This document concerns the proposed rise in University tuition fees.
It is based around a series of topics regarding the new loan system, which have concerned me. It is briefly summarised below, with references as to where in the documents listed in the panel to your right more detailed argument can be found.
I have written to my MP, Mr. Duncan Hames, about a number of these issues and also met him in a short notice surgery he held in my local village hall.
The document contains exerts from replies from both Mr Duncan Hames MP and Mr David Willets MP. I have used these questions and answers as the basis for the argument in most of the sections.
I am sure there are many academics who would find my questions naïve and ill informed, however I am coming at this issue as a parent of a possible (the deterrent effect of this policy) future 'user' of the policy, and therefore more effected by it than those creating it, who have the freedom to treat it as a political exercise.
Many politicians may have a good understanding of the policy but the most important group of individuals, 2012 applicants, and their parents, certainly do not. From my own conversations I am sure at the best their understanding of the reasoning, mechanisms and consequences of this amorphous policy is shaky, at the worst it is a complete mystery.
Summary
The government's proposals for the first time impose a potentially blighting burden of debt on graduates and are unreasonable and unfair because:
1. We are being told to think of this as a tax. The most basic judgement on how fair a 'tax' is must rest on the decision about who pays. The determinant on whether or not you will be liable for this tax depends primarily on two things for the majority of undergraduates, school leavers:
A. Where their parents were judged to be ordinarily resident
the time of going to university
(Section 4 & section 5,)
B. Your parents' income
1. Poor enough on paper to be entitled to fee waiver. (section 7)
2. Rich enough to pay fees up front. (section 3)
The basic 'pay' or 'don't pay' decision has nothing whatsoever to do with the graduates' income and ability to pay after graduation.
Is this the first UK tax to be levied, not based on an individual's income, but on their parents' income?
2. One of the major arguments for the fees, the £100,000 graduate gain, is not a reliable figure. (Section1)
3. Some students will be considerably worse off as a result of going to university, though the skill they will have acquired will be of benefit to society in general. (Section 3)
4. The repayment is not progressive, only the debt. The very lowest earners will pay least, but even low middle earners will pay more in real terms than the highest earning graduates. (Section 2, section 3)
5, The failure to fairly trade education between England and Scotland may be unconstitutional. (Section 5,)
1
6. Scottish and Welsh MPs were able to vote in a tax for the English then opt their own children out of it. (Section 4)
7. It may be possible to end up paying the 'tax' for university education twice, once in Scotland and once in England. (Section 4,)
8. 2012 applicants have not, and cannot be properly informed of all the factors affecting their loan before application to university. (Section8)
9. Fees being paid by the student for their education are being redistributed as though they were tax revenue. (Section 7, section8, )
10. By being a loan not a tax this system favours very wealthy families, the highest earners, gave the Scots an opt out to prevent them opposing it, and avoided constitutional issues. (Section 3, section4 & section5)
11. As a loan it leaves the debt holders highly vulnerable to the whims of future governments. (Section 9)
12. Due to lack of time and White Paper the policy voted for by Parliament on [7 December] is greatly changed from that likely to be implemented.(Section10)
13. Those of us who had a free university education, or are passive beneficiaries of degrees, 'walk away' with a minimal contribution.
14. Current extremely wealthy citizens have done very well from their own, or others', free degrees, yet make no extra contribution to acknowledge this, despite having benefited in their life times from a property boom and good pensions, which the 'debt' generation seem less likely to have.
15. If this is a policy for 'social mobility' the mobility it seems designed to give is by stirring the waters at the bottom, moving the middle down and keeping the top firmly where it is.
