MPs vote on tuition fees increase today in UK.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8191811/Tuition-fees-Q-and-A-what-do-the-proposals-mean.html

I think while university funding should be kept at a decent rate and the fees not too high, however theyshouldn't just let anyone into university and also encourage some people to take up a "trade" like plumbing, electricial working to cope with demands in those fields.

Too many people have degrees, they're devalued when everyone has them, and it causes discrimination against people who don't want to go down the university route.

So, yeah, increase the prices so you don't need a degree just to get a job.

You don't need a degree anyway

The police have been filmed cavalry charging crowds of protesters today. Crowd which contain children. Nice. Somebody should remind students what caltrops are for before someone innocent gets hurt.

Seems some royals got a few dents on their Rolls-Royce...

Someone explain university fees in the UK to me? I believe they are going up to a total of approximately 6,000 to 9,000 pounds per year (roughly equal to $9,500 to $14,000 US a year) now? What does that cover? Tuition, fees, books & supplies, dormitories? (Health insurance is covered by the government, correct?)

I work at a major public (vs private) university in the USA and our fees have gone up substantially in the last five years as tax revenue has dropped. The cost for an undergraduate here at my institution now is $28,000 per year, but that figure includes $11,000 for housing. (This total is about half the price of a private university.) It will go up again next year, barring more funding becoming available from the state. (I.E., unless the economy turns around enough to provide tax dollars into the state treasury to send on to the university.)

Do students in the UK have to pay the entire cost, or is there a sliding fee scale? Grants? Scholarships? My own student loans for, combined, my BA, Masters, and some work towards a PhD cost me roughly $45,000 (at 8% interest), many years ago, but I had to include the cost of childcare and healthcare in my expenses. That was in addition to grants and scholarships. (I will never get it paid back, but am on a sliding payment scale.) I'm helping my own kid navigate it all - it's never easy.

I'm having quite a hard time understanding the rioting in London and have decided to put off a trip there in a couple of weeks. (Last minute opportunity, probably couldn't do it due to health issues anyway, but for sure am not going to walk into that!) If the students have to come up with the costs completely out-of-pocket I can see where it would be quite a shock to have them increase so dramatically in the middle of a degree program. Are they making these cost increases across the board, or only for newly entering students?

The students they interview on the news talk as if they believe going to a university is an inherent right for that anyone who is at least passably bright. Perhaps a different mindset, there.

Would appreciate the info. Thanks.

We don't share the same model of higher education as the United States so the confusion probably begins there Nan. Not too long ago providing you satisfied the grades the university required higher educaiton was for free in the past. Many of the politicians in our parliment obtained their degree's through having such opportunities to goto university without having to pay excessive amounts of money to do so, just pay for their own living costs they encoured.

The system then changed during the 1990's to a a loan system were the government loaned you the money and you began to pay back the loan post-graduation once you began earning over a certain amount. During the previous governments time in office they introduced tuition fee's which you had to pay upfront depending on your family background and financial situation determined how much of a % of this fee you paid, again, you paid it back out of your salary once you began earning a certain amount.

Now the tuition fee's are going from there current maximum cap of £3250 to £6000 to a max of £9000 due to government withdrawing a huge chunk of the funding to higher education.

The UK has a tradition of promoting higher education as being accessable to all of its citizens regardless of background or financial restraints. The current coalition government reform is seeking to reverse this tradition which is were the animosity and dismay is coming from younger people. The young people of today are effectively paying the price for the consequence of the financial crisis by the decisions of politicians who had the privelage of recieving higher education with no financial restraints on their opportunities.

The police are doing a great job at provoking the group of student protesters, aren't they? Because the media hasn't made them look bad enough yet, clearly...

It seems somewhat short-sighted of the police and the government, seeing as they intend to make huge cuts to the police budget as well. Some of those baton-happy badges are liable to feel somewhat less aggrieved towards students when they end up on the other side of a "kessel." Also, how long can Parliament actually BE effectively defended when they start cutting huge chunks of the "force"? Cleggy on his own is probably going to need a larger protection squad, judging from the sheer vitriol he has generated. All his own fault though. Moral of the story is "Don't renege on an election promise that affects your largest voter base." Do you see the tories alienating the super-rich? Of course not. They know where the votes come from, and they know who their paymasters are.

Also, the police seem to have rather missed the obvious side effects of "kettling", in that many historical examples of such tactics resulted in the encircling troops facing MORE resistance rather than less. Sooner or later someone is going to catch a molotov at short range and then its REALLY going to get hot.

The situation is as follows. Currently students pay 3250 pounds in tuition fees per year, upfront (loans are available). The new proposals are for fees to go up to 9000 pounds per year and would not be paid upfront, but paid as soon as the student is earning a salary of over 21,000 pounds per year. Fees include purely the cost of being taught in the University and do not include books, accomodation, other living costs. There are few bursaries available for poorer students - but in general people are expected to take out loans for these things if they or their parents cannot pay. The rises will be for new entrants only - current students are protesting for those to come.

To Americans this may not seem like a huge amount, but until about 10 years ago degree courses were free of charge, and over 15 years ago most people got some help with living costs on a means tested basis. However, in the past few years the number of people going to University has increased dramatically and is now somewhere around 40% (the last government were aiming at 50%).

I work at a University and do hear plenty of complaints from lecturers about the low academic standards of students they teach. I do think that we have too many people going to University, and that practical training is better for many jobs. I do think that graduates should contribute over that of the general tax payer for their education, once earning a sufficient amount, however I favour a graduate tax rather than a loan which effectively forces anyone who wants a degree (which today means anyone who wants a job that earns them enough to more than just barely survive on) to saddle themselves with debt from the age of 18 - debt that they may never be able to pay off entirely.

I think there are several problems with this bill that has been voted on today. One is that it is something that will change the way universities are funded in a major way, yet has effectively been rushed in with insufficient consultation and debate. Another is that the increase in fees is far more than needed to deal with the financial crisis - a crisis caused in the main by the banks, but partly through careless government. This is yet another way to pass the debt onto the younger generation who are completely blameless in all regards (being mainly too young to even vote at the moment).

It is effectively an ideological position - the Conservative government believes in the power of the free market to improve everything. The fact that our universities are consistently rated some of the best in the world yet are currently mainly publically funded seems to have escaped their notice. The value for money is far higher than that of the best US universities which cost extortionate amounts of money, yet do no better in the league tables than Cambridge and Oxford in the UK.

Rather than cutting direct funding to Universities completely (as is proposed), I would actually plan to increase it to fund expansion - not necessarily for more home students (I think a review of how many graduates we really need should be done), but to attract more international students - these pay over the odds for their British degrees (which still cost them less than a degree at a US university), which brings money into the country and can be used - not for profit, but to help fund home students, and at the same time create more jobs for lecturers and support staff. This government is very fond of going on about all the cuts it is going to make and how these will improve the economy, but expanding one of the few things we are good at, in order to reap the benefits later (both directly from influx of money from foreign students and indirectly from educating our own students well and not overburdening them with debt) surely makes more economic sense than completely overhauling one of the few systems that performs well in the UK.

Merrymad - ah. Again, things become clearer. Wow, a free education? That's a heck of a perk - but I guess at your tax rate it was justifiable!

We have tried allowing more foreign students in over the last year or two. They do bring in a much higher tuition rate (California residents pay only fees, they do not pay tuition). Non-residents of California pay tuition and fees, and non-citizens (not including "greencard" aliens) pay through the nose.

There is somewhat of a backlash building, however, as there are only limited spaces and the people who believe their tax dollars are supporting the university are fuming mad when their own kids can't get in because a foreigner has taken their place.

It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Here fees bring in only about 11% of the revenue stream of the university.

And yes, there's the preparation problem. They don't get in here. There's another system, the California State system, that has universities that take those who can't make the top cut. And below that there are community colleges, who offer 2 year vocational or general education degrees. My daughter took a few classes there and the quality of the instructors was not much better than the students, and they were almost functionally illiterate. On the good side, the course credit transfers to both the Univ. of California and the Cal State system, so if the kid wants to go to school "in state" she won't have wasted her time.

And, as usual, yes, the sins of the fathers.... as it always is.