Leave those tuition fees alone
HE, In The News, Media Watch, NUS, Tuition Fees Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
“Science adviser warns of fee rise”, writes someone at the Beeb.
We don’t think so. At EducationState we see this very differently. The Government to appease HE are appointing ‘advisors’ to make such statements so that HE staff can maintain their present living standards while pretending that to retain ‘our’ competitiveness in science we need to hike up student costs.
Cuts in HE and the lavish pay and conditions awarded HE staff in the past have got us into this current mess – not students. Better to tax the rich a little more, we say. Bankers, public enemy numero uno, should be first, then all of the top civil servants earning more than the PM. Hardly revolutionary.
The CBI will balk at this and argue businesses already contribute enough, knowing damn well that in international terms they jolly well don’t.
Legions of slippery servants will hardly vote for change.
The self-appointed representatives of students, the NUS, as tame and fawning as ever, will do nothing.
In this mess, there is a wider issue of how we should treat younger people. Are they to be indentured cash cows? Or are they to be free to study and explore the world without the Student Groans Company breathing down their necks?