"Those who benefit from a university education should pay for it." I agree!

[Pickman's model]

what would be nice is if more people who attend university had at least some basic courtesy and respect for other people.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yet it's still stuffed full of the most privileged people in the country - suggesting that the problem lies elsewhere than what offers are made.

I don't know what the proportion at Bristol is state vs private, but I know that at Oxbridge, it's roughly 50:50. Part of the reason for that is that teachers at many state schools simply don't advise their students to apply. There is still a system in place, I believe (certainly it was very much there 20 years ago), where teachers send candidates to the particular Oxbridge colleges that they themselves attended – and these former students often teach at private schools. Privilege perpetuates itself at this individual, informal level, and it's hard to rectify, particularly where admissions are handled at college level rather than university-wide. I'd like to see admissions to, for instance, Oxbridge more or less automated – you get in if you get certain grades and that's that. Yes, there would still be the anomaly that poorer candidates at private schools get better A level results, but it would be an improvement on the current system which basically allows Dons to express their prejudices.

 

[Neutron]

Of course they should.

So, the employers must pay. How can we implement this?

Thoughts?

No, all education should be free to the individual including degree level, and recouped through the taxation system.

So, a graduate archaeologist earning £18,000 per year would not pay for their university education.

The millionaire businessman (with no degree) would pay through his/her taxes to pay for archaeologists.

 

[LiamO]

The millionaire businessman (with no degree) would pay through his/her taxes to pay for archaeologists.

Nope, unfortunately the archaeologict would probably pay more tax!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Not in the UK. I did my first degree in the late 1980s/early 1990s. I paid no fees and had a full grant which covered my costs in term-time. The vast majority of graduates in high paid work right now got their educations for free.

We do not want a system where the poor are excluded, and we do not want a system where well-trained people cannot afford to work in the public sector. We think it is silly to throw a load of talent on the scrapheap because they were born into poverty, and we do not want resources wasted training people who are doing a degree just because they can.

We are not America, and we do not want to be.

I'm from a single parent family, where the highest economic achievement of my mother was secretary. Somehow, I managed to make it through two levels of university, and people like me certainly aren't a rarity. That's how it is in Canada: I don't know about America.

 

[DownwardDog]

Well, it's people like you who are so determined not to pay their way that make these things so difficult.

Yes, and we are legion. As a very wise man (I think it was Butchers) once said "When the state turns on you you necessarily have to go beyond the law in self-defence."

So legislation has to be designed to take into account how people actually behave not how you'd like them to behave if they were a lot nicer than they actually are. I'm sure V.I. Lenin was very clear on this point at the otherwise disastrous Second International.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The millionaire businessman (with no degree) would pay through his/her taxes to pay for archaeologists.

That's the plan, yes. The millionaire would also pay more for the NHS than their own treatment could ever cost, pay the equivalent in taxes for a whole class of children to be educated at school, etc.

Then one day, he and his family will settle down in front of the TV and enjoy an episode of Time Team. Or his child will visit a museum and learn all about how life was like hundreds of years ago... That museum will be free for all to enter, and he'll have paid towards that too.

 

[weltweit]

Under the present system the employer pays more for graduates, because they cost more. Repatriating some of that more through a graduate tax or loan repayments does mean that indirectly employers pay with the current system.

 

[Prince Rhyus]

If it's not been posted, the blog post at http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/...all-who-want-it-but-it-pays-a-few-to-deny-it/ makes for interesting reading - especially coming from a chartered accountant.

 

[Neutron]

That's the plan, yes. The millionaire would also pay more for the NHS than their own treatment could ever cost, pay the equivalent in taxes for a whole class of children to be educated at school, etc.

Then one day, he and his family will settle down in front of the TV and enjoy an episode of Time Team. Or his child will visit a museum and learn all about how life was like hundreds of years ago... That museum will be free for all to enter, and he'll have paid towards that too.

The rich should pay proportionately more in tax regardless of their education.

No-one should earn more than £100,000 per year.

Private schools should be abolished.

No-one should earn less than £15,000 per year.

 

[_angel_]

It would be simpler yes, but it would also be a lot easier to attack (and has been successfully attacked over the last 25 years) - precisely because of those layabout students, most of whom are middle-class kids intent on pissing their privilege up the wall. Kids from state schools get better degrees than those from public schools, but the privately educated still dominate admissions. That makes no sense.

Funding through general taxation does nothing to improve access for the less well off. This scheme makes a full grant easily affordable for all students, discourages those who already have a job for life on daddies estate, and encourages employers to train people who are already in work, rather than recruit unknown quantities just because they've been writing essays for three years. It's criminal how much talent goes to waste simply because they didn't thrive at school or university was not an option due to financial constraints.

I also think that it can, and should, be extended to non-HE training, which is incredibly difficult to access at the moment. Either employers start paying for training, or they stop moaning about the taxes that provide their trained employees. The latter will never happen in a capitalist system.

Firstly most students work now, so not sure about the 'layabouts', second, most 'middle class students' are state school students as well, so I'm a little unclear of what you mean, but if you mean reducing the percentage of private school applicants into (esp top) universities then that could be done by setting a quota in universities that only allows a proportionate amount of private school students in, stop the 50% bias of private school kids getting Oxbridge places, for example. Then also allocate a good amount for mature students, too.
I still think funded out of taxation is the fairest way ultimately tho.