Riots in the streets?!

[Wersus]

...just come off like lazy motherfuckers who want someone else to pay the bill.

I don't think like that. If people changed their minds once they graduate and started supporting larger fees, then that would be the case. I expect most of these people are prepared to pay for the education of the future generations too (or are they backstabbing the ideology after graduation?). I think that makes more sense as once they graduate and start making money, it's easier to put a small sum aside every now and then than it is to put a huge amount of money aside when you still have no income.

[Tuomas]

I don't want to argue. But the way I see it, a well provided and equal education and access to it only works for the good of the society. Tax money is equal in the sense, that everyone pays for the services everyone else has access to, payers included. When all the members of such society feel equal, the agreement stands flourishes. If you then decide to cut back this input so that people would only pay for what they needed or wanted, you'd create not so much a society but an environment of capitalist individuals who'd in the end compete for such basic elements as health care, education, and other state provided welfare. Such societies exist, where say, health care is not accessible to everyone but only those who can pay for it, and the fees are as high as the provider wishes, where the natural demand makes the market.

Something like education and health should not be something you'd have to fight for in a modern society, especially when the society could easily provide this to everyone with lesser costs if it weren't for the greed of certain individuals. I have noticed by living in a socially built country, that a tax-funded education not only makes the country a better competitor against others, cuts back the number of joblessness and provides an altogether happier environment to live in with a minimal amount of poor people. A high tuition fee system would result to two major setbacks: 1. educational areas such as humanism and art would be only studied by the elite, who had the money to invest in something that never readied on to a prober job. Say philology or literature for one, or drawing/painting /contemporary arts, paying for the education would be a lousy investment. 2. When the payment the universities was used to raise the level of the faculties performance, there'd be no limit to how high the prices could go, and in such cases the schooling system would end up like the health care in the US: only those rich/working could even consider attending classes, while those who had nothing to begin with, would just have to prepare for a life of no chances. A society that includes people with equal rights should provide equal possibilities, and this in the sense of positive freedom, which means that you have been given the chance to better yourself, NOT the way conservative countries work, now called negative freedom (the American dream) where you have the right to do what ever you want but you never have the means to do it.

And when we live in a society of men and women and children and the rich and the poor, there's no "it's all up to you", when everything you do help everyone, and everything the people do in the end makes the world a better place for you too. As I said before, I wouldn't be at the university at the moment if we had tuition fees in Finland. But when I graduate in a few years, I'll be the one paying back for my own education with the work that I do, the work my free education allowed me to at least try out.

[Nikolas]

Or to put it more seriously: Universities are currently not allowed to charge anywhere close to what it costs to provide an education (or the value of an education: a university degree is worth much more than it costs to get one). They have to make up the difference in government support (and by extortionate fees on international students), money that comes from taxes. Students are disproportionately from middle-class families, most of which could afford to pay it themselves. In other words, the state is taking money from everyone in order to give rich people a freebie.

Dear lord... You mean that when you buy anything you should expect to... make less than you bought it for? What a preposterous idea indeed!

Unis are not allowed to make more than they earn for a very good reason: They are not there to make profit, but to provide for the people and the society. If they were to make profit, then the system would be flawed and the degrees taken by such universities would mean nothing (basically you would be buying a degree, since you would be offering profit to an institution).

[loominous]

Tuition fees only seem to lead to lower social mobility.

Higher education students are already disproportionately from middle and upper class backgrounds, and this would simply make matters worse.

Unless you have a flat tax system, "free" education doesn't really exist, since you'll be paying it back with future taxes. Long expensive educations lead to high paying jobs, which will be heavily taxed.

Course, you could always go through a long expensive free education and then not use it, which would be the closest thing to "theft". A most brilliant scheme.

[Snarky]

Means-tested tuition grants can prevent or even reverse a decrease in social mobility, loominous. The current system is actively regressive, by handing out perks that go disproportionately to those who are already better-off.

Tuomas, the problem with your preferred system is affordability. When the government is broke (like in the UK), they need to save money somewhere. Because students are currently getting their degrees at bargain prices, they can safely and fairly be asked to pay a little bit more. And chronically cash-strapped universities do need to raise money somehow, in order to maintain quality and compete in an increasingly international market (e.g. by attracting great professors).

The alternative is that you underfund the schools, end up with a country of crappy (or at best mediocre) universities, and the rich people just go to the US or somewhere like that to study. Is that any more egalitarian? This has happened, to an extent, in a number of countries with no-fee universities (I'll refrain from naming them so as not to offend anyone's national pride).

[loominous]

Means-tested tuition grants can prevent or even reverse a decrease in social mobility

Could you elaborate?

If your point is that "taxing" well off students would allow institutions to accept more, potentially poor, students, why not simply raise the tax rate for those income brackets? Seems like a potentially messy way to start demanding tuition payments only from certain students. Are there any examples of this model being used in some countries?

As far as I know, there is a quite clear correlation between free education and social mobility.

And while it's true that countries like the US are able to offer rather unique first class educational opportunities for those with the means (or the scholarships), the downside is relatively low social mobility.

[Ali]

I hoped to get away with a flippant remark and not be drawn into a political debate. But...

The Coalition Government's actions in this area and others will have the effect of broadening the gap between rich and poor (something the Labour government also achieved back in the good days). Creating a free market in education is a mistake because better university courses will inevitably be more expensive. The prospect of looming debt will surely keep young people from poor backgrounds from attending better universities and no doubt put some people off attending university at all.

This will be a great shame, because the merit of the individual ought to be the decisive factor. I fear we may be living with the consequences of the government's socially divisive decisions for years to come.

There you go Internet, that's my opinion.

[Stupot]

few things annoyed me more than seeing my classmates, well-off Cambridge students, getting all indignant about having to pay more than a token amount for the cushy life and first-class education they were enjoying.

As far as I'm aware the planned changes to tuition fees won't affect the majority of students curently in Higher Education.  It will only come into affect for new students starting in September 2012.   I guess those hoping to go on and do a masters might be more affected, but there will be (as there always has been) ways of getting outside funding for that.

Not much has changed as I understand it...  Okay, so maintenance grant is supposedly being scrapped... that's not a big a deal as it sounds because it will just be added to their student loans.  So yeah, they'll have to pay it back eventually, but it's not going to kill them... as has always been the case, you dont have to start paying it back until you start earning a reasonable salary, and if you havent paid it back after 30 years, the debt gets wiped clean anyway... that's always been the case.  I think thats more than fair.

I think a lot of the students 'protesting' are just enjoying the prospect of waving a banner around simply because it the current 'studenty' thing to do...

[Atelier]

The ayes have it, the ayes have it. A few minutes ago the motion for £9000 tuition fees was carried 321 323 to 302.

[RickJ]

I employed an infrequently used method of funding my education (Masters+) that was quite effective.   It's called "JOB".  The idea is that you do work that is of value for somebody.  In return they give you a quantity of money that bears some kind of proportional relationship to the value of the work and the amount of time required to complete it.

The downside is that it's necessary to, some extent, forgo the excesses of youth and save one's money.   That means not having the latest fashion, not having multiple girl friends or taking them to expensive restaurants, and no recreational drugs.

The upside is one is more committed to one's education.  In my case for example,  tuition for full time students carrying 12 or more credit hours per semester was the same amount regardless of how many credit hours.   Electrical Engineering students such as myself typically carried 15-18 credit hours per semester.   Since I was paying I wanted my money's worth so I always signed up for extra classes and usually carried 20-23 credit hours per semester.  If I wasn't paying I probably would have carried 15 hours and complained about how difficult it was.

I think the problem with the US and EU countries is that there are too many slackers who "... get money for noth'in and chicks for free...".  They don't need any more encouragement IMHO.      

[Anian]

I'm planning on UK, probably Scotland. Student visa, as far as I am aware, allows 20h of work per week. I plan to stretch the Masters from 1 onto 2 years (part time or some similar expression), but still am in search of a scholarship to at least finance the tuition so I can rent according to my budget (job+parents)

[Calin Leafshade]

Rick, this may shock you but the majority of british students *DO* have jobs. Living in university cities is very expensive.

In fact, without maintenance loans and government subsidy it would be *impossible* to study in London.

[Ali]

Nah, British students don't have jobs! They just stay at home enjoying all the free bionic limbs they get on the NHS.

EDIT: For full disclosure, I am an MA student in London and I don't have a regularly job. But in my defence, I am seriously running out of money.