There is to be a debate on Wednesday in the Lords on the Browne Review of Higher Education. I fear I will not be able to participate, and 26 Lords have already signed up to speak. If I were to contribute, it would be along the following lines. I do not agree with the totally commercial view of university education which now prevails: it is always discussed in terms of how much the graduate will earn, and how much the higher education sector contributes to the British economy. Whenever there is a crisis in the funding of universities, a businessman is appointed to sort it out. There was the Dearing Report, the Lambert Review, and now the Browne Report. I cannot agree with the view that the future of universities should be determined only by those who run businesses, inter alia, the Post Office and BP. It would make as much sense to have philosophers and historians running business as it does to have business people determine the fate of universities. In fact, I think the philosophers and historians would make a better job of it.
Then history repeats itself. As happened with the Dearing Report, the government cherry picks those parts of the Report that will save it money, but ignores those recommendations that would sufficiently fund the universities and free them from more state control. So this time it seems that the government will not accept the principle of unlimited tuition fees, but will cap them; it will however impose a punitive repayment regime on those who have succeeded in their studies and may also accept the proposal to bundle together the disparate bodies that regulate universities and deal with complaints. We may well end up with universities that are still underfunded, with repayment schedules that deter good students and with monolithic overregulation of the higher education sector. And only a commercial attitude could come up with the recommendation that medicine, science and technology teaching deserve subsidies but arts and humanities do not.
I agree with you about the “cherry picking”. The Browne Review has been carefully thought out, and tweaking it for political reasons will make it less fair and balanced. With a cap on fees, we’ll just see a repeat of “top up fees” where everyone charges the maximum, meaning students will just pay more for no increased benefit.
I don’t agree that the proposed repayment scheme is punitive, and it shouldn’t put off anyone. Someone who earns £25,000pa will only have to pay £30 per month, less than many people’s mobile phone contracts. And someone earning £30,000 (or equivalent after inflation) throughout their career will never have to pay back the full cost of their tuition (assuming £6000 fee plus living costs). Those who do well will pay more, as they would under a graduate tax, but ultimately will only have to pay back the amount outstanding.
I’m biased as a scientist, I’ll admit, but I’m also an arts lover. Yet most of the people I encountered at university studying arts subjects (particularly “English”) had little interest in the subject and just wanted to take a degree that required minimal work so they could laze about and enjoy a student lifestyle, and in the process make life a misery for those of us who needed to spend most of our time studying to stand any chance of a 1st or 2:1. I agree that there’s value in academic pursuits for their own sake and everything not having to be driven by business needs. In an ideal world I’d like to see scholars at university receiving state funding for degrees in fine art or musicology. Unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world, and free or subsidised education for those more scholarly people has been lost thanks to the drive for ever increasing numbers of students.
I don’t agree that the proposed repayment scheme is punitive, and it shouldn’t put off anyone.
=============
You mean the penalties for paying off early, aren’t penalties?
“It would make as much sense to have philosophers and historians running business as it does to have business people determine the fate of universities. In fact, I think the philosophers and historians would make a better job of it.”
Help! After the philosophers and historians have bankrupted private industry whose going to pay for the uni sector. If you’re making a profit and not asking me to subsidize a failing business model then you can ask the tooth fairy to advise you for all I care – however if you want taxpayers to fund something the least we’d expect if you have someone who can actually run something on a proper financial basis.
“So this time it seems that the government will not accept the principle of unlimited tuition fees, but will cap them;…universities that are still underfunded”
Hang on weren’t you arguing against business decision making a minute ago!
Universities have become singly-focused upon career- and job- training.
I doubt they have ever been truly all-round-educational i.e. for the 75% whole-of-life timeframe as distinct from the 25% workplace timeframe; their founders are reported to have intended.
Keele university in Staffordshire having failed to retain its liberal-education foundation, isn’t India the only country in the world to have a “Multiversity” ?
1514T26
(Testing, because JohnSydneyDentonMiles,
JSDM, jsdm, jm, and j all being ‘blocked’)
1537T26
(Testing, because JohnSydneyDentonMiles,
JSDM, jsdm, jm, and j all being ‘blocked’)
1537T26
But now my LOTB remembered email address is false ! as johnmiles1@talktaalk.net ; instead of one of my my real ones johnmiles1@talktalk.net or johnsdmiles@hotmail.com .
Testing still.
still testing 1621T26
and again 1622
Thank you
I’ll switch to elsewhere now until I’ve cleared this problem up
’tis like a split-infinitive
“Up with which we shall not put”.
“Much sense to have philosophers and historians running business”.
I`ll think about how to make money !
and
I`ll tell you how people used to make money !
😉
Sorry M`Lady.
I can only talk about this from my perspective and that is one who didn`t attend college or University. I watch as young students attend College/University nowadays for things like Art and stuff that I know they will never ever use in the job market place. I`m sure some do but very few. It seem`s nowadays kids have their heads screwed on ” Let`s go to Uni where I can go on the lash or take the drugs I want with no responsibility” ! No it isn`t true in every case but in too many it is.
Whilst the Universities, and some don`t seem to deserve that title as they appear no more than the old Poly`s, are raking in money simply for having students turn up, I think we have a problem. I speak to some young people that are either in attendance at Uni or have completed their courses and they`re not even educated to my standard, imho.The only certificate I have is my Bronze Life Saving, I left school at 15 or thereabouts.
My Lady speaks of a commercial attitude with derision for education but isn`t this what it is for ? The artist will be, no matter what, I`m pretty sure Van Gogh, DaVinci or the ilk never attended University. Too many of our young follow a path that leads to a commercial nothingness. We have thousands of fine musicians, singers even, but their worth is little in a crowded market. We don`t live in Utopia, we live in a World that you “should” work to live and it is wrong to give rise to dreams that will be shattered in most cases.
There are some top class University places to go for Art, Dance, Music etc., few will get in these acadamies but those who do are probably the only ones to stand a chance of making a living from their art. Let`s stop pretending that our kids are going to make important artists, great musicians etc., and deal in real life. No one say`s they can`t pursue their dream as those who have before inspite of circumstance but let`s be real.
I see plenty of kids on courses they`ll never use, even one of my own, the waste is immense. The current one is Forensic Science and I wonder if like todays report only 1/3 will pass and how many of those few will actually use it.
The talk initially was of tax on students at a certain level of earnings. Well seeing as the brightest in our Country, who are earning the most must have went to Uni let`s just raise top level taxation ! Let`s raise the money on the successful industries that must be using all these successful students.
I think education needs looking at from the bottom up again from scratch, our Governments are confused, they must be. We haven`t the money to pay for Higher Education but let`s raise school leaving to 18 ???? What ??? Let`s send naughty children who have no wish to be at school home ??? What ??
Universities are oversubscibed, the kids have their heads screwed on and KNOW it is a licence for 2 years on the lash. Universities are not Uni`s anymore…Essex Uni (Southend) my bottom ! it`s a bloomin college that creates employment by it`s existence and rarely will it create anyone of any worth.
That said, there`s no jobs anyhow. Maybe I`ll go to University as a mature student and study politics, learn exactly how to make a dogs dinner and how to look people in the eye and tell them how I`ll do something I know I can`t or won`t.
But I think you have conveniently overlooked the fact that anyone reading the meeja would imagine that only ‘arts graduates’ have any worth at all, and that we are scientific imbeciles. All the commentariat and chattering class clones in the Guardian are scientists, whereas people like Simon Singh and Dr Ben Goldacre get a bit of a look-in occasionally.
The Today Programme is exactly the same – arts graduates to a man [or woman..]. The entire media landscape is coloured by the spin of arts graduates and engineering and science are just covered occasionally under the umbrella of the environment or the latest techie gadget from Apple.
So I’m afraid I’m with the person who coined the old gag “Why don’t arts graduates look out of the window in the morning ? Because that would leave them with nothing to do all afternoon.”
None deserve subsidies.
Why should the check out girl at Tesco’s pay lots of tax for any student?
The same reason why she should have to fund failed politicians in the Lords.
So the obvious question. Huge numbers of people work at checkouts in the UK. How many are in the lords?
Lord Blagger: where exactly in the Browne Report does it say there should be a penalty for repaying early? I assume you have actually read the report, and not just the sensationalised stories on it in the press?
On the contrary, as is explained on page 41 of the report, the idea of a higher interest rate is to encourage early repayment, or up-front payment in the case of the wealthiest students, to ease the government’s own borrowing requirements. At present, wealthy people play the system as they can make a profit by investing the money received from a student loan.
There is a certain amount of spin going on here – no-one is actually required to take a loan in the first place.
Lord Blagger How could you make such a remark?!
why she should have to fund failed politicians in the Lords.
I mean to say!
Jonathan: What LB may be referring to is the rebate penalty under the Credit Consumer Act 1974. The lender by law was only obliged to rebate 90% of the loan even if it was a single day over the cooling off period.
Most lenders were using the ‘Rule of 78’ to calculate rebates and many felt it unfair because it favoured the lender. I would always ask if the loan was based upon this rule so I would avoid them. When I could not, I would have the calculation on a spreadsheet so I could verify the early settlement offer.
Jackie Smith MP started the ball rolling in her White Paper 23061 linked below. It was a regulatory impact assessment which led to the Consumer Credit Act (Early Settlement) Regulation 2004.
The Credit Law link gives the new basis for settlement and provides a windows application written by the Office of Fair Trading’s Brian Stewart called ‘DualCalc’. Also included is a link to a spreadsheet that does the same math.
To an Arts or Humanities student all of this is going to look like rocket science and I would definitely regard them as vulnerable when taking out loans.
What is now happening in the market place is that lenders are getting around the regulation by creating admin charges that effectively increase the APR whilst the declared APR remains low. People are being ripped off and its worse than under the ‘Rule of 78’.
Another factor affecting change is the Basel agreements that banks have to accommodate. One government owned bank, a dark horse of sorts has changed the way its overdrafts work and has jumped on the admin charges band wagon too.
From Dec 2, 2010 they will begin charging 5 pounds if you have an agreed overdraft and you are more than ten pounds overdrawn. Even if you are overdrawn by 10 pounds and one penny they will apply the admin charge. If the overdraft remains at 10 pounds and one penny for six months they will charge an admin fee of 30 pounds in total. All of this plus the APR interest charged for the overdraft amount.
The bank wins in two ways: it rips you off on charges and encourages deposits to help with the new asset requirements. We can expect to see more of this, once the practice becomes established in the lending marketplace.
Ref: Consumer Credit Act 1974 Order 2004
Issues of Equality and Fairness; Page 10
http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file23061.pdf
New Early Settlement Rules from Feb 2011
http://www.creditlaw.co.uk/Refpages/Early%20settlement.htm
The Consumer Credit (Early Settlement) Regulations 2004
http://www.oft.gov.uk/about-the-oft/legal-powers/legal/cca/Earlysettlement
You are right, Jonathan. The report does not recommend prohibiting early repayment, but I have read in the press that the government will do that, so that better off families cannot secure an advantage for their children by ensuring that they are debt free. That is an example of a sort of cherry picking.
Baroness Deech, I’ve read those same suggestions. Lord Blagger took my original comment out of context. While I support the Browne Review’s recommendations as a whole, I don’t support any version messed about with for political reasons.
I think preventing people paying off their loans would be a mistake. It would simply mean the government having to spend more. At the interest rates they are proposing, high-earning students could simply invest their money and at least break even over the decade or two they are allowed to pay the fees back.
Lord Blagger: where exactly in the Browne Report does it say there should be a penalty for repaying early? I assume you have actually read the report, and not just the sensationalised stories on it in the press?
It’s not in the report, but as you know, that’s not the issue.
This whole thread in part is triggered by the fact that politicians won’t implement Browne entirely. They are cherry picking,, and they will also do something different.
So I’m going on Vince Cable, who is in charge of the process, making comments about redemption penalties, so as to hit the ‘rich’. In other words, the middle class who save.
Failed politicians?
Just look at the numbers. The Lords is representative largly by failed politicians.
There are the odd secretary, but only if you were a secretary to the PM.
No hairdressers, no car mechanics, no pork pie fillers from Milton Keynes….
ie. Representatives of politicians, not representative of the country. When it comes to special skills or knowledge, vast areas of the real world have no representation in the Lords.
Criminals are over represented. There is a whole group of Lords who have been convicted who still sit and decide on what laws you suffer under, whilst they can carry on claiming…
Exactly. That reminds me to pop out to Santander. They’re prepared to loan money to me at 1.25%, and borrow it back at 3.25%
In other words, the middle class who save.
Those middle class employed who do. The only saving they really may make is the hike in house prices every 7 years or so, going on for 7 biblical fat years, which makes their original “save” seem worthwhile.
Is there any other effective way of saving today, or for the last 60 years? NO!
In the context of university costs their education becomes more of a gamble as well.
If they start their university schooling during a recession, and buy a flat or bricks and mortar, when they have got their first job,at the end of that recession, their fees seem like a doddle, in next to no time.
In the context of university costs their education becomes more of a gamble as well.
It always has been. In the past, the taxpayer is made to take the gamble because they underwrote the education, and the government uses force to extract money from the taxpayer.
Gambling with other people’s money, where you keep the winnings, is the best gamble of all.
Now that is being readdressed. Adults will have to make their own mind up about the risks and benefits, and costs.
It’s also an incentive to make sure you do the best possible.
LadyDeech: But you don’t even have to be wealthy to get caught. If you are a poor family who scrimp and save with the child trust fund from birth-uni you might well be in the position to pay off some part of the loan early and choose to do so because of the fear of the ‘debt’ hanging over you. Under the LD inspired early payment tax you are being doubly peanalised.
Lord Blagger – The checkout person at Tescos helps pay for university studies, because in due course the graduate’s tax will pay for her pension, her benefits, her housing and her children’s education. The House of Lords does not contain enough people in ordinary jobs, that is true; but they would not be able to afford to give up their jobs, possibly at the other end of the country, and sit in the Lords full time unless they were paid a salary, which is not on offer. All are welcome to apply to become members, including you, through the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which runs a selection process very like a job application.
So 300 pounds a day isn’t sufficient?
An after tax income of 43,000 pounds isn’t sufficient for an ordinary person?
Wasn’t it you who claimed that your expenses were a pay back for all the taxes you’ve paid?
Err! No, that was me. People are paid depending on their value in the jobs market place. The HoL fills by virtue of the experience and expertise of individuals which is considerable. It is the role of the Commons to fill with the Butcher the Baker and the Candlestick makers of society.
One assumes that LB as a peer would forsake the 300 per day on principle. I think he might try applying to the Treasury as an actuary. He seem very good with numbers?
The HoL fills by virtue of the experience and expertise of individuals which is considerable.
===================
And what experience is that? Failure in the commons or being an exMP is the largest qualification.
So lets ask the obvious. Do you employ a full time mechanic, doctor, surgeon of various skills, painter and decorator, gardners, all the skills that you might want at some time in your life?
No. So why do we have to do the same with the Lords?
I would. I would vote no on everything.
As for the numbers, the Lords aren’t very good are they, and neither are the treasury. They were very very keen to hide the extent of the civil service pension libilities.
So I notice no comments on a lord thinking their are due their expenses as a perk of haivng paid tax.
No, Lord Blagger, the Tesco checkout girl from the North of England who joins the Lords will not be able to live on £300 a day. From that she has to pay for her accommodation in London four nights a week. Where is she going to live? and her meals, her research reading and maybe assistant, her secretarial expenses and travel within London.