Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Tuition Fees

The argument over tuition fees is very simple. We can either just send the clever kids to Uni like we used to and afford to pay them a grant, so that they leave with very little debt; or we can allow all the duffers to go, in which case we can't afford to subsidise every one of them, so they will have to pay out loads of money, which in many cases will be a millstone round their neck for years afterwards.

There, that's all there is to it.


9 comments:

amigauser said...

HI

You fail to point out that students in debt will try to charge society more for their skills (e.g. private dentists) and will not enter low paid, low status jobs(teaching).

If you had to go over 50 grand in debt to become a teacher, is the increase in salary over minimum wage worth it?

Anonymous said...

...and the clever ones this country needs to go will do the sums and decide against it.

wonderfulforhisage said...

Why is it necessary to have a degree to become a teacher? Surely a year or so's apprenticeship would be adequate to prepare someone to teach at primary school.

Mind you, the Unions wouldn't be too keen.

Anonymous said...

When I went to secondary school I don't think many teachers had degress.

Most of the male teachers had done national service, though. Excellent for discipline.

Anonymous said...

Well thank God for that. I was beginning to think I was the only person in the world who had spotted that one.

PilotGP said...

@amigauser: A teacher on band 3 earns over £25k, which puts them comfortably over the median wage. How exactly is that "low paid?"

Anonymous said...

@PilotGP:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285

tl;dr version: £25k is just below the median wage for 2009.

Devil's Kitchen said...

Teaching a low-paid occupation...?

Aaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!

Brilliant! Tell us another...

The vast majority of teachers are subject to the National Pay Deal, so they know what they will get paid. They also know that they will continue to get paid more for every year they serve.

Some of us work for small companies, and have programmers on £17k. They may or may not get a pay rise in the next year.

Teachers are not low-paid, so let's stop that myth right in its tracks, shall we?

DK

Defence Brief said...

I've been saying for years that Tony Blair's plan to have 50% of school leavers going to uni was silly. Most jobs don't require a degree and I suspect that most of those jobs would actually be better without degree educated employees.