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Kilkrazy wrote:A couple of days ago it was announced that the housing benefit cap will not be introduced for current claimants until April 2012.

The mood in the country is supportive of these housing benefit cuts. The government should take the tide at its flood, IMO.

Shame. I think the entirety of the north of England laughed its collective ass of when they heard the cap was £400 a week. I've never paid that much for a month!

More money to education?

Do we really need to support more students getting poor third class degrees in 'media studies' or 'creative writing?'

Take out the majority of pointless degree courses and you would end up saving a heck of a lot more money.

I'm all for empowering the citizenry, but, a degree regarding the agnostic principles of prousts life and works is just as unlikely to put food on your plate as being an uneducated buffoon!

Mr. Burning wrote:More money to education?

Do we really need to support more students getting poor third class degrees in 'media studies' or 'creative writing?'

Take out the majority of pointless degree courses and you would end up saving a heck of a lot more money.

The problem is because they had the aim of 50% going through university they couldn't support them all. When my dad went to university they introduced grants, it allowed him to leave a working class background and enter a middle class education and profession. Otherwise he couldn't have gone. But now they want everyone to go, and it means they can pay for no one. Which now means people have to pay again, and ultimately it's the poorest that lose out. This is a backwards step, money should not be a bar to education if you can the ability. Remember, people who get high education get better jobs and thus pay more tax and bring money into the country, so it all goes around in circles.

Or at least that was true. They spin out this line that graduates all earn more money so should expect to pay through a loan. Maybe that was true when 5-10% of people went to Uni and all were going into the best professions, but it doesn't when 50% go, a lot of graduates simply end up in poor jobs unrelated to their degree, they have a debt to pay off and are three years behind on experience compared to those that simply left education at 18. The other thing is that the government hide unemployment behind education. Lots of young people have struggled to find work for years, so they are encouraged to stay in education. In higher education, you get a state loan and pay for your own unemployment for three years instead of the state giving you money. Unless the degree creates genuine prospects for yourself, you've been hoodwinked into paying for your own unemployment.

The surge in people going to university has resulted in a boom in the so called "mickey mouse degrees", but lets call them soft subjects. Medicine, science, engineering and the like have not grown with the surge in numbers going to university, it's all going into easier cheaper courses where they cram the students in and make money off them. It's so bad now that these courses like media studies and theatre are so popular that universities favour them over scientific subjects which is why chemistry departments and the like have been closing down. It's a disaster, created by the drive to push more people into university with false promises of highly paid jobs and the increasing commercial nature of universities looking to make money from high student numbers. You see this reflected the resistance of universities to throw out people who cheat on exams and the like. It's money that overrides everything.

I take issue with the indiscriminate way that people get money for doing undergraduate degrees, you get LEA support for fees and a loan virtually no questions asked. You can do anything, regardless of how daft or of the possibilities of serious employment afterwards. But a postgraduate degree, say a Masters, you are stuffed. You can show them you're a proven student with high marks, but it doesn't matter. You can't have LEA help with fees and you can't get a student loan, you either have to hope for "Career Development Loan", which is much less favourable and comes from a standard bank and which is typically only available to those doing high income law and medicine subjects (not other sciences and seemingly socially worthy subjects), or you have to hope to secure funding from an independent body (highly competitive as there's little going around) or you have to fund it yourself. And paying for fees and living costs to do a full time degree is something you can either afford or not. My parents gave me money from their savings to do my masters because otherwise I couldn't do it.

With so many people having degrees there's no way to stand out, apart from doing a postgraduate degree, and there's the ceiling. They are happy for people to get free money and loans to do undergrad degrees, but take a proven student who wants to go on in a subject like science and they simply tell you that either you cough up or go away. What's the bloody point in that? It's not productive or efficient. But if I'm right about the way they treat undergrad degrees as a way to keep young people out of trouble and unemployment with a loan they have to pay back then it makes sense. They don't care if only a minority have access to postgraduate education and can get those super jobs, because those jobs are in the minority anyway. The idea largely promoted by New Labour that degrees give people better jobs is a fiction that has lured millions into pointless debt, bloated universities, killed essential departments that are not the easy profit spinners and rendered the 'value' of a degree nearly meaningless.

^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

Kilkrazy wrote:^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

x3

Ahtman wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

x3

X4.

My personal problem with this increase in fees is not so much that it is an increase, which I could understand and appreciate (after all, there's debts to be paid and, let's face it, money doesn't grow on trees) but that for many good universities it is effectively tripling overnight. This is a huge increase, and were I not safe from the fees (by a year), I would not be able to afford to go to university - to do History, incidentally. I'm aware that times are hard, but this is extreme, even given that.

Perhaps I'm being naive here, but then whatever, I'm one of these "Know-Nothing" students people seem to patronise so much.

Good debate gentlemen, it's definitely a tough situation as these students have been planning on lower fees and tuition, but that is the risk you take when the Government has this much power over something like Tuition.

For me, I kind of have become disenfranchised with the concept of "a college degree instantly equals success", yes it helps exapnd opportunities, but it's no guarantor of success.

I find it pretty crappy that these miscreants desecrated Nelson's Column (of course they probably dont even know who he was or why he was important).

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

x3

X4.

My personal problem with this increase in fees is not so much that it is an increase, which I could understand and appreciate (after all, there's debts to be paid and, let's face it, money doesn't grow on trees) but that for many good universities it is effectively tripling overnight. This is a huge increase, and were I not safe from the fees (by a year), I would not be able to afford to go to university...

Why? You don't have to pay the fees up front. Perhaps you're just not that committed to reading history?

djones520 wrote:The US system makes education available for anyone who really wishes to strive for it. Scholarships, grants, tax breaks, etc... You work for it, you put yourself out there to get it, and you will. For those who won't, they'll take the other jobs. And now the government hasn't dished out all that money for people who were looking for an excuse to spend 4 years getting drunk on the government dime.

Umm, you still have to work to qualify for acceptance into public university. The only difference is that a portion of your population that might be talented enough, will be unable to attend because of the high cost of tuition.


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Kilkrazy wrote:At the moment people are discouraged from these professions because they are harder to do than meeja studies, and pay less well. Is it really a good idea to add higher course fees, and a special graduate tax on top?

We also risk reducing the talent pool to people whose daddies are rich.

Except that you don't start paying it back until you start earning money. And once a doctor or lawyer starts earning loads of money on the back of his publically provided education, shouldn't he repay some of it?


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rubiksnoob wrote:In theory at least, wouldn't cutting welfare to increase funding for education be perfectly feasible since more education equates to more people with higher paying jobs, reducing the percentage of the population reliant upon welfare?

Or does that just reveal my terrible understanding of economics?

It would, but there's a time lag involved. Students wouldn't be out getting those high paying jobs until three or four years down the track.

There's also a problem assuming that having a skilled person means there'll be a skilled job for them to do.


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Mr. Burning wrote:More money to education?

Do we really need to support more students getting poor third class degrees in 'media studies' or 'creative writing?'

Take out the majority of pointless degree courses and you would end up saving a heck of a lot more money.

I'm all for empowering the citizenry, but, a degree regarding the agnostic principles of prousts life and works is just as unlikely to put food on your plate as being an uneducated buffoon!

Higher education is not just a means to getting a higher paying job. Studying literature or politics or something similar is unlikely to get you a high paying job, but still matters to society.

That's not to be confused with media studies and the like, which are just junk degrees, that don't produce jobs, and don't produce academic work of any value.

sebster wrote:

djones520 wrote:The US system makes education available for anyone who really wishes to strive for it. Scholarships, grants, tax breaks, etc... You work for it, you put yourself out there to get it, and you will. For those who won't, they'll take the other jobs. And now the government hasn't dished out all that money for people who were looking for an excuse to spend 4 years getting drunk on the government dime.

Umm, you still have to work to qualify for acceptance into public university. The only difference is that a portion of your population that might be talented enough, will be unable to attend because of the high cost of tuition.

Student Loans? FAFSA? There's a copious amount of ways to get money for school.

Howard A Treesong wrote:The problem is because they had the aim of 50% going through university they couldn't support them all. When my dad went to university they introduced grants, it allowed him to leave a working class background and enter a middle class education and profession. Otherwise he couldn't have gone. But now they want everyone to go, and it means they can pay for no one. Which now means people have to pay again, and ultimately it's the poorest that lose out. This is a backwards step, money should not be a bar to education if you can the ability. Remember, people who get high education get better jobs and thus pay more tax and bring money into the country, so it all goes around in circles.

Well said, though I'd just like to correct you on a couple of things. This plan wasn't a particularly New Labour or even a particularly English thing, the idea that you can build a high paying economy by producing loads of highly skilled people, then figuring the high skilled jobs would just appear was pretty much a worldwide mistake. Most developed countries piled money into expanding tertiary education for this reason.

The second part is that you assume some kind of Machiavellian intent behind it all. Having worked in government, and now working at a university, I can tell you that there is no cynical motive. It's really just the combination of different groups all working from their own points of view, producing an overall system that made no sense. Politicians wanted economic growth, and thought the best way to do this would be to increase the number of people with degrees. The universities simply want to educate, so they'll always accept more funding to teach more students. Business (or any other faculty) is looking to fight the constantly raising cost of academic salaries, so it fights to take as much of that money as it can... but it looks at the quality of the new kids and their academic records, and there's no way they'd get through an Finance or Economics degree. So it offers a major in Administration or Marketing or something else that's completely softball.

The result is a lot of money and time getting spent, with no real benefit to anyone.


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Stormrider wrote:Student Loans? FAFSA? There's a copious amount of ways to get money for school.

Do you think, looking purely at the financials of the situation, that it is as easy for a kid whose parents are on minimum wage to gain a tertiary education as it is for a kid coming from a middle class background?

sebster wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:The problem is because they had the aim of 50% going through university they couldn't support them all. When my dad went to university they introduced grants, it allowed him to leave a working class background and enter a middle class education and profession. Otherwise he couldn't have gone. But now they want everyone to go, and it means they can pay for no one. Which now means people have to pay again, and ultimately it's the poorest that lose out. This is a backwards step, money should not be a bar to education if you can the ability. Remember, people who get high education get better jobs and thus pay more tax and bring money into the country, so it all goes around in circles.

Well said, though I'd just like to correct you on a couple of things. This plan wasn't a particularly New Labour or even a particularly English thing, the idea that you can build a high paying economy by producing loads of highly skilled people, then figuring the high skilled jobs would just appear was pretty much a worldwide mistake. Most developed countries piled money into expanding tertiary education for this reason.

The second part is that you assume some kind of Machiavellian intent behind it all. Having worked in government, and now working at a university, I can tell you that there is no cynical motive. It's really just the combination of different groups all working from their own points of view, producing an overall system that made no sense. Politicians wanted economic growth, and thought the best way to do this would be to increase the number of people with degrees. The universities simply want to educate, so they'll always accept more funding to teach more students. Business (or any other faculty) is looking to fight the constantly raising cost of academic salaries, so it fights to take as much of that money as it can... but it looks at the quality of the new kids and their academic records, and there's no way they'd get through an Finance or Economics degree. So it offers a major in Administration or Marketing or something else that's completely softball.

The result is a lot of money and time getting spent, with no real benefit to anyone.


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Stormrider wrote:Student Loans? FAFSA? There's a copious amount of ways to get money for school.

Do you think, looking purely at the financials of the situation, that it is as easy for a kid whose parents are on minimum wage to gain a tertiary education as it is for a kid coming from a middle class background?

In the US, if you are: poor, a minority (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) or disabled it is really easy to get scholarships as long as your grades meet the standards of said scholarships (which are usually always lower just so the school can feather their cap by having a diverse student body).

Albatross wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

x3

X4.

My personal problem with this increase in fees is not so much that it is an increase, which I could understand and appreciate (after all, there's debts to be paid and, let's face it, money doesn't grow on trees) but that for many good universities it is effectively tripling overnight. This is a huge increase, and were I not safe from the fees (by a year), I would not be able to afford to go to university...

Why? You don't have to pay the fees up front. Perhaps you're just not that committed to reading history?

Maybe so, but I still have to pay them. As you would quite rightly point out, that money's got to be paid back, and despite all the commitment in the world I cannot pay back £36,000 back (not including living and accomodation costs) if it is not within my budget to do so. The new legislation seems to assume that I, University Student A, will immediately go into a high-paying job at the end of my degree, which is of course simply not the case; even the courses considered to be vital don't lead to a great job instantly.
Besides, my plan was to say "sod it" and get an OU degree if I didn't get into a university this year. I did have a backup plan, you know.


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Stormrider wrote:Student Loans? FAFSA? There's a copious amount of ways to get money for school.

Do you think, looking purely at the financials of the situation, that it is as easy for a kid whose parents are on minimum wage to gain a tertiary education as it is for a kid coming from a middle class background?

Stormrider wrote:In the US, if you are: poor, a minority (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) or disabled it is really easy to get scholarships as long as your grades meet the standards of said scholarships (which are usually always lower just so the school can feather their cap by having a diverse student body).

Ah, but this is not the US, is it? Things are a little different here. Scholarships are bloomin' hard to come by unless you're going into very specific careers.

Stormrider wrote:In the US, if you are: poor, a minority (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) or disabled it is really easy to get scholarships as long as your grades meet the standards of said scholarships (which are usually always lower just so the school can feather their cap by having a diverse student body).

Scholarships do minimise the problem to some degree, but your claim that people from an economically disadvantaged can 'easily' access scholarships is extremely unlikely to be true. If it were, we'd see students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds attending tertiary education in more or less the same numbers as they are in countries where tuition is heavily subsidised or built around 'pay once you're earning scheme'. They aren't.

sebster wrote:

Stormrider wrote:In the US, if you are: poor, a minority (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) or disabled it is really easy to get scholarships as long as your grades meet the standards of said scholarships (which are usually always lower just so the school can feather their cap by having a diverse student body).

Scholarships do minimise the problem to some degree, but your claim that people from an economically disadvantaged can 'easily' access scholarships is extremely unlikely to be true. If it were, we'd see students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds attending tertiary education in more or less the same numbers as they are in countries where tuition is heavily subsidised or built around 'pay once you're earning scheme'. They aren't.

It's called one word: desire. Most of these potential students you speak of couldn't be bothered with trying to help themselves. There's so many opportunities to get to college, but you have to want it.

As for subsidy, there's lots of state funded Community Colleges and many larger Universities get some kind of state money. There's no excuses if someone can't get in. The education below it is all government funded too.


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Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Albatross wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

x3

X4.

My personal problem with this increase in fees is not so much that it is an increase, which I could understand and appreciate (after all, there's debts to be paid and, let's face it, money doesn't grow on trees) but that for many good universities it is effectively tripling overnight. This is a huge increase, and were I not safe from the fees (by a year), I would not be able to afford to go to university...

Why? You don't have to pay the fees up front. Perhaps you're just not that committed to reading history?

Maybe so, but I still have to pay them. As you would quite rightly point out, that money's got to be paid back, and despite all the commitment in the world I cannot pay back £36,000 back (not including living and accomodation costs) if it is not within my budget to do so. The new legislation seems to assume that I, University Student A, will immediately go into a high-paying job at the end of my degree, which is of course simply not the case; even the courses considered to be vital don't lead to a great job instantly.
Besides, my plan was to say "sod it" and get an OU degree if I didn't get into a university this year. I did have a backup plan, you know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Stormrider wrote:Student Loans? FAFSA? There's a copious amount of ways to get money for school.

Do you think, looking purely at the financials of the situation, that it is as easy for a kid whose parents are on minimum wage to gain a tertiary education as it is for a kid coming from a middle class background?

Stormrider wrote:In the US, if you are: poor, a minority (ethnic, religious, sexual, etc.) or disabled it is really easy to get scholarships as long as your grades meet the standards of said scholarships (which are usually always lower just so the school can feather their cap by having a diverse student body).

Ah, but this is not the US, is it? Things are a little different here. Scholarships are bloomin' hard to come by unless you're going into very specific careers.

Which sucks out loud. That helps contract on people's ability to pick a more career condusive to their skill set.

Stormrider wrote:It's called one word: desire.

So you're saying that poor and working class people in other countries in the world are somehow more desirous than in the US? Honestly?

As for subsidy, there's lots of state funded Community Colleges and many larger Universities get some kind of state money.

Yes, but do any of them offer a program where you can attend, accrue tuition fees, and only start paying those tuition fees back when you've graduated and moved into a high paying position? Because when you're talented but come from a disadvantaged background, that's a big deal.

The problem actually comes more when you are in the middle ground - too well off to qualify for much in the way of aid, yet not well off enough to be able to pay your own way comfortably, if at all.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Albatross wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:^^ This, this, all of this (x2).

x3

X4.

My personal problem with this increase in fees is not so much that it is an increase, which I could understand and appreciate (after all, there's debts to be paid and, let's face it, money doesn't grow on trees) but that for many good universities it is effectively tripling overnight. This is a huge increase, and were I not safe from the fees (by a year), I would not be able to afford to go to university...

Why? You don't have to pay the fees up front. Perhaps you're just not that committed to reading history?

Maybe so, but I still have to pay them. As you would quite rightly point out, that money's got to be paid back, and despite all the commitment in the world I cannot pay back £36,000 back (not including living and accomodation costs) if it is not within my budget to do so. The new legislation seems to assume that I, University Student A, will immediately go into a high-paying job at the end of my degree, which is of course simply not the case; even the courses considered to be vital don't lead to a great job instantly.

Which is why you don't start repaying your loans until you meet the earnings threshold, which has just been increased to £21K. My missus has just started repaying hers - she pays about £100 a month, which is well within the means of someone earning £21K or above.

She'll be paying for over 20 years, though, unless her salary increases to allow her to pay faster.

Of course if the interest rate is low enough, it makes sense to pay the loan off as slowly as possible.

An interesting point would be: Can the government/loan provider sell your debt on? Potentially increasing the interest rate, if it is set higher by the new owner. Or is it set regardless of who owns it?

Kilkrazy wrote:She'll be paying for over 20 years, though, unless her salary increases to allow her to pay faster.

Who's to say that you have to pay the absolute bare minimum?

Also, the same is true of a mortgage, another important investment for one's future.

Investment in mortgages is what got us all into the mess.

Kilkrazy wrote:Investment in bad mortgages is what got us all into the mess.

Fixed

It came about because people came to view mortgages as an investment, when actually they are a way of getting a roof over your head.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Kilkrazy wrote:It came about because people came to view mortgages as an investment, when actually they are a way of getting a roof over your head.

Isn't securing a roof over your head for the long-term a good investment for the future? Or have I been taking fething crazy pills again?

Albatross wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It came about because people came to view mortgages as an investment, when actually they are a way of getting a roof over your head.

Isn't securing a roof over your head for the long-term a good investment for the future? Or have I been taking fething crazy pills again?

No alb your about right, KK is just a guardian reader and as such its very diffcult to agree with him on much regarding politics.

I think SuperDave has performed admirably thus far. I hope he doesnt bend an inch and cave in to all these lefty whingers.

I just wish he had the bottle to unleash a few thousand soldiers on these smelly students.They should give the Taliban a week off and put them all in the hurt locker.

I for one would have taken great satisfaction in firing my baton rounds into the back of some pinko who is driving his boot into the windshield of a meatwagon.

Get some!

Medium of Death wrote:An interesting point would be: Can the government/loan provider sell your debt on? Potentially increasing the interest rate, if it is set higher by the new owner. Or is it set regardless of who owns it?

Seeing your Union Jack under your name, I should preface this with "In America," as I don't know about your financial stuffs.

If you have a fixed interest loan, then it is set regardless of who owns it.

If you have a variable interest loan:

1. Don't do that.
2. There are terms and conditions of that loan that the new owner of your debt still has to adhere to, which is generally some interest rate standard metrix +x%.

We paid my wife's loan off slowly because the interest rates were lower than our home loan. So, it was better to spend extra on the house's principle than her loan.

Albatross wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It came about because people came to view mortgages as an investment, when actually they are a way of getting a roof over your head.

Isn't securing a roof over your head for the long-term a good investment for the future? Or have I been taking fething crazy pills again?

A mortgage doesn't secure your home since if you default you will get kicked out with the debt still owing.

A long term lease or rental is an alternative way of having a secure home. The payments are fixed so there is no danger of an interest rate rise overwhelming your ability to meet the payments.

The attraction of mortgages is that we expect the value of the house to climb rapidly and exceed the value of the mortgage after only a few years, thus yielding a tidy profit on eventual sale. Note that you can only realise this profit by liquidating the asset, which leaves you without a home.

What people hope to do is climb the mortgage ladder until they have a family, get the kids through university, then sell up and retire to a smaller and cheaper property on the coast.

This has worked quite nicely for some people, but it has gone badly wrong for others.

SilverMK2 wrote:The problem actually comes more when you are in the middle ground - too well off to qualify for much in the way of aid, yet not well off enough to be able to pay your own way comfortably, if at all.

Which is kind of what happened to me, they make enough money to disallow me to recieve any money intended for the poor, my grades were more than good enough to get all kinds of scholarships, if I was a minority. Luckily my parents used a tax exempt fund approved by the State of Missouri to build up tuition.