On the Tuition Fee Rises
It costs approximately £40,000 to fund university study and living costs for three years. Do you dream of going to university? Excellent! The Student Loans Company will provide you with the funding to achieve your dreams, whoever you are and wherever you are from, repayable in easily manageable amounts automatically deducted from your salary once you earn £15,000 or more per annum.
Or at least that’s how the sales pitch should look. On Thursday 9th December 2010, the English parliament, fronted by Cameron and Clegg, made the decision, by a 21 vote majority, to raise the cap for University tuition fees from where they stand currently at a little over £3000 a year to £9000. In the aftermath of Thursday’s discussions, I think it time my opinion found its space.
The obvious downside for many prospective students is that increased fees mean, obviously, increased student debt to repay after graduation. Some protesters (a BBC TV interview with a student in Swansea is my evidence for this) seem to have missed the fact that the government are not expecting students to pay up front out of their own pockets, but are merely suggesting raising the price of a good education, not abolishing the student loans system. Of course, having more debt to repay in the end isn’t ideal - my own personal £19,000 or so sits at the back of my mind like an unpleasant niggle whenever I consider my future - but nothing has to be paid up front and loan repayments are automatically deducted from one’s salary before the money can be missed. I’m not aware if any decisions have been made yet as to whether, with the fee rises, the base payment amount would increase proportionally (for a graduate on £15,000 per annum, a proportional rise in loan repayment would mean paying back £3 a week instead of £1), or whether the repayment period would just last for longer. Regardless, student loan repayment amounts are designed such that they don’t severely impact on the graduate’s income and consequent lifestyle, so I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about.
Many people are arguing that the fee rises and increased debt will deter students from lower-income backgrounds from applying to university. I’m sure that in some cases this will be true, but one has to question that if the amount of debt incurred would deter prospective students for applying to university, how much do they really care about what they stand to gain from incurring the aforementioned debt? A degree (or equivalent) qualification is supposed to open doors to a vast array of professional opportunities that wouldn’t be otherwise accessible. Is access to these opportunities not worth the price the government are demanding?
Some prospective applicants will, naturally, say that no, a university education isn’t worth £9000 a year. In my opinion, these are the prospective applicants who want to go to university as an excuse to get away from their families and live as a “pretend” grown-up for three years, getting drunk instead of going to lectures and pulling all-nighters in the library to scrape through each assessment and when asked, probably couldn’t explain why they want the degree they’re studying for. These aren’t the applicants who want a degree because it will secure them a brighter future than going straight into work can. These aren’t the applicants who want to have an income such that they are able to offer their children a better quality of life than they themselves endured. These aren’t the applicants who really care about their education. If the prospect of having to pay £9000 a year deters these prospective students, then this is a definite upside to the fee rise because it will return some of the value to the currently diminished status of the degree.
The government have specifically stated that non-repayable maintenance grants will still be available to applicants from lower-income families. This, in many respects, only provides half a solution. It’s all very well encouraging children from low-income families to break the moulds set by their predecessors and educate themselves out of poverty, but what encouragement is offered to those prospective students who are exceptionally bright? All government measures these days seem to be about solving the problem of poverty, but what about nurturing our talented teenagers to ensure that Britain continues to be considered at the forefront of intellectual thinking? In addition to the financial aid offered to those from low-income backgrounds, the government should also offer a financial incentive based on academic merit, to provide encouragement for those who most deserve a university education and have worked hard to get there, irrespective of their parents’ income. This was how the system worked when my father attended University, and is how it should work again. Academic achievement should be recognised. After all, that is what university is all about, isn’t it?
At the end of the day, all students, upon graduating, are in the same position in the job market and aren’t supposed to be dependant on their parents any more. The maintenance funding system should be overhauled so that all students get the same, irrespective of their parents’ income and therefore all have the same debt to repay (unless they have been awarded an academic scholarship to contribute all or part of the cost of fees). Graduates from university are individual, independent people and allocating funding based on parents’ income does not treat them as such.
It appears that, overall, what the protests boil down to is a discrepancy in the perception of the price of a good education. My first degree, like my MA, was all about my thirst for knowledge and the desire to be able to maintain the lifestyle my parents’ education and consequent incomes were able to provide for me and my sisters. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to pay for my degree(s) and would have paid whatever funds were demanded of me, even if what was demanded was £9000 a year. If the students of the future are anything like I was four or five years ago, then the price of their degree will be well worth the benefits they will reap through its achievement. If what they want from student life is to exist in a state of permanent hangover first and gain a degree second, then they probably shouldn’t be bothering to apply until they’ve corrected their priorities and understand the value of their education.
That is all.
