Tuition Fees Comedy Review
Education Business, HE, In The News, Politics, Tuition Fees Monday, November 9th, 2009
“The Universities Secretary Lord Mandelson today announced the appointment of Lord Browne of Madingley as chair of the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance.”
A farce already. The appointments do not include anyone whose income will be harmed come the inevitable hike in fees. In fact, the review panel is so unbalanced and skewed in favour of business and academic institutions that it is sad that NuLab don’t even bother to do more to legitimise what they’re doing. And the people on the committee so dependent on their largesse will hardly go against them for fear of missing out on future positions of symbolic power and influence. We know what happens to those who turn Judas now don’t we Prof Nutt and friends?
Anyway, it’s such a joke that to call it a review is an insult to our intelligence. It’s nothing more than another exercise in rubber-stamping what the Government want. They want future students to pay more for the education of others, and they want them to pay for it RIGHT NOW not as in other countries where graduate taxes operate. No, you will PAY NOW.
Why? Because those in HE want to maintain their current living standards and research funding and the Government won’t let them have the money based on future tax receipts. In effect, the Government is admitting that many future graduates will not be profitable enough and so can’t be expected to make enough money to pay it all back (with interest!). More importantly, no-one really cares about young people anymore. They see them as pension providers and work horses not persons in their own right. If they did, they wouldn’t saddled with debt when they’ve not even started work.
If NuLab came to their senses about widening participation they’d see that it is the poor who are in fact losing out. So committed to an outdated manifesto pledge from Bliar’s days, they refuse like children to concede that it’s not working. UK PLC will increasingly look like India PLC where there are too many recently-qualified professionals and not enough people to do the more menial but still important technical jobs.
The answer to all of this is the scrapping of tuition fees altogether, grants for the poor and loans for everyone else but nothing for the super-rich as we don’t want them investing their student loans every year now do we. When will the Government finally realise that anyone from a poorer background who wishes to be a doctor or dentist, for eg, will face a debt mountain that will be commensurate to or be greater than a year’s family household income?
And, aren’t these changes and the rebirth of Toff Toryism signs that the privileged minority is making a comeback and the poor are paying the price?
Great post very informative and useful. Hopefully tuition fees will decrease so that poor afford to study e specially in college. Thanks for posting.