student fees

[typhoon_driver]

I realise this topic may be close to a number of people on this forum so it seems right to discuss . Was the government right to raise fees to 6000 and possibly up to 9000 in England? What are your thoughts on the protests in London and elsewhere?

[calumco]

Re: student fees

I didnt go to uni nor am i going to, but the thing thats annoyed me the most, and i think most others is that one of the main reasons so many people/students voted for him is because he said if he got elected he would abolish student fees so its like how scotland has it. and now hes basically gone back on what he said and its just stupid if he ever goes on one of his random 'try to look good in the public eye' trips to a uni or something- well good luck to him.

From what little faith i had in the government before well theres pretty much non left anymore, i've still never voted and i don't think i ever will because non of them live in the real world

[botmad]

Re: student fees

didnt tak the goverment too long to go back on there promises ........
Should have stuck with labour at least they were on the right track .....
now we have to go back to the thatcher days .....
Pickets and strike on there way ...... good old conservatives ....

[RogueTwoRobots]

Re: student fees

Now this I can contribute to a bit more effectively than my Wikileaks discussion contribution :P

First thing I want to say is that I've always been happy to be a student and part of a collective group when 'students' are mentioned overall. But watching the scenes unfold over the past week or so in London and elsewhere made me feel ashamed and embarrassed to ever have been associated with the student community. There is nothing wrong with a strong but PEACEFUL protest but there is absolutely no reason for the mindless destruction that has gone on. It's been widely reported now that several people involved aren't actually students and are just joining in for the sake of rampaging through the streets. Credit where credit is due though, many students were there to protest peacefully and several students interviewed said they condemned the behaviour of the 'mob'.

On to the actual details; momentarily taking out of the equation the fact that Nick Clegg reneged on his manifesto 'promise', it's difficult to say if the government decision is the correct one. On one hand, universities all across the country are suffering budget cuts due to the financial situation and if funding declines, generally so do the standards. On the other hand, raising the max cap on fees will allow the universities to charge more and therefore get more money into their institution, somewhat bridging the financial gap that is going to appear, if it hasn't already. Personally, I don't think it's fair that the students have to foot the bill for this one (except the bill for repairing all the protest damage) but realistically for the situation that the country is in, the government decision could be the most logical at this time.

I don't know if I feel less passionate about this issue because I'm Scottish and therefore had my fees paid for me but I don't understand the hatred towards Nick Clegg at the level it has been. He's a politician, and a politician's job is to make fanciful claims during the election run-up and then not fulfil them when in power. I can understand some dislike/hatred directed at him but, to be honest, are you surprised by his decision?

The Scottish National Party were voted into power (albeit a minority) up here in 2007, partly due to large support from students based on several pledges they made. If I counted on my hands every manifesto pledge they've either ditched or reneged on, I'd run out of fingers pretty quickly, but despite that there has not been anywhere near the same level of raw anger directed towards them as there has to Clegg over this one decision. I'm not condoning his choice to backtrack on his promise though; I voted Lib Dem in May because I didn't want the Tories in, Gordon Brown didn't fill me with confidence (Ed Miliband does though) and Nick Clegg talked a good game and I have to admit I'm disappointed both by the Lib Dems agreeing a coalition and Clegg's recent actions, but hey, you have to live with your choices. Roll on 2014/15

My 2p, for what it's worth

[MattPPA13]

Re: student fees

in my opinion the policing has been wrong theshould use a no nonsense policy and fight back against the skin head opportunist thugs causing the trouble.

[widow_twanky]

Re: student fees

I have always had a very strong alignment with the tories financial policies, the idea of a smaller cost effective state with low taxation has been very attractive to me. As time has gone by and with some life experience I found myself buying into labours social policies in a big way. The assistance given to families with disabilities, the sure start programmes for underpriveliged children, the widespread upgrading and rebuilding of our schools and the increased provisions for children with special educational needs are all issues which I can say Labour have done well with and i would happily pay more tax to keep going. The problem was always they spent too much money doing it with way too much beurocracy.

I always saw the lib dems as taking the middle ground between the two and was actually cautiously optimistic when they went into coalition with the tories. I would not have expected the tories to do anything but what they are doing. It is what they stand for and it is what you sign up to when you vote for them. I was kind of hoping that the lib dems would be a moderating influence on them. Looking at the numbers the simple fact is that had all the lib dems said no then the government would not have won this vote.

What really irritates me is not the fact that the policy will be implemented (supposing that the lords don't make any ammendments and if they do then all the other potential votes go the governments way) it is the denial of breaking a pledge which was clearly made. I just feel that if you find yourself in a position where you've got to make a difficult decision you should say so. You should not do a cable and deny that you broke your intial pledge, you should not try and manipulate things by trying to negotiate that all the lib dems will abstain in the knowledge that the vote will be won anyway by you doing that, thus making it look better and allowing you to say you didn't vote for it, you should not tell everyone two days before the vote about the concessions for 'the poorest' families. You should stand up and be a man and say 'i know this is unpopular but we've got to do it'.

The main problem i see is the arse covering which is going on. The trying to score political points and to save face. In a recession we need strong leadership. Thatcher was strong. Thatcher destroyed various industries and ruined many peoples lives but at least there was a direction allowing businesses to plan even for the worst. She said very clearly she would sell the country down the swanny and that's just what she did.

The fees issue has simply shown me that the current government is weak. The lib dems are eeven weaker and are utterly spineless against its senior party. Ther are no real clearly defined policies about to be delivered, as a result there will be no clearly defined direction which means there will be no ability for businesses to try and predict what is likely to happen so they will not be able to plan properly.

Put simply, sod the students. The weakness and ineptitude the government has shown in dealing with this issue highlights far more problems for everyone and should be seen as a tolling bell for the rest of us. I will be very surprised if we are clearly out of this recession by the time the next election comes around.

[cliveb]

Re: student fees

Love her or loath her at least Maggie had balls unlike any of the modern lot.

[typhoon_driver]

Re: student fees

Obviously the new fees won't affect me, (Scotland in my final year) but I believe that the U-turn by the lib dems will relegate the party to the fringes once again. I think Nick Clegg has seriously underestimated just how much distrust this will create towards politicians in general, not just his own party. The student vote will be lost but I can also see many other voters wondering if they should bother voting for the lib dems.

With regard to the actual fees, sure students won't start paying it off until they earn 21K but then the whole point of going to uni is to to come out with better qualifications, get a better job and hopefully start off earning a decent wage. It's a complete and utter farse especially considering that other parts of the UK, Europe and the World manage to get by without charging extortionate fees.

O and I couldn't help but laugh at the surprise of the police, PM and royals when the demonstrations got violent, perhaps they should have looked back at previous marches when unpopular laws policies were passed

[widow_twanky]

Re: student fees

One of the main reasons I am actually against tuition fees is because no-one has actually looked at how this will affect mortgages etc. I have a personal loan which is over five years and this got taken into consideration when i bought my flat and the amount i could borrow was reduced to suit.

No take someone on £21,000 looking for a cheap house and maybe one of the very few still at around £70k. They go to their prospective borrower and say hey there i eran just enough to have this house but i've got this £40k debt which I have to pay off for the next 30 years. Quite sure the response will be, tell ya what we'll take 3.5 times your salary and then take £40k off it so go find summat for £30k .

Not sure how it works but I'm quite sure that the government don't now how it'll work and the banks proably have no idea either. Are we likely to have an entire generation of students condemed (mispelling and pun intended) promised the earth, worked hard to achieve what they do and then penalised for it. Worse still making it even harder for first time buyers means that there is less of a stimulus for the housing market....................

Point being, it should be well thought through which it isn't.

Andy

[craig_colliass]

Re: student fees

With fees the first question to ask is,
What type of society do I want?
You can go for the American way of paying for it all. the richer you are the better the education gets.
I always remember the line in one of the Jurassic Park films. Be careful this suit cost more than your education

Or do we want a system were the money your family had doesn't matter so much. but this means others would have to pick up the tab for the privilege of those going to university.
the argument for this point of view is the number of graduates help enrich the whole community including those who provided for the university place. e.g. you go to the doctors who were trained in the UK at university.

[botmad]

Re: student fees

Yes maggie had the balls ......
And what did she do with them .....
Shut and closed down the biggest industry and job supplier in the UK ( THE PITS ).....
So i suppose the Uni's will be shut next then .......

The Pits had a very strong Union which supported the lowest honest working man with more power than any Government which Maggie crushed along with the working man .....

The Student union is threatening the same action .......
All i can say is watch out ......

[typhoon_driver]

Re: student fees

2nd choice everytime Craig. The major problem was Labour saying that 50% of young people should get a degree. A good chunk of jobs don't need one and you end up with a flood of people towards unis devaluing the degrees already around.

Ha NUS are a bunch of useless muppets. Nothing to fear from that union. The fear as far as the government should be concerned comes when a large number of students decided to mobilise using modern technology to communicate. Flash demonstrations and mass demonstrations organised with only a weeks notice could cause huge disruption to any city.

[grant_ploughbot]

Re: student fees

I went to uni, paying just over £3000 a year on fee's.
I think the rise in fee's is a good thing, hopefully making most the useless muppets who go to uni think twice about going!

At the moment, the majority of degree's are now utter useless. Purely because of 1) they are so easy to get into, 2) half the degress only require something stupid like 12hours a week, and 3) its so cheap and easy to get into uni with all the money being handed out.

I dont agree with any of the comments about it effecting the poorer community - Why would it? My parents didnt pay for my tuition, student loan's paid that - which i pay back personally. I think they need to make University harder to get into, and offer money off the tuition fee's the better you do. That would be an incentive for people to actually do some work! Maybe then a degree might be worth something.

[widow_twanky]

Re: student fees

The Pits had a very strong Union which supported the lowest honest working man with more power than any Government which Maggie crushed along with the working man .....

The miners strike is one which is very interesting when you look at the history and I believe that it was driven by a massive amount of ideology (cutting subsidies etc) as is the current issue with student fees.

If you look at what thatcher did:

1979 got elected
1980 introduced laws restricting provision of welfare benefits to strikers families where their dependents took a compulsory reduction in their benefits and were banned from receiving ugrent needs payments
1982 (ish) -1984 stockpiling of coal at uk power stations
1984 pit closures announced

It was a cynical well planned attack on the miners and the miners leaders did not see it coming because they had a significant bavado after almost bringing the country to its knees in 1974 (3day week and all)

Putting aside the rights and wrongs of that strike, the government had it well thought out and had planned in significant detail what they were going to do and had probably considered most of the options of what eventually happened.

In the current situation I see a policy driven simply by the conservative ideology. I do not see substantial consideration of the consequences. I do not see strong leadership.

Pete you are very right to say watch out but i suspect that there are already a large number of people who have been hit already. Redundancies at barnet council happened at the beginning of december. This was 25% of the total staff and it didn't even hit the local paper!!!

Ha NUS are a bunch of useless muppets. Nothing to fear from that union. The fear as far as the government should be concerned comes when a large number of students decided to mobilise using modern technology to communicate. Flash demonstrations and mass demonstrations organised with only a weeks notice could cause huge disruption to any city.

I'd suggest that demonstrations are relatively easy for a government to deal with in the long term. it doesn't take long for them to work out who to monitor and how to deal with things. The other thing is that there is a great tendancy in the media for them to simply publicise the violence.

Now if the large numbers of students were to mobilise and register to vote, now that'd send a chill down their spine!! Voter turnout at the last general election was about 65%. Not sure how many 18-25's voted this time but in 2005 it was about 37%.
The government has been niaive to think that the argument that we now live in an age of austerity will wash for the extent of what is happening and that the general public will sit by and watch people being crushed without comment. Student fees are a good distraction from the redundancies being made in local councils, the cancellation of the building schools for the future programme (crushing large parts of the construction industry) and so on.

[botmad]

Re: student fees

andy wrote :
The government has been niaive to think that the argument that we now live in an age of austerity will wash for the extent of what is happening and that the general public will sit by and watch people being crushed without comment. Student fees are a good distraction from the redundancies being made in local councils, the cancellation of the building schools for the future programme (crushing large parts of the construction industry) and so on.


I think we should all take a look past the fees increase and see what else they are upto behind this smokescreen ..........