I'm not sure if this link will work or if its one of the ones behind the FT firewall: blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/201 ... education/ basically it points out that the policy is really driven by accounting more than economics if you have a system where the government pays up front, and the money is repaid later by the student out of the taxation system, then the PSBR (Public Sector Borrowing Requirement) - which is the 'deficit' increases by the value of the fee now. Then when the student makes repayments later, the extra taxation revenue, counts in the taxation accounts (and so reducing PSBR) later, when they pay. But that is an income stream for a future government. If you have a system where the government pays up front, but the tuition fee (plus future interest) is directly linked to the student to be repaid later, then this obligation of the student allows them to mark this off as a zero sum on the accounts, even though the repayment may not come until years later. So the PSBR does not increase this year. As the government's target is to reduce the deficit then any accounting technique like this is a useful way of departments to meet their targets. What they are doing is reducing the public subsidy to universities and then saying to universities that they can raise tuition fees to fill the gap. In the short term the money will still go from government, to universities. But now in accounting terms they have an asset (the student's repayment liability) which balances the liability (the money going to university) so it means that the governments subsidy to university counts as a value of 0, rather than as a direct subsidy which increased the value of the PSBR.

I'm not sure if this link will work or if its one of the ones behind the FT firewall: blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/201 ... education/ basically it points out that the policy is really driven by accounting more than economics if you have a system where the government pays up front, and the money is repaid later by the student out of the taxation system, then the PSBR (Public Sector Borrowing Requirement) - which is the 'deficit' increases by the value of the fee now. Then when the student makes repayments later, the extra taxation revenue, counts in the taxation accounts (and so reducing PSBR) later, when they pay. But that is an income stream for a future government. If you have a system where the government pays up front, but the tuition fee (plus future interest) is directly linked to the student to be repaid later, then this obligation of the student allows them to mark this off as a zero sum on the accounts, even though the repayment may not come until years later. So the PSBR does not increase this year. As the government's target is to reduce the deficit then any accounting technique like this is a useful way of departments to meet their targets. What they are doing is reducing the public subsidy to universities and then saying to universities that they can raise tuition fees to fill the gap. In the short term the money will still go from government, to universities. But now in accounting terms they have an asset (the student's repayment liability) which balances the liability (the money going to university) so it means that the governments subsidy to university counts as a value of 0, rather than as a direct subsidy which increased the value of the PSBR.

If you think that the government increasing fees is okay, then you wrong. Its dumbing down of the public and I think we will pay for it in years to come. We need to give everyone the opportunity to go to uni and not price people out of it, with regards to the countries debt, this is a drop in the ocean and It fear will put off foreign investment in the future.Out with the lying scum!!

Has the university admissions system changed then? Nope, anyone can go to university

True. But it will cost students up to 3 times as much. That fact cannot be disputed. Would the student hating posters on here be OK with their council tax being trebled? Or their National insurance contributions being raised threefold?

I see your point but my council tax and NIC contributions aren't heavily subsidised and paying them does not bring me any tangible benefit such as improving my future earning potential.

Could Super League clubs not save money by undertaking a similar scheme when they take players onto their Academy schemes?

At the moment SL clubs are subsidising the development of local juniors by paying the costs themselves - but if each local junior had to repay that to the club out of their future earnings then it would bring money back into the clubs. We keep hearing about how Warrington has got so and so in the England Schoolboys team - fantastic, but who is paying for their development....the fans, out of our gate receipts. And what are we paying for...so that some kid can end up increasing his earning potential so that we end up paying even more to watch him play at a later date! What about if each lad in the academy had to take out say a loan of £20000 which would then be repaid to the club when he started to earn. Then it stops Warrington being out of pocket, say if the kid goes on to play for St Helens and becomes a top player, at least he has to repay out of his earnings back to the club.

If it puts young players off coming into RL then so be it - there are too many players in Academies anyway.....there aren't enough spaces in SL for them all to come through so they just end up in lower league clubs or in most cases playing amateur RL and having to get a job, its just like graduates, Tony Blair wanted the whole country to go to university when he knew there weren't enough graduate jobs for them all. If we did end up with a shortage we could just relax the quota rules and hire players trained overseas in NRL youth systems, which hasn't been a cost to the SL clubs.

Also it would make young players think hard about where they wanted to go - fair enough go to Wigan or Saints Academy, its like going to Oxbridge but is it really worth your while going to some mickey mouse institution like Featherstone or Leigh, if you're having to take out a £20000 loan. If it means some academies go under like some of those ex polys, is it a bad thing....could focus minds on quality not quantity.

This is the next generation of business leaders in a global environment. UK plc needs to compete with companies from an ever expanding business world. We have always had to deal with Europe, and more recently eastern Europe, along with the US. China, Russia & India are now part of this. Africa will at some point become a force. We have to educate people to the highest of standards and by not encouraging as many young people as possible puts us at a disadvantage. Of course we need students (and Teachers/Lecturers) to be motivated. We also need high quality education & resources. We certainly do not need to alienate our young people. I suspect that the vast majority of Students & prospective Students accept that they will need to part fund this education. But to TREBLE fees, in some cases, appears provocative. Couple this with the blatant 'sell your soul' lies by the Lib Dems and problems were inevitable. Bring tens of thousands of angry young people together, throw in a number of Anarchists & a small number of baton wielding happy Coppers and.......well, it was obvious what would happen.

At the end of the day, if students do well they can increase their earning power. Sure. They can also generate wealth for the country. It works all ways.

Higher Education is not the be all and end all. A highly skilled worker does not have to have a piece of paper that says he went to University. There are other more cost effective ways of delivering quality education and skills. All the current system does is make us have a high % of grads per capita. Why not have better quality and less quantity? Do you need to go to University to be a skilled worker? As Sally pointed out is was Tony Blair and his socialist agenda encouraging every man and his dog to go uni. This generation (which includes me) has got it into their heads that it's university or bust after school/college. There are not enough graduate jobs to justify the current numbers of people going into higher edcuation.

In terms of international competiveness other factors such as infrastructure, the tax regime, grants & subsidies etc are just as important as worker skills.

what he said!

As I also alluded to earlier in the thread, University has become (imo) "the thing to do" for the youth of "Blair's Britain". Again (imo) the huge "everybody should be able to go to Uni" mantra, is just an excuse to keep youth and early 20's unemployment figures down.

We dont need a huge %age of the nation's youth to go to University.

I am currently half way through a social work degree(hopefully going to be one of the good ones!) Whilst i agree it is up to me to pay my fees as its my choice to further my education, i did work for 10 years before i started so i put money away to help me get through. I think the ammount they are proposing is a bit steep as it seems in my experience to takes a tutor 3 weeks to reply to an email and results are always late because tutors get behind on their marking. Are the higher fees going to reflect better support from teachers?
However I have two children of my own and am not looking forward to helping them through uni should they wish to go when its time!

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm currently studying a practical course, my fees are £1000 a year for the first two years, third year £2000, fourth year and fifth year £4000 a year.
£12,000 in all

I'm 31, I'm paying for this myself, it will better me and I'm quite comfortable with this, i fully agree with the government on this. Regardless of cost if you think your subject is a worthy (to society) course and you feel you will pass and go on to have a happy and profitable future then no amount of fee will get in the way of your desire and ambition. I don't have too much disposable income at the moment and won't for a few years but i want this, i want this badly and I'm motivated.

My philosophy is the world helps those that are prepared to help themselves.
Students you want it, you pay for it.

In theory this neo-conservative approach should introduce more market forces into higher education. I.e you have to perform better to justify higher fees. Universities don't have to charge £9k per year, I understand that to be the max they can charge. Fairly sure Iv'e mentioned it somewhere on RL Fans before but I think a uni offering an intensive 2 year course rather than the prolonged three year course many subjects do could perform quite well. Think of the cost savings for the student for a two year course vs a three year one?

I kind of agree with some of the comments about students. I'm a final year languages student and will be doing my PGCE (teacher training) next year. I'm consistently told by other students "You're not a proper student". Apparently because I don't go out getting ed all the time, live at home and actually spend time in the library doing work. If that makes me "not a proper student" then fine.

What annoys me the most is that in Germany most Unis are free or cost about 1000 EUR a year max. That's with a travel pass for all state wide public transport. Big businesses dodging taxes, being made to pay their rightful share would mean none of these cuts would have to happen. I can tell you now, I would never be able to afford to pay off these new fees. Don't forget it's not just the tripling of the fees but the rise in interest.