Why we should be supporting top-up fees
The anti-fees protest last month was a welcome demonstration of how students can still campaign for left-wing progressive causes. Widening access to higher education is essential to our long-held belief that society should deliver for the many and not the few. However, opposing top-up fees does just that by effectively campaigning to entrench middle-class perks.
Like most students I think £3,000 is a lot of money, however the genius behind the new system is the more fairer way to re-pay back the fees. It is the students loan company that pays the money upfront and once we start earning £15,000 per annum we then, and only then, begin to pay the money back. When a graduate receives a salary of over £20,000 the re-payments are reduced by 50%.
But what does this mean in practice? Put simply, students no longer have to ensure that they have enough money in their accounts to meet their direct debits, theoretically fewer students should feel the need to enter part-time work. No student or family from 2006 is required to pay a fee while or before they are studying. However, if they choose to pay off the fees early they can do so. This makes it much more encouraging for the less-well off who no longer need to have their parents pay for their tuition.
Undergraduate Students get higher education free, it is only graduates who make payments. Higher education brings great benefits, and so our universities should represent this. Their buildings need to be monuments to learning and research, they need to be palaces. That is why paying fees in the first place is so necessary. If we want the full benefits out of University we should be expected to foot at least some of the bill, and it is all the more easier to do so under the new system.
The next demonstration should be about genuinely widening access. Access does not fail at 18 because someone doesn’t want to pay tuition fees. Access fails with far greater ramifications at 16 when a child drops out of school, those issues begin much more early on. When the NUS starts marching to spend more on the under-fives maybe then I will start marching with them.
Posted by Tom Guise, BULS Freshers Officer
Birmingham University Labour Students
John Ritchie
Brigidjones
daveborland
dorameredith
bensemens
chrisblewitt
oliverjackson
maxattacks
joshualt
suzannahrobinson
kohalloran
jakelambertonline
smurphy2010
labourluke
bulsonline
Guardian Unlimited
I’m not sure there are many people who could argue that the overwealming majority of society should subside education for a minority – who will then largely go on to well paid jobs.
However, this is not the way to do it. When I left university after two degrees (BSc and MSc), I had a wife and a small child. A £15K job is not a well paid job in most parts of the country.
Fortunately for me, I went through before the fees came in, otherwise I simply would not have been able to have access to university education.
I think the only fair system is a flat rate income tax on graduates.
First of all, it is grammatically incorrect, what is a “more fairer way to pay”? Also what has interested me about these top up fees is the amount of spare cash that these Universities have lying around, My university, for example now gives burseries to practically everyone, not that I’m complaining, of course but surely these extra funds could go towards better pay for lecturers and tutors and better equipment?
I do, however agree that this way of paying is considerably superior to the previous system and on this, I congratulate the Government.
In Scotland, there are no top-up fees and they all seem to be getting on fine without them. I think, for this system to work, it should be nationwide or nothing at all, because many English students are going to scottish Universities purely because of the lack of top-up fees. Financial considerations, I believe should not be part of the University criteria as there are far more important things to consider, seeing as it will be your home for the next 3 years, or more!
I am not necessarily anti-top up fees, I just believe it could have been done in a better and fairer fashion.
Maybe if we didn’t pour money into Trident then we could in fact facilitate for a free universal higher education system.–>