner had too much of a hectoring tone for my liking though. I think Blair has a point when he says that something's got to give, but what we should be holding him to account for is the poicies that have led the massive proliferation of people in higher education. By all means make it more available, but does that mean everyone should go?
As tuition fees are about to go up, let's not forget that these universities are massively rich institutions too (I was going to say that they're not charities, but I bet under UK law some of them probably are). I hate that they are always pestering me for money....
On the subject of graduate tax though, as Lord B pointed out to me earlier this evening when I ranted at him on this subject, as a graduate you tend to earn a higher salary, hence you are already paying more tax.... (and so let me get this straight, you leave university with a debt of £30k, and then you pay more tax so someone else can go to university?? good luck selling that one in)
bit of a rambling comment on my own post, but there you go.
ST
At 5:26 am,
Aravis said…
I've always envied your educational system, and even with all of the tuition increases, I still do. Here in the states we pay anywhere from $5000- $100,000 (approx.) a year for our college tuition. The art school my brother was just accepted to is over $60,000/yr not including room or board. I'm still paying off a student loan I took out in 1990.
You guys still have a good deal. I just hope you don't end up like us!
At 9:22 am,
LB said…
I was just going to make exactly the point you make above. I would guess that the average graduate salary is higher than the average normal salary in which case your education has resulted in paying (over your working life) significantly more income tax anyway.
I also think (as did an audience member on Question Time) that 40 odd percent of schoolleavers going to University isnt necessarily a good thing either. I have known a couple of 18 year olds who were clearly not academically gifted enough to go to University, but went anyway. Surely there are better ways of channeling people so the bright kids (irrespective of wealth) go to Universities and everyone else goes and does a course in something useful?
It's like the GCSE thing - so many kids were getting "A" grades that they introduced this A "star" grade. So what does that mean? People look for kids with "A star" grades and it devalues the "A" grade. Same with Universities. The best ones up their entry requirements.
When I applied, the entry requirement for my course was (as I recall) BBC grades at A level. Today it is AAB. If the Universities have the choice of 40 times more applicants than they did when Blair went (not including the influx of foreign students), they can be far choosier and so your average pupil isnt necessarily getting a better education anyway.
At 9:45 am,
swisslet said…
if you aren't choosy about what you study (or where you study it), you can still do a degree even if you fail all your a-levels. If you go on to graduate, you still get the same BA or BSc as someone who got all A grades and got a first at the University of Cambridge.
Now, I know that this argument is flawed, and that some of the people who graduate from the University of Luton will turn out to be a nobel prize winner. My elder brother got C, N, U at a-level and after resitting at a sixth form college, he went to study biology at the university of Cardiff, got a first, was invited to do a doctorate at Cambridge and is now a post-doctoral researcher in genetics - all of which goes to show that people blossom at different stages, and not everyone is good at exams.
ST
At 9:48 am,
Mark said…
Graduates don't earn a higher wage anymore. There's too many graduates for it to be seen as a prestigious achievement. In the days of 1% University Attendance, a grduate was rare. Now they're serving you behind the counter in Starbucks.
At 9:53 am,
Damo said…
Being a graduate certainly doesn't earn you more by right. I can promise you that.
Like you, I got through university on a combination of parental generosity (I will never forget this), personal thrift, working in all of my holidays... and the fact that I attended Uni from 1991-5, rather than now.
My vote's going yellow again, by the way, for all the good it will do.
At 3:12 pm,
Damo said…
I seem to have dropped off the electoral register. I can't vote. Anywhere. I feel like jumping off a f***ing cliff.
At 9:27 pm,
Erika said…
I believe there's been a massive shift in the way we perceive university from the generation before us (she says, assuming we are of a relatively similar generation without actually knowing.... FOX).
In my father's day, university was predominantly for people seeking an intellectual path: professors, mathematicians, philosophers, etc. The rest of the people went to trade schools or conservatory programmes.
By the time I hit university in 1994, not only had universities opened themselves up to offer many practical and conservatory programmes, but we had all grown up saturated with the message that the broad knowledge base offered by an undergraduate degree was actually preferable to just going out and learning how to fit pipes. In a sense, it's almost as if we Renaissance Man'd ourselves out of the trade schools. When I was in the final years of grade school, it was simply not an option to not go to university if you wanted to be anything above a burger slinger.
I'm not sure about universities in Britain or the US, but in Canada the unis are almost consuming the colleges whole: the presumed value of a university degree is such that now colleges are teaming up with universities to offer partial or complete degree programmes. Trade school and practical college programmes sit comparatively empty.
What is even more shocking to me is how blase I've become about people with PhDs. Everyone has a Bachelors, so very many have a Masters - how much more is a PhD, really? A Bachelors has become the new High School Diploma.
At 10:42 pm,
HistoryGeek said…
Ah, the perennial question here in the US, particularly with land grant universities (those that get funding from the state governments). If you go to a private university, you might as well sell your kidneys now. I went to state universities for both my degrees & have upwards of $40,000 in debt that I will be paying until the day I die...and I count myself lucky (and this was with work and grants and family help, too).
I agree with Ka...a bachelor's degree has become almost standard, even for the most menial of jobs. Strange, since the most valuable skill I learned in all my schooling was when I learned to type in secondary school.
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