University tuition fees are disgracefully high

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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Fretwired said:


    So when you said "no" when I suggested it was the taxpayer who paid it you meant "yes".
    No I meant no .. the debt is growing .. £100 billion now and £200 billion in six years time based on projections from the Treasury - so it isn't being paid off. Ultimately the tax payer will be on hook unless the government writes it off or sells it at a heavily discounted price to another company which makes money collecting student loans. It's not sustainable.

    The budget runs at a deficit so nothing is being paid off - and there is an argument to say that it never has to as long as we are happy to pay the cost of borrowing.

    But, as things stand, every pound of student debt that gets written off has to be funded by the taxpayer - which is like a halfway house between making students responsible for their debt and the old system where the taxpayer footed the whole bill.

    The money's already been spent .. the government would just write it off. After all, before fees the government funded higher education so getting something back is a bonus and it could be argued that graduates will earn more money so will pay a reasonable amount of tax over their lifetime.

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • CabbageCatCabbageCat Frets: 5549
    Fretwired said:
    Fretwired said:


    So when you said "no" when I suggested it was the taxpayer who paid it you meant "yes".
    No I meant no .. the debt is growing .. £100 billion now and £200 billion in six years time based on projections from the Treasury - so it isn't being paid off. Ultimately the tax payer will be on hook unless the government writes it off or sells it at a heavily discounted price to another company which makes money collecting student loans. It's not sustainable.

    The budget runs at a deficit so nothing is being paid off - and there is an argument to say that it never has to as long as we are happy to pay the cost of borrowing.

    But, as things stand, every pound of student debt that gets written off has to be funded by the taxpayer - which is like a halfway house between making students responsible for their debt and the old system where the taxpayer footed the whole bill.

    The money's already been spent .. the government would just write it off. After all, before fees the government funded higher education so getting something back is a bonus and it could be argued that graduates will earn more money so will pay a reasonable amount of tax over their lifetime.


    The government can't write off its own debt, but it certainly can write off the students' debts - it's all in the T&Cs.

    But yeah, the current system does sound like it must surely be better for the non-borrowing taxpayer. We are only part-funding universities instead of completely funding them.

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  • exocetexocet Frets: 1948
    It'll be final salary pensions combined with overheads associated with property.
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  • Musicman20Musicman20 Frets: 2296

    Luckily I didn't have to pay fees. I was one or two years before the changes started to creep in, plus my parents had their own company so the fairly low fees didn't have to be paid, some tax reason? Not sure.

    Anyway, I wouldn't do it now. I'm working in law and it is a vastly underpaid profession. They don't tell you that before people spend god knows how much on a law degree then £15k on law school. Whilst some may not realise, I know plenty of lawyers who have left the profession for easier jobs with more money.

    If I had my time again I'd go down the route of teaching, or a trade like electrician. If I could ultimately choose, I'd be a musician or a music journalist.

    I think young people are just being saddled with far too much debt.

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  • SporkySporky Frets: 27587
    Sporky said:

    (it's over £38 per hour for being in each lecture, by my calculations - 8 hours for 30 weeks)
    What degree did you base your calculations on?

    My degree had about 30 hours of lectures a week, plus 4 hours of labs, plus assignments and typically an hour or so with your assigned tutor as well.
    humanities, many are 8 or 9 hours a week, then a reading list. 
    An absolutely disgraceful ripoff


    So your figures are based on a heady mix of speculation and taking the lowest number you can think of.

    top jobs in unis pay silly money
    Profs on £100k,  head of the smallest unis on £290k

    More speculation. Citation needed.

    Here's Imperial College's pay scales.

    http://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/hr/public/salaries/job-families/AR---London-SP-Rates---2017-18.pdf

    Significantly lower than you're claiming, and they're hardly the Polyversity Of Little Snotlington.
    "[Sporky] brings a certain vibe and dignity to the forum."
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11414
    Taxpayer isn't paying it now.

    Student loans only came in from 1990, and the first year or two they only froze the grant, and the loan was a small top up.  My first one for the 1990/91 academic year was around £250.  I think my total loan when I graduated in 1992 was around £750.

    We are 25 years on from 1992, so any outstanding loans will now be written off.  With the small amounts borrowed (compared with now), I'd estimate that there will be very little outstanding to write off.

    Compare that to today, where they will have £27,000 in tuition fees, plus more loan for their living costs.  The total debt will be around £40,000, and a very large proportion of students will never repay it all.

    As I said above, it will be around 2026 when this starts to hit government finances.  Tuition fees were introduced in 1998, so students graduating from around 2001 onwards will have much bigger loans.  A 2001 graduate will have any remaining debt written off in 2026.

    It's typical short term thinking from the government.  May and Hammond won't still be in power when it starts to really hit the finances so they don't care.  All recent governments have been guilty of short termism.  The Tories caused all kinds of long term costs with their lack of spending on infrastructure in the 80s and 90s.  Labour did it with Gordon Brown's pension raid and the PFI deals that they took out to avoid laying out money up front.  It's a major flaw of our system.
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601


    The government can't write off its own debt, but it certainly can write off the students' debts - it's all in the T&Cs.

    But yeah, the current system does sound like it must surely be better for the non-borrowing taxpayer. We are only part-funding universities instead of completely funding them.

    The government is the lender, like a bank, and has given cash to a student who has used it to fund a university course. If the student fails to pay off the debt the government will be forced to write that debt off, in the same way a bank would if there was no way they could recoup a loan. If the government has borrowed money to fund university fees then it will still be on the hook for that cash. It can't write off its own borrowings.

    Interestingly debt write-off was something Osborne considered. Get the Bank of England to write a cheque for £1 trillion and then write-off government debt. The pound would fall and there would be inflation but we'd be debt free.

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • CabbageCatCabbageCat Frets: 5549
    edited August 2017
    crunchman said:
    Taxpayer isn't paying it now.

    Student loans only came in from 1990, and the first year or two they only froze the grant, and the loan was a small top up.  My first one for the 1990/91 academic year was around £250.  I think my total loan when I graduated in 1992 was around £750.

    We are 25 years on from 1992, so any outstanding loans will now be written off.  With the small amounts borrowed (compared with now), I'd estimate that there will be very little outstanding to write off.

    Compare that to today, where they will have £27,000 in tuition fees, plus more loan for their living costs.  The total debt will be around £40,000, and a very large proportion of students will never repay it all.

    As I said above, it will be around 2026 when this starts to hit government finances.  Tuition fees were introduced in 1998, so students graduating from around 2001 onwards will have much bigger loans.  A 2001 graduate will have any remaining debt written off in 2026.

    It's typical short term thinking from the government.  May and Hammond won't still be in power when it starts to really hit the finances so they don't care.  All recent governments have been guilty of short termism.  The Tories caused all kinds of long term costs with their lack of spending on infrastructure in the 80s and 90s.  Labour did it with Gordon Brown's pension raid and the PFI deals that they took out to avoid laying out money up front.  It's a major flaw of our system.
    When it does hit the taxpayer pocket do you think it will be more or less expensive to them than the system before loans?
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601

    When it does hit the taxpayer pocket do you think it will be more or less expensive to them than the system before loans?
    Good question .. I don't know. Perhaps @crunchman ; has a view ...

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11414
    edited August 2017
    Fretwired said:

    When it does hit the taxpayer pocket do you think it will be more or less expensive to them than the system before loans?
    Good question .. I don't know. Perhaps @crunchman ;; has a view ...
    Before loans we only sent approximately 20% of our young people to university.  I think that has doubled (or thereabouts).  We couldn't afford the previous system with the number of people going to university now.

    I do think there are too many people doing degrees now.   I'd go back to a system where around 20% (give or take) did academic degrees, but we sent more youngsters on one or two year vocational courses.  I think others have expressed similar views above.  If we did that it would be less of a cost to the taxpayer however it is funded.

    When I did my degree, there were also a lot of foreign students on my course.  I think the university liked it because the foreign students paid full fees, and subsidised the UK students.  That works with a smaller population of good universities that can attract students from abroad, but not for a lot of the no-name ex-polytechnics.

    I'm not sure that there is an easy solution but less people doing full degree courses would definitely make it cheaper.

    The cynic in me also says that the current system is a way of keeping them off the unemployment figures and avoiding paying them benefits.  Give them a loan that some of them might repay one day.  It probably works out cheaper than benefits.
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  • EvilmagsEvilmags Frets: 5158
    It's just accountancy. Essentially the government is creating a low quality loan book in exchange for taxpayers money. 
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  • CabbageCatCabbageCat Frets: 5549
    edited August 2017
    crunchman said:
    Fretwired said:

    When it does hit the taxpayer pocket do you think it will be more or less expensive to them than the system before loans?
    Good question .. I don't know. Perhaps @crunchman ;;; has a view ...
    Before loans we only sent approximately 20% of our young people to university.  I think that has doubled (or thereabouts).  We couldn't afford the previous system with the number of people going to university now.

    I do think there are too many people doing degrees now.   I'd go back to a system where around 20% (give or take) did academic degrees, but we sent more youngsters on one or two year vocational courses.

    It would certainly be cheaper if fewer people went to University (it would be even cheaper if fewer people did any sort of education) but that creates a new set of problems. If only the smartest kids went to uni then there would be a bigger class divide for higher education unless there was a system to artificially favour kids from poorer backgrounds (which will bring down the overall quality of the education) or lift state education to a point where private education doesn't outshine it (which would be extremely expensive).

    I should point out that I don't have a massive philosophical problem with any of the listed methods (though I perhaps find the class divide less distasteful than economic bankruptcy) - I am merely pointing out that there is no magic bullet. We cannot, as far as I can establish, have everything for nothing.

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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11414
    People from less well off backgrounds can do well even with fewer people going to university.  I got free school meals for a year or two when I was a kid yet I ended up with a degree from a university that is ranked in the world's top ten.

    It does depend very much on the attitude of the parents though.  You can have poorer parents who value education and support their kids, while others just don't care.  You also find some well off parents who don't care.
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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11790
    Sporky said:
    Sporky said:

    (it's over £38 per hour for being in each lecture, by my calculations - 8 hours for 30 weeks)
    What degree did you base your calculations on?

    My degree had about 30 hours of lectures a week, plus 4 hours of labs, plus assignments and typically an hour or so with your assigned tutor as well.
    humanities, many are 8 or 9 hours a week, then a reading list. 
    An absolutely disgraceful ripoff


    So your figures are based on a heady mix of speculation and taking the lowest number you can think of.

    top jobs in unis pay silly money
    Profs on £100k,  head of the smallest unis on £290k

    More speculation. Citation needed.

    Here's Imperial College's pay scales.

    http://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/hr/public/salaries/job-families/AR---London-SP-Rates---2017-18.pdf

    Significantly lower than you're claiming, and they're hardly the Polyversity Of Little Snotlington.
    I saw an ad for Prof role at an old Poly last year for £103k
    the BBC interview in my first post has the head of Southbank Uni on £227 basic, £290 total

    please tell me what I am speculating about? I have given sources for all data
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  • SporkySporky Frets: 27587
    I saw an ad for Prof role at an old Poly last year for £103k

    please tell me what I am speculating about? I have given sources for all data
    Not that one you haven't.

    And you've cherry picked your evidence for number of hours and stuck with the lowest end of the scale. Do your sums again for an engineering degree.

    And you're using the head of a university as evidence for lecturer salaries - that's like saying that you can work out what a call centre person at Virgin Media earns based on Richard Branson's net worth.
    "[Sporky] brings a certain vibe and dignity to the forum."
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  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    Sporky said:
    I saw an ad for Prof role at an old Poly last year for £103k

    please tell me what I am speculating about? I have given sources for all data
    Not that one you haven't.

    And you've cherry picked your evidence for number of hours and stuck with the lowest end of the scale. Do your sums again for an engineering degree.

    And you're using the head of a university as evidence for lecturer salaries - that's like saying that you can work out what a call centre person at Virgin Media earns based on Richard Branson's net worth.
    I can name drop a PhD student at Greenwich that is paid £55 an hour when lecturing (and a fixed salary as a researcher the rest of the year) and Greenwich is hardly a top flight university. So there may be some places that offer more for hard-to-fill lecture positions (very specialist skills which might earn loads in the private sector - why would you do research at a uni for a tenth of what you earn in the real world?). For instance a penetration tester can get a starting graduate position at £35,000-£40,000 with a few years experience and some promotions under their belt they might not want to take a huge pay cut to lecture, so universities would need to offer much more money to get someone who actually understands the subject enough to give students a good chance of learning it.

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=average+lecturer+salary+uk&oq=average+lecturer+salary+uk&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.5943j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 suggests £39,000 for an average lecturer 

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=average+senior+lecturer+salary+uk&oq=average+senior+lecturer+salary+uk&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i8i30k1.25501.27426.0.27810.11.9.2.0.0.0.81.481.9.9.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.11.483...0i13k1j0i8i13i30k1j0i7i30k1.cRD6ucQCtT8 suggests average senior lecturer is £46,649 (seems oddly precise)

    So, it looks an awful lot like £100,000 a year lecturer jobs must be exceedingly rare... or maybe it was a head of department, or head of faculty position? 
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/university-vice-chancellors-average-pay-now-exceeds-275000 if Vice Chancellors earn £275,000 it seems possible there would be some (few) positions in the £100,000 range... I wouldn't like to speculate on the likelihood of such an event... but anything is possible


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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11414
    edited August 2017
    Sporky said:

    And you've cherry picked your evidence for number of hours and stuck with the lowest end of the scale. Do your sums again for an engineering degree.
    There is also all the resources required for an engineering or science degree.

    Just thinking about my degree, there were were labs to equip and maintain, and quite a lot of expensive equipment (for example) decent quality microscopes, electron microscopes, and X ray machines for doing X ray crystallography.  Those are expensive, and cost a lot of money to buy and maintain.

    We also had a lot of chemicals and other stuff.  I remember using hydrofluoric acid for doing some etching.  The precautions around storing that stuff make it very expensive.

    These days it would be even worse.  Staff would have to spend hours writing out risk assessments for the HF and for the X ray machine - that's additional expense.  There would also be a lot of expensive licences for specialist software as well.

    All that is before you ever get any teaching time from a lecturer - and we had a lot more than 8 or 12 hours per week.

    If you have an English student with a handful of lectures and a tutorial or two each each week, it will be a lot cheaper to deliver, but given how short we are of competent engineers and scientists, I don't think it would be a good idea to discourage people from studying science and engineering by making them three times the price of an English degree.
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  • EvilmagsEvilmags Frets: 5158
    If we were that short of engineers they'd get paid more. 
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11414
    Evilmags said:
    If we were that short of engineers they'd get paid more. 
    We just import them from abroad.
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  • SporkySporky Frets: 27587
    Evilmags said:
    If we were that short of engineers they'd get paid more. 
    Professional engineers get paid more than most people think.

    The problem is that most people think an engineer is someone in a van with a toolbox.

    We are very short of professional engineers.
    "[Sporky] brings a certain vibe and dignity to the forum."
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