The move to increase university tuition fees in England to £9,250 has been launched - without any announcement from the Department for Education.

The changes to the fees, affecting more than 500,000 students beginning in the autumn, was put onto a government website last week.

It was free in 2005.

No it wasn't. Just someone else (I.e. you and me) paid the bill. Lecturers don't work for nothing and Universities are expensive places to run.

and, in 2005 ,we didn't then bother to teach as large a percentage of the population.

As you say, if the staff bill goes up, and the demand for places, teaching and halls of residence goes up , so must the fees. Only Corbyn thinks he can just print another 10 billion and forget them. If Overseas student numbers fall and don't subsidise UK students as much, the fees will rise more still .

I honestly don't see why people bother going to University nowadays. Unless they are doing a STEM course at an RG institution, it's simply not worth the money. Labour's hare-brained scheme of 50% going to "uni" has been an unmitigated disaster.

Some of the expenses should be cut down, like the massive salaries of the people at the top, who barely do anything. Some of them are paid over £600,000 with perks too. It's crazy to have to house some of them too, with a mansion on university sites. Also what about the expensive parties and dinners?

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...out-of-control

Maybe fees wouldn't have to be so expensive, if they weren't having to fork out a ton of money each year, just for these title holders.

I don't have children myself but that's what I tell my friends' teenagers - either do a STEM subject at a good University (there are very some good Universities outside of the Russell Group especially in particular subjects) and the chances are that you will have a good career otherwise look at more vocational qualifications. A crap degree from a minor "uni" (oh, how much I hate the "uni" term) is a waste of time and money.

If I look at the graduates we employ very few, if any, come from outside of the top 10-20 UK Universities in the league tables. That may not be fair but when you have a lot of applicants from good courses in the UK and Europe you don't need to go down to the "Universities" of Bedfordshire and Northampton.

Honestly, if it was up to me, I'd close down about 3/4 of the universities, or convert them back into Polytechnics or the modern day equivalent. Keep the RG, maybe the best few of the others, and make everything else vocational.

Makes you wonder why a university, which is just a business, would be paying people £600k with perks, who barely do anything.

In fact, it sounds unbelievable.

Tuition fees started in 1998-99 at £1,000/year, were means tested, and paid up-front usually via a student loan.

The problem was the rest of the nation paid for them to go through Uni.

Now, at least those who want to study will need to pay a graduate tax for that.

This will have a big impact on my Soaps degree.

Yet more burden on the young from this discusting government. Education should be free, as it benefits all of society. All you should pay for is accommodation and living expenses.

Its disgusting especially removing bursaries for nurses when student nurses work 40 hours a week in hopsitals as part of the NHS workforce.

18 to 25's need to start voting or it will neve change.

This

What's the point of uni doing some obscure course if at the end of it they are flipping burgers at McDonald's because they wasted tax payers money on partying!? There's more important things to spend money on that give proven results..

A degree doesn't guarantee you a job anymore.

It's basically about the transfer of people assets to the private sector.

I mean, selling homes and raiding pension funds etc etc. to fund such things as education and care.


When I look at the 40% poll rating for the Conservatives, propped up by home-owning middle-class folk with children and elderly parents, I wonder why they don't object.

Because we need to raise rather than lower the educational level of the country, we need specific knowledge and to bring on talents. Our uneducated workforce can't compete with Chinese or indians who may well be better educated too. Someone else is going ot have to earn the money , and pay the taxes, to keep the conomy afloat. The jobs for the manual labourers, and many of the blue collar workers who left school at 14, with no academic education, have been, and will be, replaced by high tech, and specialised ervice job's. Those without skills will have to do the nasty jobs now dependant on immigrant Labour, or whats left unautomated of the . poorly paid jobs. Those new higher paid jobs will require both command of a body of knowledge, and the development of particular skills - be it in IT, acting, nuclear science. the law, research, banking, architecture, golf course management, or fashion design. Its also difficult not to get better at general skills, while being taught for 3 years by people better qualified than the average school teacher. You only learn to construct an argument , research it, and present it by being taught by someone who can do it - and if you want to know the latest ideas - you need people who are up to date in their subjects.

Because most people realise that government can't spend what it hasn't got, and since the financial sector collapsed, taking the tax take down with it , government's income hasn't met needs anywhere. Most voters also s know what happens if you start a habit of overspending on credit.

And behind that there's two , less obvious issues.

You can't sustain demands for health care and social care growing at 4% a year in any economy thats only growing at 1-2% a year. The infirm ederly will eat the whole economy eventually. The demand either can't be met, or it will take private capital or spending , being diverted, to do it.

And you now can't raise taxes on the better off, or business - to channel money into the unproductive areas like health and care. Taxing business just drives down growth and employment and the tax take - at no time more than when you need to incentivise any large business to still stay here - post brexit. . And taxing the better paid just isn't possible when the recent increase in the work force has come in specilaised services - that depends on those better paid workers for their jobs. You would just destroy many of the new niche service jobs, and still have to import more immigrants to do the poorly paid care jobs, no one here wants to do, or lives in the right areas to do..

Thanks to Blair and his daft idea to have too many people at University

What proportion would have been better off financially not going, and are we now totally dismissing the whole concept that education is generally a good thing for society as a whole?

I'm amazed it hasn't been blamed on Brexit.

It is a factor. Applications from overseas (especially EU) students looking as if they will be down so Universities will have to make up their income from somewhere.

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...eu-down-9-ucas

Phew, thank goodness for that.

Higher education is a global business, and that goes as much for the University of Boghamptonshire as Oxbridge. Fees are roughly double the £9k for domestic/EU students and each overseas student means £50k+/yr extra turnover in the the local economy. Universities like the one I work for (which now is the town's biggest employer) won't stand still as the anticipated downturn in EU applicants bites, obviously the Chinese market remains the most lucrative, but India, the Stans and even Iran are where the growth in recruitment is medium- to long-term.

Of course it all depends on the way the anti-immigrant mood of the Brexit vote pans out and whether this government or its successors remains supportive of allowing them in in the first place and more importantly absorb them and their skills into the workforce after they graduate.

It is unbelievable, because its not actually true!