Almost Canadian

Your argument appeared to go: those that don`t have children shouldn`t have to pay. I argued that if you look at it that the taxes you currently pay, could be thought of as your way of repaying for the education that you once had, then those that do not have children are treated the same as those that do (on the basis that their children will pay taxes at some later point).

The amount of taxation one pays is a totally different argument with the "correct" answer depending on one`s political beliefs.

Oink

Do you write for the Telegraph?

". . . foolish desire to cram 50 percent of young people through university ,which had “flooded higher education with too many ill-equipped students pursuing gimcrack courses that lead to qualifications that leave employers cold.”


"A market mechanism must develop between institutions and disciplines, for the current flat rate is unfair.” Vocational training was the option left for the “less scholarly.”


Come to think about it, we should bring back secondary moderns and make the working . . . I mean the less scholarly, leave school at 14 again.

dbd33

Either there are an infinitely expanding number of places and so a devaluation of the product or some people cannot go. You assert that if education is free only an elite will attend, presumably basing this on a perception of the education system back when there were grants in the UK. You make the unsound leap to the view that charging fees will lessen the proportion of attendees from the elite. I think that's only so because there are a finite number of the elite and so increasing the number of degrees issued necessarily means issuing some to plebs.

You're making the assumption that charging fees and expanding the number of places go hand-in-hand and that because expanding the number of places is a good thing, fees are also a good thing. None of that need be the case, indeed it'd be better for the brand "education" if scarcity was maintained. My position is that the fees are a barrier to those without money and that it's statistical sleight of hand to suggest that giving everyone a degree somehow addresses the problem of the elite gaining a disproportionate number of degrees at the time when they were scarce.

What's desirable is a valuable product, degrees that are hard to get, and a lack of non-academic barriers to entry, be they financial, class based or whatever else.

Oink

The elite are going to go to HE regardless, why not make them pay for it. In a rationed system, the elite have a competitive advantage over the less fortunate. Why is that so hard to understand? No one is saying it should be an unrestricted market free-for-all, rather its making those with the means pay a portion of their education so that we can offer more places, places that with means tested scholarships and grants, can help those who'd never have the opportunity to attend. This seems a fair system and one based on the reality in which we live.

Novocastrian

Without endorsing the rhetoric or the source, I do in fact agree with the first quote, but not the second. Market forces be damned.

And your own attempt at humour is well off the mark. I said everyone should get HE suited to their different talents and that this HE, whatever its form, should be free at the point of delivery i.e. paid from tax.

jimf

I tend to agree with you here. However, if you follow the same logic and apply it to secondary education it does seem to make the case for grammar schools. I've always been uneasy about grammar schools but they might just be the best way of allowing those with academic ability from all backgrounds to succeed.

Its right that there are many forms of ability, not just academic ability. But society in general, and most individuals if they are honest enough to admit it, value the academic ability and qualification more highly so anything less than the academic university route will likely always be seen as second rate.

I think those that loose out most these days are the non academic scraping into one of the newer universities doing a non traditional degree paying a fair amount of money and then finding out after 3 years it hasn't made them any more attractive in the employment market but they still have the bill to pay.

Novocastrian

It's hard to understand because it's not true. Are secondary schools rationed? The elite don't much care. They pay to go to private schools anyway.

Oink

That supports my position. The elite in the UK pay for their children to attend independent schools, because they are far more adept at getting their pupils through the university entrance exam process. They don't pay for them to go there just for the polo and buggery. Having the means to pay for private education rather than sending their children to the local comprehensive is called a competitive advantage.

jimf

I would eliminate the financial advantages that allow private schools to operate so widely. The notion that they are charities is ridiculous. I would also like to see some mechanism whereby universities receiving state funding are only allowed to admit the same proportion of private school students as the proportion of private school students in the overall national university intake. This would really incentivise the "elite" universities to identify the state school students with real potential.

Alan2005

Maintaining scarcity should not be what education is about. But even if it was, why is it up to the state to decide what level of scarcity has value? Can't people decide for themselves?

Novocastrian

I don't see that it supports your position at all. This "elite" you're worried about are not my (immediate) concern. I'm interested in maintaining an environment where academic endeavour can flourish to the benefit of those who are equipped to take advantage of it and take nourishment from it.

If specialized coaching to get through the university entrance exam process (whatever the hell that is in the current context) can be bought, then what should change is the process: it shouldn't simply be abolished.

Moreover, if having the means to pay provides a competitive advantage, how on earth can you support tuition fees and argue that they are somehow to poorer folks advantage too?

Novocastrian

If you hadn't said "incentivise" I might agree with some of that.

Novocastrian

It's not.

jimf

encourage then?

Oink

In an ideal world I'd agree with your assessment. But the reality, especially in the UK, is much murkier. While education itself has an intrinsic and societal value, its also has a monetary market value. The degree certificate acts as currency in the labour market, the more restricted the supply the higher price. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism that takes into account all the variables that make up a fair system, where "academic endeavour can flourish to the benefit of those who are equipped to take advantage of it and take nourishment from it" that doesn't involve subsidy. I advocate that any subsidy should benefit lower income families rather than higher earning families.

I'm not suggesting the wholesale marketization of HE, that as you may well have witnessed, can produce some rather perverted results. Academic freedom must be maintained, adjunct should not be replacing tenured faculty and I would even go so far to say that the notion of students as customers has detrimental effects on the quality of education received. As I said earlier, that without dictatorial powers we simply trying to create a fairer system, one where all students who have demonstrated the ability and desire to attend HE, can do so.