That old guy stole my future (and other animals)

[EvilPie]

I recently read a really great article by Zadie Smith about libraries which, for those interested, can be read here http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/02/north-west-london-blues/

There is a paragraph in it that I thought was fairly relevant to this debate:

"And so I recognize myself to be an intensely naïve person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight. And I retain a particular naivety concerning the British state, which must seem comical to many people, particularly younger people. I can only really account for it by reaching back again, briefly, into the past. It’s a short story about debt—because I owe the state, quite a lot. Some people owe everything they have to the bank accounts of their parents. I owe the state. Put simply, the state educated me, fixed my leg when it was broken, and gave me a grant that enabled me to go to university. It fixed my teeth (a bit) and found housing for my veteran father in his dotage. When my youngest brother was run over by a truck it saved his life and in particular his crushed right hand, a procedure that took half a year, and which would, on the open market—so a doctor told me at the time—have cost a million pounds. Those were the big things, but there were also plenty of little ones: my subsidized sports centre and my doctor’s office, my school music lessons paid for with pennies, my university fees. My NHS glasses aged 9. My NHS baby aged 33. And my local library. To steal another writer’s title: England made me."

That is how I feel about what i got from the state but future generations won't get that.  Partly because so many think they shouldn't contribute and would rather have lower taxes themselves but also because it was probably not sustainable in the long run once the currnet consumerist culture had begun to take over.  Did the older generations work hard.  For sure but they also got a real helping hand in a lot of areas and I, for one, think that was a good thing.

That's a great quote Stu.

My niece is currently getting ready to attend university in the Autumn.

She will work in the caring profession when she graduates.

She is more intelligent, more motivated and more compassionate than I ever was (or will ever be)

My university education was free. She is going to leave uni with a debt of tens of thousands of pounds.

It's a disgrace.

Why is it a disgrace to have to pay for an education?

Surely it was just very fortunate for the ones who got it for free in the past?

Previously there were far less people wanting to go to university. The numbers have got so large and the fees so high that the tax payers can no longer afford to pay for them all.

It's not a disgrace it's just a necessity. Unless something changes to reduce costs elsewhere then education will continue to have to be funded privately.

This current batch of University goers will have it quite tough I admit because the fee thing is relatively new. We can't say that we didn't know this was coming a few years ago though. A few years down the line though it's going to be the parents fault I'm afraid. They know what's in store so it's time to start saving for it. If you don't save for it then your kids are going to have big debts.

I'm already saving for my children's future and I haven't even got any or any real chance of having any. I have a rough idea though how the world is going to be in 20 years time so it's time to prepare now.

I know that more and more things will have to be funded privately. Even the NHS at some point will disappear to be run privately. None of this can happen soon enough if you ask me. The sooner people have to start paying their way for everything they have the better. Also the sooner everything gets privatised the better.

Privatise everything, reduce taxes accordingly and let people pay for what they need themselves rather than having to pay for everyone else.

[Woodsey]

Fk that, I hope healthcare remains free at least, pretty sure it will be in our lifetime.

The uni fees was always going to change as there is way more people going to uni nowadays, actually too many if you ask me, I shake my head at some of the fuckwits I see going to uni these days, the entry standards are just too low.

[The Camel]

I recently read a really great article by Zadie Smith about libraries which, for those interested, can be read here http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/02/north-west-london-blues/

There is a paragraph in it that I thought was fairly relevant to this debate:

"And so I recognize myself to be an intensely naïve person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight. And I retain a particular naivety concerning the British state, which must seem comical to many people, particularly younger people. I can only really account for it by reaching back again, briefly, into the past. It’s a short story about debt—because I owe the state, quite a lot. Some people owe everything they have to the bank accounts of their parents. I owe the state. Put simply, the state educated me, fixed my leg when it was broken, and gave me a grant that enabled me to go to university. It fixed my teeth (a bit) and found housing for my veteran father in his dotage. When my youngest brother was run over by a truck it saved his life and in particular his crushed right hand, a procedure that took half a year, and which would, on the open market—so a doctor told me at the time—have cost a million pounds. Those were the big things, but there were also plenty of little ones: my subsidized sports centre and my doctor’s office, my school music lessons paid for with pennies, my university fees. My NHS glasses aged 9. My NHS baby aged 33. And my local library. To steal another writer’s title: England made me."

That is how I feel about what i got from the state but future generations won't get that.  Partly because so many think they shouldn't contribute and would rather have lower taxes themselves but also because it was probably not sustainable in the long run once the currnet consumerist culture had begun to take over.  Did the older generations work hard.  For sure but they also got a real helping hand in a lot of areas and I, for one, think that was a good thing.

That's a great quote Stu.

My niece is currently getting ready to attend university in the Autumn.

She will work in the caring profession when she graduates.

She is more intelligent, more motivated and more compassionate than I ever was (or will ever be)

My university education was free. She is going to leave uni with a debt of tens of thousands of pounds.

It's a disgrace.

Why is it a disgrace to have to pay for an education?

Surely it was just very fortunate for the ones who got it for free in the past?

Previously there were far less people wanting to go to university. The numbers have got so large and the fees so high that the tax payers can no longer afford to pay for them all.

It's not a disgrace it's just a necessity. Unless something changes to reduce costs elsewhere then education will continue to have to be funded privately.

This current batch of University goers will have it quite tough I admit because the fee thing is relatively new. We can't say that we didn't know this was coming a few years ago though. A few years down the line though it's going to be the parents fault I'm afraid. They know what's in store so it's time to start saving for it. If you don't save for it then your kids are going to have big debts.

I'm already saving for my children's future and I haven't even got any or any real chance of having any. I have a rough idea though how the world is going to be in 20 years time so it's time to prepare now.

I know that more and more things will have to be funded privately. Even the NHS at some point will disappear to be run privately. None of this can happen soon enough if you ask me. The sooner people have to start paying their way for everything they have the better. Also the sooner everything gets privatised the better.

Privatise everything, reduce taxes accordingly and let people pay for what they need themselves rather than having to pay for everyone else.

Why it a disgrace?

Because Kathryn (my niece) will be a net contributor to the British economy once she has earned her degree. She will have a degree and she will contribute more than if she didn't.

Maybe entry levels should be tougher to discourage scroungers, like me, who attend further education purely to avoid going to work.

Even though they have to pay their own way, the scroungers still won't pay because they will never earn enough to trigger the repayments.

Basically taxing the motivated and the talented.

It's a disgrace.

[Woodsey]

^ nah I think it's fair they pay some of their tuition. What they pay is nowhere near the real cost and they will earn a lot more as result of the education so I think it's fair they pay something back.

[The Camel]

^ nah I think it's fair they pay some of their tuition. What they pay is nowhere near the real cost and they will earn a lot more as result of the education so I think it's fair they pay something back.

They will anyway, with the higher level of tax they will be paying, except the scoungers who will never pay it back.

[redarmi]

Why is it a disgrace to have to pay for an education?

Because it makes education a privilege not a right.  Because it makes education, and by turn, a future something that becomes only accessible to the rich.  Because it forces people who get the education to make the paying off of their debt and getting money to do so their main priority after graduating.  That in turn stops people from becoming nurses, social workers, teachers and other roles that provide a payback to society that can't be measured in pounds and pennies.

[The Camel]

Why is it a disgrace to have to pay for an education?

Because it makes education a privilege not a right.  Because it makes education, and by turn, a future something that becomes only accessible to the rich.  Because it forces people who get the education to make the paying off of their debt and getting money to do so their main priority after graduating.  That in turn stops people from becoming nurses, social workers, teachers and other roles that provide a payback to society that can't be measured in pounds and pennies.

What he said.

[Woodsey]

Well if you can promise to dump the scammers on welfare who don't genuinely need it, and ensure its reserved for those that do to save money elsewhere then I will agree to your policy lol. Until then no hehe.

[Jon MW]

Why is it a disgrace to have to pay for an education?

Because it makes education a privilege not a right.  Because it makes education, and by turn, a future something that becomes only accessible to the rich.  Because it forces people who get the education to make the paying off of their debt and getting money to do so their main priority after graduating.  That in turn stops people from becoming nurses, social workers, teachers and other roles that provide a payback to society that can't be measured in pounds and pennies.

What he said.

University graduates also add more to the economy over their lifetime then it costs to educate them.

The current policy is aimed towards trying to put the whole of the cost on to the graduate even though the people who benefit from a degree are the graduate, their employer and the government.

What's wrong is the policy of trying to get everybody to go to uni when it can never be appropriate for everybody to need to - the old days it was just for the elite, these days it's for everybody - it seems to be difficult to reach a sensible middle ground.

[Jon MW]

...I'm already saving for my children's future and I haven't even got any or any real chance of having any. I have a rough idea though how the world is going to be in 20 years time so it's time to prepare now.

I know that more and more things will have to be funded privately. Even the NHS at some point will disappear to be run privately. None of this can happen soon enough if you ask me. The sooner people have to start paying their way for everything they have the better. Also the sooner everything gets privatised the better.

Privatise everything, reduce taxes accordingly and let people pay for what they need themselves rather than having to pay for everyone else.

The problem with that is that it assumes everybody has any spare money they can put aside for saving.

It assumes that there is always enough to go around and that if people aren't saving then it's just because they're not budgeting properly, when it's often the case that if a lot of people actually budgeted perfectly the most they could save up would be a trivial amount anyway.

And if you haven't got any 'spare' money and hence you can't save anything then if it comes to having to pay for everything, it won't be a case of them paying for themselves - it'll mean going without all together.

[millidonk]

Too many good posts to quote itt, agree with most of Jon's and Redarmi's posts and Matt makes a very good point that parents  need to save now if anything is going to change, unfortunately for me personally I won't be receiving any sort of inheritance and nor will my wife so we have worked hard to get a house and actively save to hopefully make it easier for our little one. If she looks like she might blow it then we will just go on a tonne of cruises in our later yrs. The buck has to stop somewhere, If not its just an endless cycle.

[skolsuper]

The student loan isn't really a debt, it's more of a deferred tax, and it's actually a pretty damn smart way of paying for higher education imo. They sell it pretty poorly tho, by calling it a debt they bring headlines containing the words "saddled with debt" on themselves tbh, although I guess it probably makes a lot of people pay it off early (almost certainly a mistake) which is good for them. I do think in an ideal world though there would be no fees and society would pick up the tab.

@Woodsey and others that think too many people go to university, what's wrong with that? Compulsory education exists because our whole society benefits from young people being educated to a high level, I think it would be pretty strange to draw a line in the sand at 16 and say "OK that's enough, we only need x% people to know more than this". I would think the goal would be to continually improve society's level of education so that our workforce gets more skilled and our productivity, and therefore (not necessarily, but ideally) our quality of life, increases, and one way to achieve that would be increasing the proportion of young people that stay on in higher education.

[Woodsey]

@Woodsey and others that think too many people go to university, what's wrong with that? Compulsory education exists because our whole society benefits from young people being educated to a high level, I think it would be pretty strange to draw a line in the sand at 16 and say "OK that's enough, we only need x% people to know more than this". I would think the goal would be to continually improve society's level of education so that our workforce gets more skilled and our productivity, and therefore (not necessarily, but ideally) our quality of life, increases, and one way to achieve that would be increasing the proportion of young people that stay on in higher education.

I just think standards have dropped too far to allow more people to attend university. Don't get me wrong there probably wasn't enough going to uni when I went 20 years ago, but I think its gone too far the other way now, I think the true figure of those that should go should be in the middle somewhere. I was at the bottom end of those who got into university when I went, suspect I would be in the middle of the pack now.

I take your point regarding increasing the education of the population as a whole/productivity etc. But even if there wasn't a recession right now I still doubt there would be enough graduate type jobs to go around, we need more going into manual/non professional type training to fill those jobs

What is happening is those lower end jobs are being filled by immigrants, and we are going to be left with a bunch leaving uni that will be unemployed because there aren't enough of those graduate type jobs going around. Then we get into the usual immigration arguments about foreigners nicking jobs, when all they are doing is filling a void created by too many going to uni.

[vegaslover]

I recently read a really great article by Zadie Smith about libraries which, for those interested, can be read here http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/02/north-west-london-blues/

There is a paragraph in it that I thought was fairly relevant to this debate:

"And so I recognize myself to be an intensely naïve person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight. And I retain a particular naivety concerning the British state, which must seem comical to many people, particularly younger people. I can only really account for it by reaching back again, briefly, into the past. It’s a short story about debt—because I owe the state, quite a lot. Some people owe everything they have to the bank accounts of their parents. I owe the state. Put simply, the state educated me, fixed my leg when it was broken, and gave me a grant that enabled me to go to university. It fixed my teeth (a bit) and found housing for my veteran father in his dotage. When my youngest brother was run over by a truck it saved his life and in particular his crushed right hand, a procedure that took half a year, and which would, on the open market—so a doctor told me at the time—have cost a million pounds. Those were the big things, but there were also plenty of little ones: my subsidized sports centre and my doctor’s office, my school music lessons paid for with pennies, my university fees. My NHS glasses aged 9. My NHS baby aged 33. And my local library. To steal another writer’s title: England made me."

That is how I feel about what i got from the state but future generations won't get that.  Partly because so many think they shouldn't contribute and would rather have lower taxes themselves but also because it was probably not sustainable in the long run once the currnet consumerist culture had begun to take over.  Did the older generations work hard.  For sure but they also got a real helping hand in a lot of areas and I, for one, think that was a good thing.

That's a great quote Stu.

My niece is currently getting ready to attend university in the Autumn.

She will work in the caring profession when she graduates.

She is more intelligent, more motivated and more compassionate than I ever was (or will ever be)

My university education was free. She is going to leave uni with a debt of tens of thousands of pounds.

It's a disgrace.

Why is it a disgrace to have to pay for an education?

Surely it was just very fortunate for the ones who got it for free in the past?

Previously there were far less people wanting to go to university. The numbers have got so large and the fees so high that the tax payers can no longer afford to pay for them all.

It's not a disgrace it's just a necessity. Unless something changes to reduce costs elsewhere then education will continue to have to be funded privately.

This current batch of University goers will have it quite tough I admit because the fee thing is relatively new. We can't say that we didn't know this was coming a few years ago though. A few years down the line though it's going to be the parents fault I'm afraid. They know what's in store so it's time to start saving for it. If you don't save for it then your kids are going to have big debts.

I'm already saving for my children's future and I haven't even got any or any real chance of having any. I have a rough idea though how the world is going to be in 20 years time so it's time to prepare now.

I know that more and more things will have to be funded privately. Even the NHS at some point will disappear to be run privately. None of this can happen soon enough if you ask me. The sooner people have to start paying their way for everything they have the better. Also the sooner everything gets privatised the better.

Privatise everything, reduce taxes accordingly and let people pay for what they need themselves rather than having to pay for everyone else.

Even if everything is privatised taxes wont be reduced, they pretty much never are. Then people will just pay even more for a worse service.
The nut worst case fpr healthcare is for it to be privatised. Standards of care are awful in the profit searching private sector compared to 'for like' public sector services.

Healthcare standards have dropped dramatically in the past 3 years alone, which much worse to come.

I agree with many though that you make what you can out of your own situation and your future.  Far too many of the young nowadays want it on a plate, my two younger brothers included.
I bought my house when I was young by not having Holidays, nights out etc and caning the hours at work, usually 80+ a week, every week.

On the uni front my opinion is that some fees probably should be paid, but the Govt are defo trying to restrict intake to those financially able, rather than accessable for all.

[Delboy]

Even if everything is privatised taxes wont be reduced, they pretty much never are. Then people will just pay even more for a worse service.

The nut worst case fpr healthcare is for it to be privatised. Standards of care are awful in the profit searching private sector compared to 'for like' public sector services.

Healthcare standards have dropped dramatically in the past 3 years alone, which much worse to come.

I agree with many though that you make what you can out of your own situation and your future.  Far too many of the young nowadays want it on a plate, my two younger brothers included.
I bought my house when I was young by not having Holidays, nights out etc and caning the hours at work, usually 80+ a week, every week.

On the uni front my opinion is that some fees probably should be paid, but the Govt are defo trying to restrict intake to those financially able, rather than accessable for all.

What is your evidence for this please?