If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Top-up Fees
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Bearing in mind that age group of users on this site, and the community of students we have here, I'm surprised that this topic hasn't come up before.
Seeing as none of our resident tax dodgers have posted, I figured that I would.
The Govt are looking at the possibility of introducing top-up fees to help pay for further education. Currently there is massive underfunding in this area and the Govt suggest that the students should pay for this themselves. Estimates are that the annual cost to students will be between £1k-£10K depending on the University involved.
The Govt defend this by suggesting that the average benefit to students of this additional education is £400k in their lifetime, and that they [the tax dodgers] should consider this an investment in their future and they ask why tax payers should fund this for them.
Which is understandable.
But is it right?
Personally I think that the Tories are missing a major argument against - possibly because deep down they support the Govt on this issue - mainly that if the students do benefit by this amount then the additional tax they pay will more than compensate the Govt's investment. Potentially this would be approx £100k, more than the cost of the education that the person recieved.
Seeing as none of our resident tax dodgers have posted, I figured that I would.
The Govt are looking at the possibility of introducing top-up fees to help pay for further education. Currently there is massive underfunding in this area and the Govt suggest that the students should pay for this themselves. Estimates are that the annual cost to students will be between £1k-£10K depending on the University involved.
The Govt defend this by suggesting that the average benefit to students of this additional education is £400k in their lifetime, and that they [the tax dodgers] should consider this an investment in their future and they ask why tax payers should fund this for them.
Which is understandable.
But is it right?
Personally I think that the Tories are missing a major argument against - possibly because deep down they support the Govt on this issue - mainly that if the students do benefit by this amount then the additional tax they pay will more than compensate the Govt's investment. Potentially this would be approx £100k, more than the cost of the education that the person recieved.
0
Comments
Since I live in Scotland I only had to pay fees in first year before they were scrapped (although we still have to apply to have them paid for us by SAAS which I don't really understand)
I think it would be awful for students if it happens tho. As it is at the moment, the average student is something ridiculous like £10,000 in debt when they finish uni. If they top up the fees this would be even higher (obviously). When you leave uni you're meant to be starting your life - being bogged down in debt isn't exactly a good start! Everyone will jsut be indebt for ever, especially if house prices remain high (don't even get me started on that!!! :mad:
I just don't see how they can justify it.
This Labour government claim to want 50% of the population to be university educated but they aren't exactly going the right way about it.
Anyway, rant over.
Sorry!
I'm sure this cannot benifit the British education in the long run. Students leave university with large loans anyway - this will only make it worse. This will impact on our economy as well so I don't see how there is really any benifit to placing such high top up fees
On the other hand, I keep thinking about the thread on lowering the age cap for kids to leave school so that they can happily skip off to a job in the trades. Let me clear up the vagueness of this connection. The 'under-achievers' mentioned in that thread are often classified as such because the western schooling system is by and large based on the ideals of the intellectual/economical elite. Therefore, publicly financed schooling in and of itself would not clear up the problems that under-privilaged students face in struggling their way through school. So how do we rectify that problem??:chin:
Top up fees completely goes against every "widening participation" initiative that has been set up - even if under the proposals poorer students would receive grants or bursaries, many would still get put off, just like lots now get scared over the issue of student loans and debt (even though you don't have to pay anything back until you've earnt a decent amount). I tell you, if I was in the country, I'd certainly be joining the anti top up fees march in London, that's for sure. Personally, if we have to pay fees, I'd rather do it in the form of a graduate tax. (Although there'd then be the problem of what happens until the 'graduate tax' students graduate, but it's a sticky question, and I don't want to get into it because I simply don't know).
You also hear cries against the average tax payer footing the bill for students, "why should the dustman pay for the medic/soliciter, who's going to earn lots in the future anyway?". Well the answer is because everybody at some point in their lives NEED doctors, solicitors and other such professionals, and would be a bit buggered in the future if they can't get one because fewer people can afford to go to uni.
Ggrrrrr :mad:
you can almost get tha from working at maccy d's full time....
if you earn an extra £400k through your lifetime, then in taxes, NI, etc etc you will put far more in than you willl ever take out. period. therefore top up fees take the piss, literally.
i'm just worried they'll go with the graduate tax, and i'll end up paying that and my loan back.....
No you won't, as you'll have gone through the system paying (or getting paid for you) tuition fees. I think the tax will only affect students who have just started as it's being implemented
One thing that's certainly true: the current situation is unsustainable. Top lecturers are leaving for the states where they're better paid; less and less research is undertaken; facillities are literally falling to bits in some places. Something needs to happen to redress the financial balance.
The one great myth the NUS perpetrates is that we'll all be paying 10 grand a year. That's bollocks. The shortfall's such that on average we'd pay around 3000. I am lucky, and with parental assistance, I could afford that, just about; why shouldn't I pay for it if I can?
Then there's the idea that it will put students from low income backgrounds off studying. If a proper means-tested system is put into place - ie a better one than that which is used for tuition - then it wouldn't have to mean anyone couldn't go to university.
Also, I agree that we need graduates - but many of them will head straight to merrill lynch or some other incredibly highpaying job and not fulfil any essential function. Does seem a little unfair for those who've gone straight into a low paying prospectless job to subsidise them.
Still, I don't think topup fees are ideal. they'll cause a lot of resentment; they'll certainly be bad for access because even if they actually could, people will assume they won't be able to afford a degree; as someone said, they'll differentiate between top academic institutions and others, which will put people applying to oxbridge/other top unis; they'll charge people at the point in their lives when they can least afford it.
That's why I think a graduate tax is the best idea. Not kicking in until a certain wage, subsidised for low paying but essential jobs, incremental according to how much you earn. The fairest way. But the difficulty is how you fund it until current grads are earning enough; my suggestion would be to 'borrow' froim general taxation, but I don't know how (or if) that would work economically. Does anyone? and what should we do in the meantime if not?
All that will happen is only the rich can afford to be educated and we'll end up like the states with unis becoming little more than corporations driven by profit like any other buisness, instead of the public institutions they should remain as.
I don't understand why the government needs to implement this idea. The current system works well, as did the previous one.
They fail to appreciate a fairly important concept, "if it aint broke, don't fix it".
But then, this government is full of tossers that dont actually give a shit about reality and its inhabitants
Don't get me wrong, I'm no supporter of top-up fees (or even tuition fees in the first place :mad: ) but the universities in this country are breaking. They're chronically underfunded and are thus losing academics en masse to higher paid jobs in the US, and in some cases can no longer afford to fund key research. The government needs to do something to turn this around. Unfortunately, they're so mentally challenged that they think top-up fees is the way to go about it.
I'd personally favour a graduate tax; it's me that benefits from my university education, not my parents, so if anyone's going to be made to pay, it should be me. Unfortunately I'm not earning anything at the moment, because I haven't got a degree and am still at college. Thus logically the thing to do would be to charge me for my education when I can pay for it; ie when I have a job.
I suppose part of it is selfishness (as this issue directly effects me) but nothing the Labour government has done so far has angered me more than if they go ahead with this. Hopefully Blair will see that it would alienate a huge proportion of the traditional left-wing he still relies upon. Already 110 delegates at the Labour Policy Committee have supported a motion to make it a manifesto promise never to introduce top-up fees. Blair will have to listen at some point.