British Universities Warned to Expect £4.2 Billion Cuts

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Thu, 2010-12-09 18:31

abnormal

Snert wrote:

It's been about three weeks since the government announced their intent to deregulate tuition.

[i]snip ...[/i]That said, tripling tuition overnight ...

Unfortunately that's not what they did. A lot of misinformation and half-truths have been spread by the NUS, Socialist Workers, etc. Yearly tuition fees are currently £3000. As I understand it, the Government allowed universities to lift the current legal cap on fees and allow universities to charge up to £6000 if they so choose. In exceptional circumstances, a very small number of universities will be allowed to charge up to £9000. Of course, all you hear from the NUS, etc is "No Raise Of Fees to £9000!" The other matter that keeps getting left out is that not one student will have to pay any of these fees until after they graduate and start earning a salary above the national average wage. Even then, the repayments will be via a 'graduate tax' on their salary. They won't have to suddenly start paying back lump sums, and if they stop earning above the national average wage, the graduate tax is put on hold. No one's going to be prevented from going to university because they can't afford the tuition fees.

Thu, 2010-12-09 20:29

#53

Fidel

That'll teach 'em for voting Liberal and Tory. Whig-Liberal, Tory, it's the same old story in old Ingerland.

Thu, 2010-12-09 21:06

#54

Catchfire

abnormal, with respect, you have no idea what you're talking about, with regard to billion (irrespective of your experience, that's simply not the case in Britain), or, more importantly, with the education cuts. Read the thread and then make demonstrably false claims like "No one's going to be prevented from going to university because they can't afford the tuition fees."

Thu, 2010-12-09 21:19

#55

NDPP

Royal Car Attacked in Protest After MPs Fee Vote

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11954333

"A car containing Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall has been attacked amid violence after MPs voted to raise university tuition fees in England.."

Always good to see the frightened whites of the eyes of the high and mighty. Regretably many babblers may be shocked and appalled at the fact windows were again cruelly smashed in the protests...

Thu, 2010-12-09 21:49

#56

Catchfire

Not just any window, NDPP. A royal window. Have these brutes no shame?

Thu, 2010-12-09 22:18

#57

Fidel

I don't think there were any tuition fees in England until about 1997 or so. Now they're tripling fees, or doubling on average, or something.

And Charlie and Camilla Windsor were just trying to get to the theater in their Rolls!! David Kelly and Susan Ormiston looked thoroughly disgusted by it all on the news. Those poor inbred royals and the things they have to put up with.

Thu, 2010-12-09 22:29

#58

Wilf Day

Nick Clegg failed to persuade a majority of his 57 MPs to support the controversial measure last night, as 21 Liberal Democrats voted against and another eight abstained or did not vote, while only 28 voted in favour.

Quote:
Two Liberal Democrat MPs, Mike Crockart and Jenny Willott, and one Tory MP, Lee Scott, resigned their posts as parliamentary private secretaries to ministers because they could not bring themselves to support the rise. Six Tories opposed it and others abstained.

The landmark debate will lead to universities charging at least £6,000 a year in fees from the autumn of 2012 and see the virtual trebling of fees to £9,000 a year for some courses. It was also a watershed moment for the Liberal Democrats. Allies of Mr Clegg hope it marks their transition from a party of protest to a serious party of government. But his internal critics fear his ditching of the party's election pledge to scrap tuition fees is a betrayal from which it will not recover.

Labour pointed out that the Government's majority of 21 would have been wiped out without the votes of Mr Clegg and 27 colleagues. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, called it " a bad day for democracy". He added: "It doesn't just damage ... the Liberal Democrats; it damages trust in politics as a whole. They did get their proposals through but they have damaged trust in themselves profoundly. The idea that they are a party that can be trusted has gone; the idea that they can be a progressive party has gone."

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat president, and two former party leaders, Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, voted against, while the deputy leader, Simon Hughes, abstained. Although all 18 Liberal Democrat ministers voted with the Government, some made clear it was with a heavy heart. One MP said Mr Clegg patted the back of a "distraught" Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister, as they walked through the division lobbies. Another minister said: "Thank God that's over - it's been a very difficult time."

Tory whips also worked overtime. Yet six still voted against the Government: Andrew Percy, David Davis, the former shadow Home Secretary, Philip Davies, Julian Lewis, Mark Reckless and Jason McCartney. One rebel Tory said: "There is a lot of disquiet on our benches."

Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students, said: "Too many politicians decided they had an interest in their political career. We want them to face the people they have lied to, the people whom they have misled. Frankly these people don't deserve to be in politics, and it is right that students use the democratic process to try to remove them from power immediately."

According to Professor Philip Cowley, an expert on the arithmetic on rebellions, as a proportion of a political party a record number of backbenchers rebelled.

Fri, 2010-12-10 06:30

#59

abnormal

Catchfire wrote:

Read the thread and then make demonstrably false claims like "No one's going to be prevented from going to university because they can't afford the tuition fees."

If you don't have to pay anything back unless you're making enough money to do so, how is anyone prevented from going to university?

(On the subject of "billion", I'll take your advice and the next time I speak to our UK lawyers I'll tell them that they don't know what they're talking about.)

Fri, 2010-12-10 10:01

#60

remind

Wow, personal UK lawyers......

Fri, 2010-12-10 10:48

#61

Wilf Day

Nick Clegg signed the Liberal Democrats' death warrant yesterday when he ignored student protests to triple university tuition fees.

Quote:
The ConDem coalition saw its 84 majority collapse to just 21 in a historic Commons vote to force through the rise, sending fees soaring to £9,000-a-year.

But the win came only after FibDem leader Clegg ABANDONED his pre-election pledge to vote against the rises and IGNORED desperate warnings from his own MPs that he was dooming the party to disaster.

Security for Nick Clegg has been stepped up amid fears the fees row has made him a national hate figure.

Yesterday's tuition fees vote was the Liberal Democrats' Iraq moment, a profound breach of trust for which the party will pay dearly at the next election.

Quote:
In little more than eight months, the Lib Dems have fallen from 34 per cent in the polls to just 8 per cent, the party's lowest rating for 20 years. They are certain to lose both votes and seats at the next election.

The Lib Dems have willingly become David Cameron's human shields, haemorrhaging support in the process.

A split in the party is not certain, but it is possible.

Quote:
What those who are opposed the coalition's direction of travel now have, and didn't have back in May, is 21 MPs who are willing to dissent, including the recently elected party president Tim Farron.

As of yesterday, two ministers who voted with the government have reset their Facebook accounts to prevent even friends writing on their walls.

Fri, 2010-12-10 10:53

#62

A_J

Catchfire wrote:

abnormal, with respect, you have no idea what you're talking about, with regard to billion (irrespective of your experience, that's simply not the case in Britain), or, more importantly, with the education cuts. Read the thread and then make demonstrably false claims like "No one's going to be prevented from going to university because they can't afford the tuition fees."

Everything Abnormal posted is correct.

BIS - Reform for higher education and student finance

Schools may start charging as much as 6,000 GBP
They may seek permission to charge as high as 9,000 GBP - but will have to undertake to increase access
Government will loan students the money they need
Loans only repaid once graduates start earning above 21,000 GBP, by repaying 9% of their surplus income
Interest is charged on loans, but is variable with income
Loans are written off after 30 years
Grants available for lower-income earners (families below 42,000 GBP, extra for those below 25,000 GBP)

This is my understanding of the tuition/loan/repayment scheme:

Let's say school costs as much as 40,000 GBP (4 years at 9,000 GBP, plus living expenses and little income earned over that period - probably not a typical scenario), and a student graduates and starts earning 30,000 GBP.

Each year they repay 9% of 9,000 GBP, or 810 GBP (or 3% of their total income). Of course, at that rate, it would take 50 years to pay of the 40,000 GBP (more for interest), but the loan goes away after 30 years, regardless of what's been repaid (in this case, they would have paid 24,300 GBP, plus interest, assuming they start earning above the threshold right away on graduation).

If they got a raise, to say 50,000 GBP, repayments are recalculated to 9% of 29,000 GBP, or 2,610 GBP (or 5.2% of their income), and the loan would be repaid in full after 15-20 years.

At least that's what I understand from what I've read. If there are further details or I have misunderstood something, let me know. The only major problem I see is that it doesn't seem to address how they plan to deal with students who move away.

Fri, 2010-12-10 12:12

#63

edmundoconnor

Fidel wrote:

I don't think there were any tuition fees in England until about 1997 or so.

There were no tuition fees until 1998. Labour announced tuition fees in 1997, but they only took effect with the 1998-1999 academic year. I was there, and in university.

Fri, 2010-12-10 12:18

#64

edmundoconnor

Catchfire wrote:

Congratulations for forming government, Liberal Democrats. You fucking craven shitheads.

<sarcasm> Gosh, did they by any chance become the fall guys for the Tories, by any chance? Getting precisely NONE of their policies through, and doing the Tories' dirty work for them? Say it isn't so! </sarcasm>

I knew there was a good reason why I didn't join the party in the UK. The party instantly sells itself out to any sniff of power. In Scotland, with Labour. In Westminister, with Tories. They don't get anything in return for their co-operation. Look to Labour and the SNP to barbeque them in Scotland in the next Scottish and UK elections.

Fri, 2010-12-10 13:06

#65

Catchfire

First of all, this thread, these cuts and these demonstrations are about more than tuition fees. It's about a grand-scale, radical restructuring of education funding which shifts the debt burden from the public purse to the student's personal finance. Concomitant with this shift--which is indeed happening "overnight"--is a shift from education as a public good, available to all, to a "learn-to-earn treadmill" which values education only insofar as it can produce profitable earners (it's no accident that one of the Browne report recommendations is a 100% cut to teaching grants in the humanities). It posts education as a debt trap rather than a good in and of itself.

Second, removing the cap on tuition fees is not only about access, but about opening funding to education to the free market, further entrenching the dangerous and risky idea that university is an employee factory and opening what should be public legacy projects to crass corporatization.

Third, while the prospect of £40 000 of debt might not seem like a big deal since you can easily pay it back in 15-20 years (or perhaps we can cut that in half, call it £20 000, or 40 000 CAD), students from low income families won't look so rosy-eyed at the prospect of a career of debt and will pass altogether on higher education. Furthermore, lower-income students tend to enroll in institutions which have lower admissions standards--institutions which stand to be hurt most from these cuts, and indeed, the Browne report recommended closing less-economically successful schools in favour of expanding moneymakers. Since access to education at the nation's most prestigious institutions is already a problem (Oxbridge's response to this access problem was that black students simply applied to the most competitive programs) because lower-income families don't meet the "requirements" of the upper-echelon institutions, it takes a lot of gall to say that when such families are looking down the barrell of £20 000 pounds of debt once they graduate aren't simply going to say "no thanks." The fact is that enrollment of upper-middle-class students (so not lower income) declined 3% when top-up fees of £1800 were introduced in 2006/2007. In one year. What will happen when fees are doubled? Tripled?

Finally, and most upsetting, to reduce this all-out attack on students and education to hyperbole, or to "misinformation and half-truths," to "Wot! It's jes' tuition fees, innit?" is remarkably ignorant, if not cynical. This is not "simply" akin to the protests we in Canada see occasionally (usualy in Quebec) about tuition fees. It is a "once in a lifetime cut" (That's a quote from the UK Coalition Government) meant to decimate public post-secondary education in Britain in one fell strike. Any progressive who stands by and lets it happen deserves the quisling Liberal Democrats they elected, and the legacy they will inherit.

Fri, 2010-12-10 14:23

#66

ygtbk

A_J wrote:

The only major problem I see is that it doesn't seem to address how they plan to deal with students who move away.

I had the same thought. What are they going to do - tell people they can't emigrate? Seems like it would be pretty simple to evade - a quick trip to a neighbouring EU country and you're outta there!

Fri, 2010-12-10 14:31

#67

Snert

Quote:
I had the same thought. What are they going to do - tell people they can't emigrate?

What do we do right now, if a student owes money on their student loan? Or for that matter, if I owe money on any form of loan? Presumably, they either make arrangements to keep paying, wherever they happen to move to, or pay of the balance.

I've already paid off my student loans, so DO NOT tell me that all I had to do was get on a plane.

Fri, 2010-12-10 15:07

#68

Catchfire

Don't worry, the banks (who, incidentally, discovered on the same day as the tuition vote that the levy they can expect will cost £1 billion less) which will lend the government the money to loan to students, have a very, very long reach.

I don't know what to make when the only criticism the left can make on once-in-a-lifetime cuts to education policy is: how do we nab those freeloading students who will likely try to evade a perfectly fair lifetime of debt?

I probably have more student loans than any babbler. I would happily pay them back twice over if it meant free post-secondary education for the next generation.

Fri, 2010-12-10 15:13

#69

ygtbk

Snert wrote:

Quote:
I had the same thought. What are they going to do - tell people they can't emigrate?

What do we do right now, if a student owes money on their student loan? Or for that matter, if I owe money on any form of loan? Presumably, they either make arrangements to keep paying, wherever they happen to move to, or pay of the balance.

I've already paid off my student loans, so DO NOT tell me that all I had to do was get on a plane.

It's a bit different when the loan repayment is contingent on how much British income you have - this is not how Canada does it. If you emigrate, x% of 0 is 0. My point was I think they'll have to fix this, because it does not seem well thought-through, but it looks hard to fix without putting unreasonable restrictions on people's movements.

Fri, 2010-12-10 18:17

#70

Fidel

I think they should all take up Scottish citizenship and apply to go to university there. No tuits in Scotland apparently.

Sat, 2010-12-11 02:04

#71

NDPP

Peter Linebaugh: Passing the Torch

http://www.counterpunch.org/linebaugh12102010.html

"In October 1795 whle riding to Parliament in a glass enclosed royal carriage, King George III became the target of a crowd protesting war and demanding bread. Like Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the UK throne, and his consort, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, riding to the theatre in the glass-enclosed Rolls Royce, royalty embodies the soereignty which led to war and hardship..

Enemies of the people? Yes, this was class war a la 1796

'All that is possessed by those who have more than their individual share in the goods of society is theft and usurpation. That it is therefore just to take it back from them.''

Still true, let's do it!

Sat, 2010-12-11 12:50

#72

Catchfire

What we're arguing against and what we're fighting for

Quote:
There is a big problem. People understand this might require a big solution. And so they accept policies they would never normally countenance - policies not designed to solve the problem, but to radically change society in a way no one ever voted for.

And like this sleight of hand, Osborne's "solutions" too are nothing new. The Conservative students I studied with at university - the generation who were born under Thatcher, and are now the researchers and aids to this government - were arguing for 30% spending cuts long before the recession. And their predecessors did too - in fact, in 1910, the Conservative Party brought down the Government rather than allow the people's budget, the foundation of the welfare state, to pass. And they have used every opportunity since to rid this country of what they see as a dangerous socialist experiment.

And this "solution" is, of course, nothing of the sort. The idea that you solve a deficit caused by unemployment by cutting jobs is economically illiterate. Don't take it from me - look at what is being said by the world's leading economists, including most recent Nobel prize winners: Britain is embarking on a radical economic experiment which is not only un-necessary, but probably going to make the recession worse.

Sun, 2010-12-12 11:48

#73

Wilf Day

The new Facebook group Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn't has 79,410 members already, another hundred every few minutes. It started, of course, only five days ago, and claims to be "Fastest growing Facebook page in the UK."

Sun, 2010-12-12 12:35

#74

Wilf Day

Wilf Day wrote:

The new Facebook group Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn't has 79,410 members already, another hundred every few minutes. It started, of course, only five days ago, and claims to be "Fastest growing Facebook page in the UK."

Now 80,001.

Sun, 2010-12-12 12:50

#75

abnormal

Fidel wrote:

I think they should all take up Scottish citizenship and apply to go to university there. No tuits in Scotland apparently.

Dug up an old email from a (Brit) friend of mine:

Quote:
[XXX] was interested in U of Edinburgh and St Andrews, she visited and decided she wouldn't apply but here's what I learned from a former board member to one of the two universities.

There are 4 groups of students which apply to this particular university.
They are admitted in the following order.

1. Any Scottish student who can successfully fill out the application and graduate from Secondary School will be admitted and they pay nothing. They are the least competitive students
2. Students from the US, they are charged the most and are very welcome as they effectively subsidize the next two groups however their numbers are held to a percentage of total admitted students, as I recall it was under 20%. They are competitive students.
3. Students from the EU (not including the UK). They pay less than the US students but more than the UK students who paid the then UK rate. These are more competitive than the US students as a general rule.
4. UK students. These are the most competitive students admitted, usually they had also applied to Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE.

Fantastic schools, wish she had gone to one or the other, would have saved me a bit of money

Instead his daughter is in one of the US Ivy League schools (where tuition is $50K a year).

Sun, 2010-12-12 14:26

#76

Catchfire

That's basically it, Sean. Except I think it's a bit more insidious than that. If Stephen Gordon were still here, he'd point out that the new plan is actually more "progressive," in that the poorest won't pay and the richer will pay more. That's "progressive." But what actually is at stake is a fundamental shift in social mores and values: away from education as a public good and further toward a model which sees education as nothing more than a means to earn, as an "investment." The cruel irony of such a shift is that by definition, education becomes a privilege of the rich anyway, not a right for all.

Sun, 2010-12-12 15:36

#77

Catchfire

Sun, 2010-12-12 17:55

#78

Sean in Ottawa

A_J wrote:

Catchfire wrote:

abnormal, with respect, you have no idea what you're talking about, with regard to billion (irrespective of your experience, that's simply not the case in Britain), or, more importantly, with the education cuts. Read the thread and then make demonstrably false claims like "No one's going to be prevented from going to university because they can't afford the tuition fees."

Everything Abnormal posted is correct.

BIS - Reform for higher education and student finance

Schools may start charging as much as 6,000 GBP

They may seek permission to charge as high as 9,000 GBP - but will have to undertake to increase access

Government will loan students the money they need

Loans only repaid once graduates start earning above 21,000 GBP, by repaying 9% of their surplus income

Interest is charged on loans, but is variable with income

Loans are written off after 30 years

Grants available for lower-income earners (families below 42,000 GBP, extra for those below 25,000 GBP)

This is my understanding of the tuition/loan/repayment scheme:

Let's say school costs as much as 40,000 GBP (4 years at 9,000 GBP, plus living expenses and little income earned over that period - probably not a typical scenario), and a student graduates and starts earning 30,000 GBP.

Each year they repay 9% of 9,000 GBP, or 810 GBP (or 3% of their total income). Of course, at that rate, it would take 50 years to pay of the 40,000 GBP (more for interest), but the loan goes away after 30 years, regardless of what's been repaid (in this case, they would have paid 24,300 GBP, plus interest, assuming they start earning above the threshold right away on graduation).

If they got a raise, to say 50,000 GBP, repayments are recalculated to 9% of 29,000 GBP, or 2,610 GBP (or 5.2% of their income), and the loan would be repaid in full after 15-20 years.

At least that's what I understand from what I've read. If there are further details or I have misunderstood something, let me know. The only major problem I see is that it doesn't seem to address how they plan to deal with students who move away.

This is what I understand from the above:

There is a restructuring from a more progressive system to an extremely regressive system. Put in place at the same time are a series of measure to make the new regressive system sting a little less so that it can go through.

Later subsequent attacks on those measures can strip them away.

The essential strategy is a familiar one-- you replace a system with a mechanism that allows for a complete change and put in a dam to prevent its effects from being immediately debatable in order to assure passage. Then, once this is done the dam can be opened/dismantled bit by bit.

This is an understanding of what must be done in the short term to achieve more incremental change over a few years and is a very clever way of hiding the actual effects f what is being proposed it is extremely dishonest.

If you look at what the government are trying to do you can see that the endgame is not the regime that will exist next year for tuition fees but the one that can be created as those further remaining protections come down.

The same process is being used here in a number of areas-- the marketization of healthcare for example is being done by a series of set-up policies such as activity-based funding that seem to have little effect on the public until the actual changes can be made but by then the battle will already be lost.

Smart and nasty.

Sun, 2010-12-12 17:59

#79

Sean in Ottawa

Catchfire wrote:

That's basically it, Sean. Except I think it's a bit more insidious than that. If Stephen Gordon were still here, he'd point out that the new plan is actually more "progressive," in that the poorest won't pay and the richer will pay more. That's "progressive." But what actually is at stake is a fundamental shift in social mores and values: away from education as a public good and further toward a model which sees education as nothing more than a means to earn, as an "investment." The cruel irony of such a shift is that by definition, education becomes a privilege of the rich anyway, not a right for all.

Indeed and the right are good at this framing to one direction with content going the other way--

People here will recognize the names of Acts like The Environmental protection Act or in Ontario the Tenant Protection Act as the most anti-environment and anti-tenant versions of those acts renamed in order to fool people. You would think it would not work but it does.

At first it appears progressive but that proposal in the UK is designed to allow an endgame that is anything but-- and that endgame is not far away.

Sun, 2010-12-12 20:25

#80

Fidel

To be fair to Stephen Gordon, I think he would suggest that rich kids pay more regardless. And whenever the NDP or a coalition of the left is able to win federal power, core funding to PSE, which was removed by the federal Liberals in the 1990s, should be replaced and forgiveable loans? grants and other subsidies extended to students from low income families as well as low income students in general.

But the net effect for even this approach until such a time as when Bay Street's spell on Ottawa can be broken, would be that everyone would pay more for PSE rich and poor alike and the total student debt load would only increase as is the case now.

In related news a Liberal dominated senate decided in recent years that the waiting period for students with oppressive debt loads to declare bankruptcy should be reduced from 10 years to 7. Student unions and lawyers representing students interests wanted it reducing to just 2 years. And their excellent argument for doing so was presented to a Senate committee hearing on the matter. The waiting period was still only reduced to 7 years. That's still oppressive in my opinion.

The feds are funding Canada student loans through a bond market at something like 4% interest rates, by what i know, and charging students several percentage points above that. Canadian students are paying highest interest rates in the world on their student loans. The student loan system in Canada is even more broken than it is in most other western countries.

Sun, 2010-12-12 21:22

#81

A_J

Catchfire wrote:

But what actually is at stake is a fundamental shift in social mores and values: away from education as a public good and further toward a model which sees education as nothing more than a means to earn, as an "investment." The cruel irony of such a shift is that by definition, education becomes a privilege of the rich anyway, not a right for all.

But it would be just as fair to say the opposite.

It only becomes a means to an end and an investment if that's what a student wants from their education. If someone wants to go through school and learn just for the sake of learning and then take a job earning 21,000 GBP or less they effectively don't pay anything for their education. 9% of nothing over 30 years is nothing. If they want to go to school in order to earn much much more (i.e. if they do in fact treat education as an investment) they will end up paying for it accordingly.

Plus, it's hard to see it as a "privilege of the rich" when a) only those who later earn a decent salary even have to pay anything and b) the rich will be paying more.

I know I'd love to be paying only 9% of my income over $34,000 (the rough Canadian equivalent to 21,000 GBP), instead of the 23% of my total income that I'm paying right now.

Sean in Ottawa however does make a very good point. What is being promoted right now mixes a lot of bad (higher tuition) with a lot of good (tuition is deferred and based on later income and ability to pay). I think it comes out as a wash, if not actually a lot better. But, as Sean points out, it likely won't always be this way - and we know the good measures will be the most likely to be cut back, not the bad.

Sun, 2010-12-12 23:02

#82

Fidel

A_J wrote:
If someone wants to go through school and learn just for the sake of learning and then take a job earning 21,000 GBP or less they effectively don't pay anything for their education.

But very many low income Canadians must go into significant debt to finance PSE education. If they default on loans, it means years of phone calls from debt collectors, and no more Canada student loans for them. That stops many from pursuing advanced degrees and where the most lucrative job opportunities are. IOWs the best jobs are reserved for sons and daughters of rich people and however many ordinary fish are able to swim upstream to those opportunities.

Everything is easier for the middle and upper class under the neoliberal setup in this country.

Edited to add: If I was a British student or aspiring student, I'd take up permanent Scottish citizenship and go to school there. Work there for a few years and-or permanently. Toddle off to Scotland, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark or wherever, and to hell with England until they come to their senses. And to think that the rest of Europe once looked up to England as a great social democracy. By gum!

Sun, 2010-12-12 23:30

#83

Wilf Day

84,223 people like Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn't.

When will they hit 100,000? But they've a way to go before they match Canada's 225,000 Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.

Mon, 2010-12-13 09:10

#84

Caissa

Post-secondary education fees should be abolished. Education at all levels should be funded through a progressive income tax system. Fees are not only physical barriers but often psychological barriers to members of the working class.

Mon, 2010-12-13 11:06

#85

Wilf Day

Caissa wrote:

Post-secondary education fees should be abolished. Education at all levels should be funded through a progressive income tax system. Fees are not only physical barriers but often psychological barriers to members of the working class.

That indeed was the Lib Dem platform last year, which was why they did very well in university towns.

Mon, 2010-12-13 11:28

#86

Fidel

What would William Beveridge say?

Mon, 2010-12-13 13:13

#87

Catchfire

Mon, 2010-12-13 13:28

#88

Caissa

Amazing what can be done with Photoshop, Catchfire.

Mon, 2010-12-13 18:13

#89

Catchfire

Quote:
David Cameron is ready to parachute the Lib Dem leader into Brussels as Britain’s EU Commissioner amid fears Mr Clegg will struggle to hold his seat as an MP at the next election, say Downing Street sources.

The Deputy PM would replace Labour peer Baroness Ashton in the post which carries a £239,000 salary and perks package worth another £100,000 a year.

The Foreign Affairs chief is due to stand down with the other EU Commissioners in October 2014 – just ahead of the next general election in May 2015, though there is speculation she could quit sooner.

A Downing Street source revealed: “David Cameron owes Nick Clegg a huge debt for coming into the coalition and taking a massive personal hit over tuition fees.

“If it looks like he will lose his Sheffield Hallam seat, there will be an emergency exit strategy which could see him land one of the big jobs in Brussels.

Mon, 2010-12-13 18:49

#90

abnormal

Fidel wrote:
The feds are funding Canada student loans through a bond market at something like 4% interest rates, by what i know, and charging students several percentage points above that. Canadian students are paying highest interest rates in the world on their student loans. The student loan system in Canada is even more broken than it is in most other western countries.

The difference is that no interest is payable while you're still a student. I'll gladly be proven wrong but elsewhere interest starts accruing from the day you get the cash. In my case, I didn't pay any interest until I finished grad school. But it gets better. The student loan program required that I pay interest at the lowest rate going - at the time that meant that the after tax interest rate on my savings account was significantly higher than the rate I was paying on the loan.

Tue, 2010-12-14 08:41

#91

Fidel

According to [url=http://www.cfs-fcee.ca/html/english/research/factsheets/CFS-Fact%20Sheet...(pdf)[/url], the federal government spends more on education related tax breaks for families earning over $70,000 than it does on needs based grants. They are helping those who need financial assistance the least.

Quote:
80% Student debt reduction that could be realised by converting tax credits into needs-based grants

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/only-a-quarter-of-all-grad... a quarter of all graduates will pay off loans[/url] (U.K) The rest in debt for life as Government's own figures suggest new university fees system is unsustainable.

There is only one Tory-Whig Dem solution: rollback subsidies for education and shovel more money to High Street bankers.

Tue, 2010-12-14 11:37

#92

A_J

The Telegraph - National Union of Students secretly urged Government to make deep cuts in student grants

Quote:

. . .

The NUS has helped focus student anger and Aaron Porter, its president, has been the Coalition’s most vocal critic, frequently accusing ministers of betraying students.

The Daily Telegraph has seen emails from Mr Porter and his team in which the NUS leadership urged ministers to cut grants and loans as an alternative to raising tuition fees.

In private talks in October, the NUS tried to persuade ministers at the Department for Business to enact their planned 15 per cent cut in higher education funding without lifting the cap on fees.

In one email to the department’s officials, dated Oct 1, Mr Porter suggested that £800 million should be “deducted from the grants pot” over four years. That would cut total spending on grants by 61 per cent. Mr Porter also proposed the “introduction of a real rate of interest” for student loans.

In an email the following day, Graeme Wise, an NUS political officer, suggested that ministers seeking cuts should start with the “student support” package of grants and loans.

. . .

The NUS plans also called for £2.4 billion to be cut from the universities’ teaching budget over four years, a reduction of 48 per cent.

A Coalition source said the emails undermined the union’s credibility, saying: “It’s astonishing that Aaron Porter and the NUS should attack the Government’s proposals for being unfair when they propose to drastically cut support for low-income students.”

. . .

Tue, 2010-12-14 11:44

#93

Fidel

And we know that Tory governments always kow tow to unions in general.

Sun, 2010-12-19 09:24

#94

Wilf Day

Q) After the next election, what will be the difference between the LibDems and a bus?

A) A bus will have seats.

Sun, 2010-12-19 09:34

#95

Fidel

HA! Good one, Wilf.

Quote:
"Tuition fees are wrong... they need to be abolished.

I want to do it as soon as possible." - Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader, 2009

Sun, 2010-12-19 19:29

#96

Catchfire

Ha! In more sober, serious news:

General secretary of Unite: Unions, get set for battle

Quote:

Britain's students have certainly put the trade union movement on the spot. Their mass protests against the tuition fees increase have refreshed the political parts a hundred debates, conferences and resolutions could not reach.

We know the vast rise in tuition fees is only the down payment on the Con-Dem package of cuts, charges and job losses to make us pay for the bankers' crisis. The magnificent students' movement urgently needs to find a wider echo if the government is to be stopped.

The response of trade unions will now be critical. While it is easy to dismiss "general strike now" rhetoric from the usual quarters, we have to be preparing for battle. It is our responsibility not just to our members but to the wider society that we defend our welfare state and our industrial future against this unprecedented assault.

Mon, 2011-01-10 17:18

#97

Catchfire

Dr. Uncut - Research students analyse cuts in Higher Education (Warning: Facebook link)

Quote:
So far, the debate on the increase in tuition fees and cuts in Higher Education has focused mainly on the consequences for undergraduate students. We can all imagine the impact on undergraduates of being saddled with a debt that even the government admits most will not pay back, even over 30 years. However, the government’s vandal measures will have a knock-on effect far beyond that. We believe that the specific problems which will be faced by research students highlight the broader impact of cuts on the way that universities will (or won’t) work in future. For research students, the government’s attack on public universities will bring about a growth in tuition fees and an increase in job insecurity and labour casualization, and will make it virtually impossible to find a job in academia. This is the result of an ideological – not a pragmatic – stance, which views education as a commodity to be bought and sold, rather than a citizen’s right. We must unite and challenge this reduction of education to a marketable commodity. Let’s reassert the public, communal and social significance of our activity as free-thinking researchers! In the words of John Dewey: “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

Fees. At the moment, fees for postgraduate students are uncapped. Nevertheless, fees for PhD students are set at the same level almost everywhere, on the basis of the recommendations of the Research Councils. This means that British and EU research students are generally asked to pay some £3,300 a year, while fees for non-EU students can be around £12-15,000 a year. Notably, this amount more-or-less matches the fees set for undergraduate courses. It is very likely that an increase in the latter will result in an increase for postgraduate students as well. Furthermore, graduate fees will doubtless be further increased to soften the blow of the near-total loss of funding for all but a few areas of research. PhD students are a valuable resource to university departments, often contributing actively to the research community by publishing articles, presenting papers, doing research for their universities, and supporting full-time staff. The importance of research students to their host institutions is demonstrated by the fact that the number of successful research students and studentships awarded was one of the assessment criteria in the Research Assessment Exercise 2008. This reflected the fact that research students were a source of external funding, as well as providing income through fees. The economic value of PhD students to their university has led to pressure to take on ever-increasing numbers of doctoral researchers, with the result that the quality of provision suffers. Currently, postgraduate fees cover very little tuition, as the nature of PhDs means that doctoral students – particularly in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences – tend to study alone. Fees therefore cover supervision from an established academic and access to university facilities. While many supervisors work hard to ensure that their students get all the support they need, others have been pressured to take on more students than they are able to accommodate. This looks set to go from bad to worse as universities look for ways to cover the shortfall left by the funding cuts. In the very near future, students will be graduating from their first degree with almost £30,000 of debt from fees alone. The prospect of that debt more than doubling will deter all but a tiny minority from postgraduate study. As a result, academia will once again become an elitist bastion of privilege, inaccessible to all but the select few. This is a retrograde step that stifles aspiration and thwarts social mobility.

Labour casualization. Many PhD students are already employed as cheap labour, working as teaching assistants or sessional lecturers in their departments. Research students can be easily employed as low-cost replacements for full-time lecturers: a phenomenon that is already widespread in the United States. We have to be aware that in the coming years this situation will worsen as a result of the cuts. Universities will see in research students “throwaway” academics to employ temporarily in undergraduate teaching and then to get rid of once they complete their doctoral studies. It is true that teaching experience might be beneficial for research students in the long term; however, this is true only as long as there are work opportunities around. If teaching done by PhD students becomes a way to avoid recruiting lecturers, it is detrimental to PhD students themselves, as it substantially hinders their chance of getting a job after completing their PhDs. In general terms, lecturers working on a sessional/part-time basis have less protection, fewer rights and less stability than people working on full-time contracts. We need to make these linkages between job opportunities and teaching by research students very clear, so that we do not ourselves become instruments of university managements in their dirty battle to minimize the cost of labour.

Job opportunities. The 40% cut in university spending cannot but result in job redundancies all across the country. Entire departments and institutions will default and be forced to close down. According to the University and College Union, some 49 of England’s 130 universities are at risk of closing or being forced to merge as a result of the cuts. In addition, we already know that from 2012, UK universities will accept some 10,000 fewer students than in the past. This crisis will hit particularly those working in the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, areas that will experience a 100% cut in State support for teaching. As a result, many mid-career academics will be made redundant and forced to reapply for lower level positions. This will result in a “waterfall effect”, squeezing young researchers out of academia. At the moment, it seems that many of us have not yet realized the scope and implications of these measures. To state it very loudly and clearly: for researchers at an early stage of their career, it will be virtually impossible to get a job in academia in the coming years. It doesn't matter how brilliant you think you are, these cuts will affect everyone in HE – undergraduates, postgraduates and staff members. We must stop thinking that we can get through this thanks to individual skill or verve. The real struggle is not an individual competition to stand out among other researchers, but a collective struggle to defend publicly-funded universities and freedom of research. We are a generation of young researchers with no future ahead of us, if the government’s plans are implemented. If we really believe that what we are doing is worthwhile – not only in personal or economic, but also and mainly in societal terms – we have to say it now, and we have to say it loud.

In addition, these measures are very likely to discourage overseas students from embarking on research degrees in the United Kingdom. This goes against the recommendations made to the government by the independent report “One step beyond: making the most of postgraduate education”, which stressed that, “As other countries invest heavily in their own postgraduate provision, the UK will need to work hard to maintain its competitive advantage. This will mean doing more to strengthen and promote UK postgraduate education on an international stage and to attract the very best students from around the world.” It would be pleonastic to point out that this ambitious goal cannot be met by reducing funding to higher education and cutting employment prospects for UK-based research students.

Although the focus here is on research students, we explicitly refuse a corporatist approach to the problems facing academia. On the contrary, we consider the aforementioned issues to be part of a wider attack on people’s rights and the welfare state in Britain. This government is putting forward an ideological view of society in which private profit is the normative principle. This implies the criminalization of all those groups – such as unemployed or disabled people – whose very existence debunks the myth that a profit-led society is the most beneficial to its members. For academics, this also implies that in the future the freedom of research will be under threat, and entire “non-profitable” research areas will be shut. “Priorities” for research funding will be set by the Research Councils according to apparently neutral, economic – but actually ideological – criteria. Many of us will be easily portrayed as nothing more than idle scroungers, as a burden for society. Thus, we firmly believe that PhD students should take part in the general mobilization against government cuts, rather than isolating themselves. More specifically, we invite everyone to take part in the next student protest, which is supported by Unite and GMB and will take place on 29 January, and in the national March for the Alternative called by the Trades Union Congress on 26 March.

If they say cut back, research students say: fight back!

(this text has been written collectively by a group of research students involved in the campaign Never Send to Know for Whom the Bell Tolls. Phds Unite Against the Cuts!

It has to be treated under a Creative Common license BY-NC-SA 3.0)

It's not 1968, it's 2010!

Tue, 2011-02-08 17:28

#98

Catchfire

Revealed: 50% of Tory funds come from City

Quote:
Financiers in the City of London provided more than 50% of the funding for the Tories last year, new research revealed last night, prompting claims that the party is in thrall to the banks.

A study by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism has found that the City accounted for £11.4m of Tory funding – 50.79% of its total haul – in 2010, a general election year. This compared with £2.7m, or 25% of its funding, in 2005, when David Cameron became party leader.

The research also shows that nearly 60 donors gave more than £50,000 to the Tories last year, entitling each of them to a face-to-face meeting with leading members of the party up to and including Cameron.

The study shows the impact that Michael Spencer has had on party funding. He was appointed by Cameron as Tory treasurer in an attempt to reduce the influence of Lord Ashcroft, the party's former deputy chairman. Spencer was asked by Cameron to increase the number of relatively small donations of £50,000 to curb the influence of large donors such as Ashcroft, and for these smaller donations the City was place to look.

Mon, 2011-09-05 13:50

#99

Catchfire

Students condemn decision to charge £36k fees

Quote:

Student leaders at the University of Edinburgh have said that the decision by the University to charge students from the rest of the UK £36,000 for a degree will be disastrous for the institution and for students.

The University has announced that from 2012/13 it will charge students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland £9000 a year to study in Edinburgh, making a degree at the University more expensive than studying anywhere else in the country. EUSA is concerned that the decision will lead to fewer students from elsewhere in the UK coming to study at Edinburgh....

“Today is a dark day for students. We believe the University has made the wrong choice in charging students more than anywhere else in the UK for a degree. Indeed, at a level of £36,000, an Edinburgh degree is now one of the most expensive in Europe if you're a student from England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Mon, 2011-09-05 15:41

#100

Catchfire

Boom Boom wrote:
I got my two degrees and paid them both off within five years of graduation - but that was a long time ago. If education is this expensive today, I think I'd become a truck driver instead. I can't see going into that kind of debt before actually getting a permanent job!!!

Boom Boom, we should have had this conversation 14 years ago. ;)

Mon, 2011-09-05 17:08

#101

Boom Boom

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