Stock up on rotten tomatoes or fit bull bars to the 4X4 just in case he doesn’t take any notice http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/nick-clegg/8154970/Nick-Clegg-warned-to-stop-cycling-over-security-threat-from-angry-students.html Clegg

Unsurprisingly, you haven’t mentioned the part where he reiterates again that graduates won’t start repaying their fees until they’re earning £21,000, and even then only on the income they earn above that amount.

The teaching cuts are a terrible idea, but the new fees system is actually a progressive alternative to what we’ve got now, if we’d just sit down and think about it. The current system puts more of the burden on poor taxpayers than on rich graduates – what’s wrong with reversing that?

Free higher education is a Good Thing – but everything’s that free is paid for by someone, somewhere, and I’d rather the bulk of it be funded by well-paid graduates than out of general taxation, where more of the burden falls on the poor.

2.

“I’d rather the bulk of it be funded by well-paid graduates than out of general taxation, where more of the burden falls on the poor.”

God, it’s depressing. What is difficult to understand about the idea of progressive taxation? You well-paid graduates pay more tax than ‘the poor’.

And to de-couple the rise in fees from cuts to teaching is simply to miss the point entirely. The treatment of HE is the first (because the easiest target) step in the intorduction of a ‘pay as you go’ model of social provision. Less money from taxation; more from individuals.

Please get real; you’ve got an either/or here. Either progressive taxation; or the US model.

@3 indeed they do. So now the high-earning graduates will be paying more tax and more towards higher education through higher fees repayments.

I don’t mind individuals paying more, if it’s the wealthiest individuals paying the vast bulk of it. It’s a left-wing stealth tax which we’d be backing if we hadn’t let Clegg-hatred replace rational thought.

2

“Free higher education is a Good Thing – but everything’s that free is paid for by someone, somewhere, and I’d rather the bulk of it be funded by well-paid graduates than out of general taxation, where more of the burden falls on the poor”

I’ve thought about this issue a lot, as my daughter has just started Uni this year. In a way she is very fortunate, as we will be able to help her out financially, so hopefully will not be saddled with huge debts when she leaves. From a “selfish” financial point of view of course, this means that we are likely to be relatively worse off, as any additional financial support we give her is less money we have to spend on other things.

Altho there IS an argument to be made along the lines you have (i.e. some of the poorest students will be better off, and that well paid graduates should pay something rather than poorer tax payers), on balance I still find that a LESS convincing argument than that for free higher education.

As discussed in previous threads, the UK already spends way below the OECD average on tertiary education. We should be increasing not cutting this amount. In the end, however prettily the Coalition and their apoligists try to dress up this pig of a policy, it’s still a pig. It WILL have an impact on the amount of kids from poorer backgrounds going to university, making them less diverse and less of an engine for social mobility.

Education is a prime example of something that should be provided out of general taxation, and we should strongly resist moves towards a US-style system. The argument that more of the burden falls on the poor is only part of the story: there are countervailing benefits from a better educated population paid for from general taxation. Whether you have a graduate tax, student loans or some other scheme it is bound to hit lower income and middle income folk, entrench privilege and promote the kind of unequal, class ridden society we should be fighting against.

“the Deputy Prime Minister claimed the Government’s plans would make higher education “open to everyone” because universities that wanted to charge more than £6,000 a year would face “real sanctions” if they did not open their doors to the many.”

Pathetic. Admittedly speaking for my current institution here, but Warwick University (currently 3rd nationally in the Guardian’s league tables), and according to Wikipedia the only Russell Group university to have reached its allocation of state-schooled students is hoping to raise U/G fees to about £9, 000. When Clegg implies it will face sanctions, how will this at all increase participation when it is seeing a 17% funding cut and the cost of the fees it charges will simply cover the deficit caused by government cuts.

It’s the cuts, not the fees which are the real enemy here.

C S/6: how will this at all increase participation when it is seeing a 17% funding cut and the cost of the fees it charges will simply cover the deficit caused by government cuts.

Because they’re not cuts. Money is being moved around, not removed. The net amount of money that the government spends on HE teaching will in fact (marginally) increase as a result of their proposals, assuming that all universities manage to tick the trivial boxes needed to charge £9k fees.

(Yes, this increase in funding will be partially paid for, in a couple of decades time, by a bunch of rich or at least well-off graduates. But for now the government is taking out loans to provide that funding, in the hope that it will get some of it repaid through student loan repayments later.)

The difference is that rather than getting a block grant for teaching funding based on the number of students the government (via HEFCE) expects the University to have (with terrible penalties for any Uni that goes above or below that number by a narrow margin, despite them having to basically guess who’ll show up based on expected A-level grades and offer:place ratios), funding will be allocated directly on a per-student basis (which in many ways is quite sensible).

Warwick will not see a net cut in its teaching grant as a result: in fact, I’d expect it to take on additional students and see a noticeable increase in teaching funding.

There is quite a potentially highly unpredictable effect here due to the deregulation of student numbers that results from this [1], with some universities expanding and others shrinking (and perhaps even merging or closing) depending on their ability to attract students. The universities that close will not – and I make this prediction very confidently – be those that have had the greatest teaching funding cuts to their block grant. LSE will not close, for instance, despite losing the entire block teaching grant. It will almost certainly expand in both numbers and funding.

However, because this unpredictable effect doesn’t come with convenient big but meaningless numbers (£9k fees! £50k debt! £millions block grant cuts!) it’s been basically ignored in all the discussion of the proposed reforms. In five years time it will be the part having the most major effect: I don’t know whether it will be good or bad. The rest – higher fees, significantly reduced HEFCE grants – is necessary to allow this “free market” approach to happen.

[1] Universities already compete like this for international undergraduates, and all postgraduates, and have been doing so more vigorously since UK undergraduate numbers have been mostly frozen for several years. It’s not going to be entirely new and shocking, but it will still shake up the sector a bit.

It’s the cuts, not the fees which are the real enemy here.

completely agreed. and it needs to be said more often, and more loudly.

the country’s universities are being privatised by stealth at the same time that the govt is trying to dictate to them what, and how, they should be teaching.

organic cheeseboard/8: the country’s universities are being privatised by stealth

UK universities have been private bodies since their creation. (The majority nowadays being exempt charities)

Changing the terms by which the government gives them funding for teaching undergraduates is not privatisation any more than renegotiating outsourcing contracts is a privatisation of Capita PLC.

While I oppose the trebling of tuition fees, I more emphatically oppose the retreat of state funding of higher education, the utterly philistine and ill-founded(on economic grounds alone) decision to remove funding from arts and social science teaching and any ‘differntial fees.’

I find it very difficult indeed to support free tution without major reforms to universities themselves. Almost half of Oxbridge entrants and a very substantial proportion of students at Russell (Hotel) Group universities had their places secured by attendance at private schools. Their parents spent many times over the current (or proposed) university fees to secure such places. Be in no doubt that one of the – if not the major – points of private schooling is to turn quite ordinary students into extraordinary achievers of top exam results. This issue is a very difficult one to unpack. but we must face it.

Too many UK universities remain both impermeable and inflexible. The proposal to stop up-front fees for part-time students is to be welcomed as one step in the right direction, but much more is needed. (Warwick has had some innovative approaches to accessibility, but most universities’ attempts to ‘outreach’ is just tinkering).There is an interesting dicussion over at Open Democracy here /a> on some of the issues involved. I won’t repeat my points made there.

Rural rides and Galen10: While I share your opposition to certain aspects of the US HE, the simple opposition between US and progressive taxation is overly simplistic. Although the Russell Hotel Group members (founded 1994) like to compare themselves only with the private Ivy League, it is both an unfortunate and misleading comparator. The US system is complex and diverse and student funding can be a maze (many private UK schools have now figured out how to negotiate this, and promote attendance at US universities).

There is very substantial federal and state funding (through progressive taxation) of the ‘system’ through a variety of mechanisms. There are many state university systems (heavily subsidized by the individual states) which are outstanding in terms of the quality of the students’ learning experience, the quality of student life, the quality of staff research, and the opportunities for student placements/internships,etc and which offer very low fees to state residents. We never talk about them here. The cost of an education in many of these state universities will be much less (for state residents) than it will be here (check out UC-Berkeley /a>.

I certainly don’t want to see a similar ‘private/public’ development here; the system in the US is the product of a long and convoluted history from the 17th Century, and is partly derived from the ‘separation’ of church and state. I also oppose differential fees.

What we could usefully learn from the US university system is the high value placed on good teaching (underpinned by projects. associations and rewards), its flexibility and openness (largely via credit acccumlation and transfer – which opens up access to summer schools, non-matriculation, etc,), some forms of affirmative action and many features of its (post) graduate system. I was delighted to see that the LSE 2010 summer school had ‘credit-rated’ its courses, until I realised that it was based (and only relevant to) US systems.

Sorry this is so long.

10

I’m not denying there aren’t some aspects of the US system that are admirable, and even things we can learn from it, but in general I don’t think we’d want to go too far down the route towards a more US style system, and I do have some experience of it. Of course there are some great “schools” there, and there is a lot of help for some students. Facilities and teaching are often very good.

However that shouldn’t blind us to the fact that there are also huge problems. Many of the institutions, facilities and teaching are pretty mediocre (and yes, I know the same can be said here). The biggest issue (as has been previously discussed) is that we simply aren’t spending enough on education in comparison with the average in the OECD.

Our best universities compare well and even surpass US institutions, but often more because they have hundreds of years of history and investment behind them than due to any government help or influence.

I do have experience of a child going to Oxbridge…it isn’t easy, particularly from a state school. Bear in mind that there are roughly 10 qualified applicants for each place at Oxbridge (often more in some subjects), and in some other Russell group Uni’s it can be 15-20 for each place.

The challenge is to ensure more universities become Russell Group standard, more students get that standard of education, and that it isn’t weighted in favour of private school pupils and those with money.

the current plans aren’t the way to go about doing either. We desperately need to invest more, not less. Tuition fees and graduate taxes aren’t the way to do it.

Galen 10
Sorry about the messy html which resulted in such a messy post. I will write asking for it to be deleted and then re-post it.
I thought I made it clear that the US funding system would – I think – be inappropriate. My point is to re-think relevant points of contrast. I was merely trying to point out that substantial funding is given through ‘progressive taxation’ and that the state university systems (there are no federal universities per se) are heavily subsidised by (state) and federal taxation. But it is right to point out that all US universities charge student tuition fees.
My point about the unrepresentative proportions of privately-schooled pupils in the ‘top’ universities- however defined – is still a major problem that cannot be ignored. I would really like to see some debate on the issue.
Most UK –excluding Oxbridge but including many Russell Hotel Group universities are actually much younger than very many – if not most – US colleges and universities. They do not have ‘hundreds of years behind them’ . See the list by date of foundation here. US universities were specifically modelled on the Scottish system. I don’t really think ‘age’ is an important/relevant point, except that UK universities try to cover themselves with an aura of ‘ a long historical tradition,’ and use that to justify resistance to reform and promote their self-image. The nomenclature of ‘old universities’ v ‘new universities’ is particularly silly since it conveys (and is meant to convey) a sense that the 1960s universities are so much more longer-established than the 1992 universities. (Brunel, Warwick, City, Loughborough have very similar educational roots to the old polytechnics/1992 universities)
I do think that UK universities need to reform: the absence of credit accumulation and transfer,the requirement for such early specialisation and disdain for vocational education all do serious damage to opening up opportunities and the civic and intellectual health of the nation. I made these same points throughout the period of the Labour government.

However, as I said, I agree that the central issue now is to combat cuts in state funding for FE and HE, challenge the bases for the cuts and ensure that all students have access to the ‘best standards’ available. I just still think that ‘free tuition’ in the absence of reform is not socially just.

They’ve listened Nick. They’re looked. We all have. That’s your trouble.

An added comment. I think student’s rage against the LDs is totally justified. Clegg knowingly lied when he signed the pledge, and has continued to give lying justifications for his and his LDs complete u turn.
I really really hope someone will make Captain Ska’s Liar Liar available as a ring-tone. I will happily play it whenever and whereever I encounter my local MP – Vince Cable.

@ 14

I don’t like Liar Liar very much, but I agree with you RE students and the lib dems. This isn’t some nebulous value that people have assigned to the LDs and now feel betrayed over: it’s a central campaign pledge that they swore they would not back down on. I’ve been doing my best to give Clegg the benefit of the doubt, but it’s not really possible here.

9. cim

UK universities have been private bodies since their creation. (The majority nowadays being exempt charities)

Really? Then can you explain the difference between Buckingham and, say, Warwick? Buckingham is commonly regarded as being the only (ahem, the first) private university, but you are suggesting that all the rest are private. So who is wrong here?

The issues as others have said is the cuts in funding from the government and the fact that universities have no choice other than to put the costs on students who then have to take out loans to pay for them.

This is just the start. One very important area, which very few people are talking about at the moment, but it will have a significant effect, is the cost of training people in the NHS. Our public services are well trained. A public sector worker is twice as likely to have a higher or further education qualification than a public sector worker. (Well, durr, you say, that is because the majority of health and education providers are in the public sector – at the moment – and these services needed educated and trained people. Well yes, but training them ain’t cheap.)

The NHS white paper specifically says that the healthcare provider (ie hospital or GP practice) will pay for training. At the moment such training is paid by the Department of Health and the budget for this is about £6bn a year. The white paper implies that this will be cut, since it says that the provider must pay.

Let me give you some example of what this would mean. The publicly available board papers for my local hospital says that doctor salaries come to about £20m a year. I asked the hospital for information about training and I was told that £5m comes from the Department of Health through the training budget. About half of the money (£2.4m) is either 100% or 50% of the salary of a doctor in training, and the other half (£2.7m) covers the cost of extra consultants to cover for those who are training junior doctors. That is, a quarter of the salary budget comes from the centrally provided training budget rather than income from activity. So if the Department of Health stops providing this money (which is what “the provider will pay for training” means) the hospital will have to get this money from somewhere else and that means the trainee doctor or nurse.

It costs about £300k to train a doctor (hospital doctor or GP) excluding medical school. In the next few years this cost will be put on the student, with the effect that only young people from the very richest families will want to do medicine.

16: Really? Then can you explain the difference between Buckingham and, say, Warwick? Buckingham is commonly regarded as being the only (ahem, the first) private university, but you are suggesting that all the rest are private. So who is wrong here?

Funding sources, essentially. Warwick takes funding for the teaching of UK undergraduate students from HEFCE (which is given a budget by the government), which as a price places conditions on it as to how many students it can take, what tuition fees it can charge them, and so on.

Buckingham does not take this subsidy and so can take as many students as it likes and charge them what it likes (but of course then has to charge them full costs because it’s not subsidised by the government).

For international undergraduates, all universities are private. For postgraduates all universities, unless Buckingham has decided to be perverse, are public/private mixes: some students are self-funded, others have studentships from various sources, including industries, charities, and the government via the research councils.

From an employment perspective, university employees are not employees of a branch of the government (though their contract terms do in general more closely resemble those in the public sector than those in the rest of the private sector). The government does not set their pay and conditions.

You could have a public sector HE provider, but I’m not sure that any government has particularly been interested in setting one up.

It’s a much thinner distinction than Buckingham likes to make of it, anyway.