My great political confession

[lavendersparkle]

Here it is: I'm not so convinced that university tuition fees are a bad thing. There, I said it. Let me clarify a bit.

I'm opposed to fees being paid up front. I think that up front fees are detrimental to access. They put people from poorer backgrounds off applying because the thought of that much money up front and they put people in impossible situations if they become estranged from their parents whilst at university. I'd be in favour of paying for undergraduate degrees through either deferred fees which were collected as a portion of future income once income was above a certain amount or through low interest loans with fees collected once your income is above a certain amount and written off if not repaid by a certain age. I think that both of these options are effectively the same in terms of what one pays and when so which system one uses should be based on what it less detrimental to access.

My problem with higher education being free to the user is that it's regressive. There's no way of getting around that fact. University students are on average from richer backgrounds and graduates earn more on average than the general population. Giving relatively wealthy teenagers a £30,000 present paid for by less wealthy taxpayers just doesn't seem fair. Surely it would be fairer for graduates to pay an average of £750 a year over the coarse of their working lives, as long as they're earning above average income. If you're not willing to pay an extra bit of tax once you've graduated to pay for your degree why should you expect everyone else to?

There are lots of different reasons to go to university: love of learning, to improve one's career prospects, as a way to ease the transition from childhood to independence. If university is a way for the middle classes to cut the apron strings then I don't think that it's the sort of thing the government should subsidise. If your earning potential is improved by your degree, where's the harm in paying some of that increase in earnings back? If you're dedicated to the love of learning you're unlikely to earn enough to pay back your fees anyway.

Another advantage I can see to fess being repaid by graduates is that it may actually increase university funding. Funding per student has decreased over the last decade or two as governments try to expand university participation on the cheap. If degrees were paid for entirely through fees rather than general taxation, it would be less of an easy thing for the government to cut.

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with this.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I'm not against paying for university in principal; I'm not really keen on the current loan arrangements, it's a bit scary to have such a huge debt hanging around (even though the terms are very favourable) and some people are morally opposed to borrowing. I think I'd prefer a graduate tax, although that might be harder to administer.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Deferred fees, or loans, OK. Graduate tax I would be very concerned about, because over time it would just blur into the rest of the tax burden, and it would seem that tuition was "free" again, which would leave the way clear to introduce yet more fees on top.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

If your earning potential is improved by your degree, where's the harm in paying some of that increase in earnings back?

You already do this via the current tax system. Compared to the sort of salary I would get without my law degree, I pay more extra tax in a single year than it cost the taxpayer to educate me.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Maybe in principle people should pay for their own degrees but progressive income taxation is a good proxy for this and less administratively expensive.