The university funding problem

[Dr Lobster*]

well known tory front bencher vincent cable was speaking about university funding today - proposing a 'graduate tax'.

personally, i don't think is a bad way of funding further education, i'd perhaps prefer that certain professions which society needs be further subsidised by the tax payer: doctors, science related, etc etc.

if you want to do something useless like a media studies degree, then fine... but perhaps the student shouldn't expect the tax payer to pick up the tab.

but what gets me though is how the benefits of university are being sold i heard a guy on radio 4 this morning saying that graduates expect to earn £100, 000 more over the course of their working life.... so if you work for the average of 40 years, that works out at a measly £2500 extra a year over a non-graduate... i'm not convinced this is a fantastic benefit to be quite honest.

obviously there are exceptions to this, but not everybody coming out of university is going to have the brains to be a vet, doctor, architect etc etc.

i'm pretty surprised how little some graduates seem to earn, seen jobs advertised for graduate java/c++ developers for as little as £16,000 - this is quite a skilled profession (obviously not in the same league as a surgeon, but nevertheless, requires several years of learning to get the skills to do it correctly) - it find it really surprising you can earn more doing a few night shifts stacking shelves in your local supermarket.

[Sput]

The daily mash makes a surprisingly good point about this: basically this all suggests that if two people do the same course at the same university then the one who works hard and gets a better paid job will have to pay more for their education than one who slacks off and gets a worse-paid job. That's a bit shit and doesn't take into account people that do a load of voluntary work or stuff that might actually help them get the better paid job. If you're going to have a graduate tax you should apply it evenly for those people on more than £15,000. It's only fair.

Oh and Lobster: I hear the big money is in financial C++ (urgh).

[Gavin Scott]

if two people do the same course at the same university then the one who works hard and gets a better paid job will have to pay more for their education than one who slacks off and gets a worse-paid job.

Its yet another case of specious reasoning - and that example highlights one of the clear logical flaws.

A flat rate on subject would surely encourage people to work harder to pay off a larger loan, no? If they don't think they have it in them, then they won't waste anyone's time (much less their own) undertaking a tough career choice. And if they do they'll be forced to make it work.

But, as a lefty aside, I'm fucking sick of hearing the well-worn "its the labour government's mess we're cleaning up" as an excuse for swingeing cuts to - for example - the police force.

Now I have a problem with public sector pensions. And I say this as someone who has two years of experience hearing exactly how extravagant some of these are. Cutting 40% of the front line force so that high ranking retired bobbies who were paid £150,000 a year can retire on £100,000 - and live for another 30 years - is not exactly a brilliant way to spend public money.

40/60ths of final remuneration pension schemes have long since been dropped in the private sector. Why are they "untouchable" in the public sector?

Apologies for the off-topic rant.

[cwathen]

i'm pretty surprised how little some graduates seem to earn, seen jobs advertised for graduate java/c++ developers for as little as £16,000 - this is quite a skilled profession (obviously not in the same league as a surgeon, but nevertheless, requires several years of learning to get the skills to do it correctly) - it find it really surprising you can earn more doing a few night shifts stacking shelves in your local supermarket.

Going off on a tangent here, but I think the minimum wage is starting to have a lot to answer for.

Whilst it absolutely had the best intentions at heart, I think it is proving to be a double edged sword, in that pay rises for those at the bottom are being paid for by those higher up which is hitting those people at the lower end of the skilled sector really hard, and so we're seeing an increasing problem where highly qualified people are doing highly skilled jobs for only a little bit more than someone stacking shelves.

I work 45-50 hours a week and get paid only about £16K myself to be an assistant manager, and I know that 5 years ago the same company paid well over £20K for the same job (I know this because I'm friends with the person who held the job back then), and there are supervisors below me working for only 10 or 20p an hour above a brand new employee with no responsibility, whereas 5 years ago they'd be a good £1 an hour or more clear of them. Also, people *used* to get token pay rises simply for length of service or for going that little bit extra even though they didn't actually hold any higher position. All gone now - unless there's been a specific promotion an employee at basic level who busts a gut for the company gets paid no more than someone who barely turns up for work. And about those bottom-level staff - the company used to pay everyone *higher* than the minimum wage anyway, now almost everyone is paid *on* it.

This can only be because now people 22 and over have to be paid at least £5.80 whereas 5 years ago they only had to be paid £4.85.

As I said above, it was certainly brought in with the best of intentions but I get the feeling (especially since we are now getting very close to a £6 / hour minimum) that it's been allowed to rise unchecked and now it's just working against everyone. Those actually on it don't really benefit at all from the incremental rises any more since every getting paid more means that everything costs more, and those who have put in the graft to work their way up so that they don't have to be stuck on the minimum wage end up on only a modest amount above it themselves as their employers use their salaries to offset rising labour costs from minimum wage increases.

We are fast heading towards a situation where pay for everyone except the rich is levelling out and THAT is where we will start to see true skills shortages in this country - who wants to work hard to get a proper job and have all the responsibility that goes with it when you'll only get paid a few hundred quid a year more than an order taker at McDonalds?

I think a tough decision needs to be made (or rather, should have been made about 5 years ago) and a line drawn under the minimum rate, with it not allowed to go any higher until there has been a *considerable* devaluation of it through inflation.

[Chie]

This can only be because now people 22 and over have to be paid at least £5.80 whereas 5 years ago they only had to be paid £4.85.

The adult rate was lowered to 21 and the wage increased below inflation to £5.93 last week, as per Alistair Darling's spring budget.

If the minimum wage had risen with inflation over the last 10 years then it would now be £4.65.

I agree with you, the minimum wage needs to be devalued until such time as the average increase over its lifetime reaches parity with the average increase in inflation. Then it should be increased with inflation and not above it.

Think how many jobs would have been saved in the recession if businesses hadn't had to pay the extra £2392 per employee.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Wonder how the Lib Dems are going get out of the mess they're in over this issue


It's a shame they didn't have the balls to include "doing the opposite to a manifesto commitment" as one of the things which would define an MP as corrupt so the constituents could recall (or sack) them.

[barcode]

Think how many jobs would have been saved in the recession if businesses hadn't had to pay the extra £2392 per employee.

Thank of all the nice people who now have some extra cash in the pocket there can spend to help boost the economy

Im more interested what going to happen in Scotland, ( I know) but state pays the fees up here but its cap around £1500, and there alot of uni up here demand increase.

I still wonder WHY are there so many more people going to uni these days? what happened to good old Collages and apprenticeships which was the way many people used to travel down to get proper training in there jobs,

[Sput]

Think how many jobs would have been saved in the recession if businesses hadn't had to pay the extra £2392 per employee.

1. Why have you replied to such an old post? It's a bit annoying
2. Perhaps you should use work-hours rather than jobs as your metric since so many people apparently took cuts to the length of their working weeks to keep everybody employed.

[Chie]

1. Why have you replied to such an old post? It's a bit annoying
2. Perhaps you should use work-hours rather than jobs as your metric since so many people apparently took cuts to the length of their working weeks to keep everybody employed.

1. The topic has featured heavily in the news today and what with this being a forum and not a communal blog, people might wish to discuss it.

2. I see your unquantified 'so many people' and raise you 1.3 million job losses. Clearly not every company was able to cut hours at the expense of output. Several tens of thousands of businesses also went bust each year.

[Dr Lobster*]

i do think it's pretty illuminating that some of the same people who are protesting against the very real possibility of unbounded tuition fees are also the very same people who want to see rid of things like child tax credits, on the grounds that they don't believe that the tax payer should subsidise other people's lifestyle.

interesting isn't it, as i would argue that university is as much a lifestyle choice as having children. you don't have to have either and you are not entitled to having either.

perhaps silly 6th forum students should stop thinking they are entitled to a university education, and if they truly want it, they've got to work hard for it not just now, but probably for most of the rest of their working life.

[Sput]

1. Why have you replied to such an old post? It's a bit annoying
2. Perhaps you should use work-hours rather than jobs as your metric since so many people apparently took cuts to the length of their working weeks to keep everybody employed.

1. The topic has featured heavily in the news today and what with this being a forum and not a communal blog, people might wish to discuss it.

2. I see your unquantified 'so many people' and raise you 1.3 million job losses. Clearly not every company was able to cut hours at the expense of output. Several tens of thousands of businesses also went bust each year.

1a. I didn't realise the minimum wage was being so fiercely debated today
2a. you have out-sputted me there! that said, you can't lay the blame for 1.3 million job losses at the door of the minimum wage when creditp the wwas relative flexibility within the workforce