Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
My son is at an English University so he is paying tuition fees actually and my daughter is doing her post graduate diploma for which she also pays.
I agree that there is a lot more to do for younger people and that the old have been unduly favoured for political reasons. I am not saying I agree with everything he says. I am admiring the technical skills of the way that he says it and his presentation.
LOL, bet Gallowgate cannot get his foot out of his mouth now to grovel a response to his crass assumptions.
As with private education, the fact they have gone to an English university was their choice.
As for everything else we need a wealth tax because a 22 year old shouldn’t be paying for the social care of a 75 year old in a house worth over £200,000. There is A valuable asset that the money could be coming from
Any assets are taken off you if you need social care, anything above 20 odd K and you pay for it through the nose. You lot are all desperate for other people to pay for you , it is always some other group. When you get older you will be whining that you should not pay tax on your 10 million pound house as it is not fair.
Only if you go into a residential home, not for care delivered in your home.
And actually I’m perfectly happy to start paying a wealth tax now - in fact most of the working posters on this site support the idea, it’s you and a few others who don’t.
It does have pretty broad support on here, from left, right and centre and from plenty who at least appear well off.
Strangely Labour members on here seem a bit blase about it, something to maybe, perhaps put in a future manifesto at some point, rather than something to propose now and create a clear political divide with the government.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
You read like a JohnsonIan Tory. Congratulations on the conversion.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
What an immature response
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
Has Big G threatened to quit the Tory Party again this week or is he back with them again, shall I pencil in the next "oh I really hate BoJo actually" for just after the budget?
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
Typical lazy arsehole, tax the people who have already paid their tax for a lifetime and are still paying to give to lazy jealous gits who don't want to pay for themselves.
Sorry Malc, often agree with you but as someone who has paid tax for a lifetime, as has his wife, I feel very sorry for my grandchildren who are paying their taxes and, on top of that, are, or will be, paying back their student fees. And yes of course I can, and do, give them presents.
OKC, why do people vote Tory then. It is a personal choice, no need for a great many of the people to go to university doing pointless courses that will not get them a decent job. They would be far better getting jobs and doing college courses etc. However to the point of Gallowgate, taxing you yet again would not help your grandchildren as it would merely mean you were unable to help them. The fix is to get rid of the Tories and stop the avaricious Universities robbing people. Cancel all the stupid made up courses and keep the ones that are relevant etc. More apprenticeships and part time college etc. Vaccuous comments by young people that pensioners should pay for them does not give me much hope for the future. Too many with little get up and go nowadays, always looking for someone else to be paying for them rather than thinking how they can improve themselves. PS: the interest rates are usary on those fees as well. We fees for my daughter to go through university when we had labour in power so I know all about paying them, she did several jobs to pay them off.
In answer to your first point Malc, that's something that has puzzled me for years!
We were fortunate in that our two sons left school at 16 and 18 and decided to go to University later, which meant at the time that they were mature students and were paid for in full., including for one an Erasmus year in Germany and for the other a similar funded one in the US. Our daughter took the work & professional exams route. However, all my life I've been involved with Further Education and I'm saddened by the way we seem to have settled on 'Uni or nothing'. Because a proper Uni course has to be more than just the technical aspects. Incidentally, one of my ancestors 'qualified' as a B. Med from St Andrews after passing the necessary exams, although not attending any lectures.
Yes, the system is crazy nowadays, everybody desperate to go to Uni , most getting rubbish courses and then end up in a job they could have got when leaving school. Whole system is setup as a gravy train. I suspect there should be about 20% max go to university , the rest would be far better in employment and doing college part time.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
What an immature response
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
You're a prick and you know nothing, you still have yet to apologise for insulting the memory of my dead grandmother, so sod off with your condescending nonsense
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
When I went to University I was quite heavily funded by the taxpayer. Not only was the University paid proper fees for me by the government (as opposed to the half fees that the Scottish government now pays) but I was given a grant as well. I left University and started work broke but with no debt at all.
The thinking at that time was that society was investing in the 10-15% who were supposedly the brightest (plus me, weirdly) and that the economy and the taxpayer would gain from their investment. I have certainly paid plenty of tax over the years but I, of course, have also gained a lot personally from that investment.
There are really 2 questions, is this fair and is it sustainable when that 10-15% becomes more like 45%?
Although I have gained enormously I do not think that it is fair. Why should those who don't get the privilege of going to University subsidise me? When you add on the middle class bias of those who get to University it becomes even more immoral. I get a life with better earnings, the opportunities that University brings and that whole experience and those who are not bright enough to go or simply didn't go pay for it?
I also question if it is sustainable. From a financial point of view the graduate premium has enormously reduced. In many cases it does not exist at all. I have nieces and nephews who don't use their degrees at all and have jobs which they did not require a degree for. The balance between societal and personal gain has moved towards the latter, heavily.
I think in these circumstances those who get the privilege of University really have to chip in more to bring this back into balance. I seriously doubt that loans are the best way to do this and I agree with you that retrospective changes on the deal are unjustifiable. But given society is not getting the deal it got with me and my cohort something has to give.
More than 50% of the people going to Uni are wasting their time and not only their own but our money as well. Time the gravy train of the second rate Uni's was stopped. Back to being college's of Further Education for most of them would be more benficial.
Much better still would be high quality apprenticeships making them more employable and giving them better opportunities.
Low quality courses at college or University seem to me to do the opposite: they encourage laziness, "that will do" and self indulgence. They do not put a premium on attendance or performance or timekeeping. They do not encourage initiative, study or self motivation. Rather than teaching the important life skills that make them employable they teach the reverse on courses that are part time at best. My niece is an undergraduate on a course that has classes 2 days a week. Why on earth is such a mickey mouse course taking 3-4 years? You could cover the content in 1.
Mr L, you will forgive me, I hope, if I say that I am somewhat surprised at a lawyer making such a comment as that relating to your niece. I was always under the impression that 'reading round' the subject was essential for the practice of law. Certainly when I did a part-time management related MA very late in life we were encouraged to read around the various subjects, rather than just turn up for the lectures.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
Consistently defeating political rivals and opponents is a skill in a politician.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
Sure, but you didn't need to in order to be competitive with your peers in the jobs market.
I accept that but the idea that pensioners has a free university education is only true for a small number, as most simply did not go to university
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
Consistently defeating political rivals and opponents is a skill in a politician.
His skill is having no ideology at all - and that is something his opponents should understand and get to grips with. Otherwise he will win again
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
When I went to University I was quite heavily funded by the taxpayer. Not only was the University paid proper fees for me by the government (as opposed to the half fees that the Scottish government now pays) but I was given a grant as well. I left University and started work broke but with no debt at all.
The thinking at that time was that society was investing in the 10-15% who were supposedly the brightest (plus me, weirdly) and that the economy and the taxpayer would gain from their investment. I have certainly paid plenty of tax over the years but I, of course, have also gained a lot personally from that investment.
There are really 2 questions, is this fair and is it sustainable when that 10-15% becomes more like 45%?
Although I have gained enormously I do not think that it is fair. Why should those who don't get the privilege of going to University subsidise me? When you add on the middle class bias of those who get to University it becomes even more immoral. I get a life with better earnings, the opportunities that University brings and that whole experience and those who are not bright enough to go or simply didn't go pay for it?
I also question if it is sustainable. From a financial point of view the graduate premium has enormously reduced. In many cases it does not exist at all. I have nieces and nephews who don't use their degrees at all and have jobs which they did not require a degree for. The balance between societal and personal gain has moved towards the latter, heavily.
I think in these circumstances those who get the privilege of University really have to chip in more to bring this back into balance. I seriously doubt that loans are the best way to do this and I agree with you that retrospective changes on the deal are unjustifiable. But given society is not getting the deal it got with me and my cohort something has to give.
More than 50% of the people going to Uni are wasting their time and not only their own but our money as well. Time the gravy train of the second rate Uni's was stopped. Back to being college's of Further Education for most of them would be more benficial.
Much better still would be high quality apprenticeships making them more employable and giving them better opportunities.
Low quality courses at college or University seem to me to do the opposite: they encourage laziness, "that will do" and self indulgence. They do not put a premium on attendance or performance or timekeeping. They do not encourage initiative, study or self motivation. Rather than teaching the important life skills that make them employable they teach the reverse on courses that are part time at best. My niece is an undergraduate on a course that has classes 2 days a week. Why on earth is such a mickey mouse course taking 3-4 years? You could cover the content in 1.
Totally agree David, whole system is a joke. Yet it it impossible to get good plumbers etc and when you get one ( even a dodgy one) they cost hundreds a day and must be making way more than most graduates.
Has Big G threatened to quit the Tory Party again this week or is he back with them again, shall I pencil in the next "oh I really hate BoJo actually" for just after the budget?
He reminds me of Blair, and I mean that as a compliment. He gives his interviewer almost nowhere to go. He is so fast that he has thought through responses to every question and makes it sound obvious. I remember being infuriated when Blair did it and had fantasies that a more effective interviewer (me, in my wilder moments) could trap him and show how false it was. But it was a fantasy, he was miles ahead.
He and his team are spinning the Budget impressively too - there's been a story every day about how he's going to give £500 million to this, £1 billion to that. The casual reader will have the impression that a really helpful budget is coming, even though the sums are generally small in Budget terms.
In fairness Brown was the master of that, spending ages explaining why he was spending £200m on an excellent program in a budget of £600bn.
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
My son is at an English University so he is paying tuition fees actually and my daughter is doing her post graduate diploma for which she also pays.
I agree that there is a lot more to do for younger people and that the old have been unduly favoured for political reasons. I am not saying I agree with everything he says. I am admiring the technical skills of the way that he says it and his presentation.
LOL, bet Gallowgate cannot get his foot out of his mouth now to grovel a response to his crass assumptions.
As with private education, the fact they have gone to an English university was their choice.
As for everything else we need a wealth tax because a 22 year old shouldn’t be paying for the social care of a 75 year old in a house worth over £200,000. There is A valuable asset that the money could be coming from
Any assets are taken off you if you need social care, anything above 20 odd K and you pay for it through the nose. You lot are all desperate for other people to pay for you , it is always some other group. When you get older you will be whining that you should not pay tax on your 10 million pound house as it is not fair.
Only if you go into a residential home, not for care delivered in your home.
And actually I’m perfectly happy to start paying a wealth tax now - in fact most of the working posters on this site support the idea, it’s you and a few others who don’t.
That is because I am already paying a wealth tax, thousands a month and it is being pocketed by a bunch of rogues or splaffed up a wall. To also put the tin hat on it , it is also crooks and rogues Scotland did not vote for. PS: Good luck getting care at home, better hope you never need it or are loaded.
Given you're retired (I think) that implies wealth or a pension pot equivalent of at least £1.5 million by my calculations.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
At this moment he is in exactly the right place as we need a serious chancellor in these difficult times
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
He posted the truth though, no pampering easy peasy 4 year courses on how to be a barman , only the few went to Uni and the rest got off their arses and straight into work.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
Consistently defeating political rivals and opponents is a skill in a politician.
His skill is having no ideology at all - and that is something his opponents should understand and get to grips with. Otherwise he will win again
That. And, his other attribute is possessing a huge amount of luck.
Has Big G threatened to quit the Tory Party again this week or is he back with them again, shall I pencil in the next "oh I really hate BoJo actually" for just after the budget?
You are just again indicating your immaturity
And you're here indicating your ability to be a condescending arse. Just sod off Big G surely you have better things to be doing
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
Typical lazy arsehole, tax the people who have already paid their tax for a lifetime and are still paying to give to lazy jealous gits who don't want to pay for themselves.
Sorry Malc, often agree with you but as someone who has paid tax for a lifetime, as has his wife, I feel very sorry for my grandchildren who are paying their taxes and, on top of that, are, or will be, paying back their student fees. And yes of course I can, and do, give them presents.
OKC, why do people vote Tory then. It is a personal choice, no need for a great many of the people to go to university doing pointless courses that will not get them a decent job. They would be far better getting jobs and doing college courses etc. However to the point of Gallowgate, taxing you yet again would not help your grandchildren as it would merely mean you were unable to help them. The fix is to get rid of the Tories and stop the avaricious Universities robbing people. Cancel all the stupid made up courses and keep the ones that are relevant etc. More apprenticeships and part time college etc. Vaccuous comments by young people that pensioners should pay for them does not give me much hope for the future. Too many with little get up and go nowadays, always looking for someone else to be paying for them rather than thinking how they can improve themselves. PS: the interest rates are usary on those fees as well. We fees for my daughter to go through university when we had labour in power so I know all about paying them, she did several jobs to pay them off.
In answer to your first point Malc, that's something that has puzzled me for years!
We were fortunate in that our two sons left school at 16 and 18 and decided to go to University later, which meant at the time that they were mature students and were paid for in full., including for one an Erasmus year in Germany and for the other a similar funded one in the US. Our daughter took the work & professional exams route. However, all my life I've been involved with Further Education and I'm saddened by the way we seem to have settled on 'Uni or nothing'. Because a proper Uni course has to be more than just the technical aspects. Incidentally, one of my ancestors 'qualified' as a B. Med from St Andrews after passing the necessary exams, although not attending any lectures.
Yes, the system is crazy nowadays, everybody desperate to go to Uni , most getting rubbish courses and then end up in a job they could have got when leaving school. Whole system is setup as a gravy train. I suspect there should be about 20% max go to university , the rest would be far better in employment and doing college part time.
May be something to do with my family, but we've all been anxious to leave home and work or study well away. We've wanted to visit home, but that's it. In my case I went from the SE to the NE; my wife from Lancashire to the NE. My sister was offered the choice of the Midlands or London; my mother said very firmly that she ought to go to the Midlands Uni and 'learn to stand on her own two feet'.
To me, part of Uni (etc) life is getting away from home.
That. And, his other attribute is possessing a huge amount of luck.
The Prime Minister of Japan resigned in early October over criticism of his handling of the coronavirus crisis. During his year-long tenure, 16,305 people died.
In the same timeframe, 95,666 people died in the UK.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
Consistently defeating political rivals and opponents is a skill in a politician.
His skill is having no ideology at all - and that is something his opponents should understand and get to grips with. Otherwise he will win again
That. And, his other attribute is possessing a huge amount of luck.
You make your own luck in politics and the best route to making what looks like "good luck" is particularly large quantities of shamelessness. Oh and the other lot picking Corbyn
Has Big G threatened to quit the Tory Party again this week or is he back with them again, shall I pencil in the next "oh I really hate BoJo actually" for just after the budget?
And answering your question I lapsed my membership in September and have issues with HMG over fairness in the tax system
However, I could vote labour if it had a Blair like figure and committed to policies
This budget is going to fall apart, I predict it now
Why else do you think the Treasury published chunks of it under embargo to the hacks? When Clown and the No10 team screw it up, Rishi will be able to have friendly hacks leak the original pure version.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
What an immature response
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
You're a prick and you know nothing, you still have yet to apologise for insulting the memory of my dead grandmother, so sod off with your condescending nonsense
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
Is there something in the water down south.
I wouldn't know, being further north than most of Ayrshire.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
Sure, but you didn't need to in order to be competitive with your peers in the jobs market.
I accept that but the idea that pensioners has a free university education is only true for a small number, as most simply did not go to university
G, they do not like their imaginary grievance bubbles being burst. It is all pensioners fault , showing them the reality that 96% did not have the opportunity or chance to get a free Uni place will only make them rant and rave more. They are on the grievance bus and they ain't getting off till all pensioners are beggared or worse.
Has Big G threatened to quit the Tory Party again this week or is he back with them again, shall I pencil in the next "oh I really hate BoJo actually" for just after the budget?
You are just again indicating your immaturity
And you're here indicating your ability to be a condescending arse. Just sod off Big G surely you have better things to be doing
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
What an immature response
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
You're a prick and you know nothing, you still have yet to apologise for insulting the memory of my dead grandmother, so sod off with your condescending nonsense
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
If Rishi had focus-grouped his snacks then I'd have expected either a Yorkie bar and a Red Bull (if going for the manly trucking vote) or a diet coke and a Kit Kat (if going for women of child-bearing age).
In reality I suspect he has a graze subscription and drinks one of the fabulously expensive bottled water brands, and had to borrow the props from an unfortunate underling in a desperate attempt to appear normal.
Sunak’s pre budget ritual is a twix and a sprite, he is the human equivalent of ready salted crisps
You just know that response has been focus grouped and is utter fiction.
I don't think that's even remotely likely.
If Keir Starmer had said the same thing the Tories on here would be saying it was weird and focus grouped. No consistency as usual with these people
People would, and do, just say he's a bit weird.
To imagine that politicians pick their preferred snack on the basis of focus group responses is utterly mental.
What would they even ask in the focus group?
"Which snack would you prefer your CofE to eat before the budget?"
Surely nobody could have an answer other than "What a stupid question"
I completely agree with you - but I guarantee this would not be what is said if Starmer had said something similar
Well.. The Telegraph this month kind of proves you right!
"Did you notice what Keir Starmer had for breakfast at the Labour Party Conference? If not, you’ll never guess. Cheese and fruit and fish. The sort of breakfast you might have if you were at your lakeside house near Copenhagen. The breakfast your four-year-old picks if you let them loose on the breakfast buffet unsupervised. Or, the kind of breakfast a beleagured leader of the Labour Party chooses after a focus group.
Looked at objectively the fish-cheese-fruit choice has got plenty going for it: it’s not too lily-livered and middle class (yogurt and granola); not too unreconstructed (mixed grill); it’s healthy without being precious (egg white omelette) and adventurous without being weird (seaweed and a wheatgrass shot). Maybe there was no actual focus group. Maybe it just involved a swift exchange with a SPAD along the lines of: “Whatever you do don’t look greedy and gammony and avoid bacon sandwiches. And ketchup.”
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
My son is at an English University so he is paying tuition fees actually and my daughter is doing her post graduate diploma for which she also pays.
I agree that there is a lot more to do for younger people and that the old have been unduly favoured for political reasons. I am not saying I agree with everything he says. I am admiring the technical skills of the way that he says it and his presentation.
LOL, bet Gallowgate cannot get his foot out of his mouth now to grovel a response to his crass assumptions.
As with private education, the fact they have gone to an English university was their choice.
As for everything else we need a wealth tax because a 22 year old shouldn’t be paying for the social care of a 75 year old in a house worth over £200,000. There is A valuable asset that the money could be coming from
Any assets are taken off you if you need social care, anything above 20 odd K and you pay for it through the nose. You lot are all desperate for other people to pay for you , it is always some other group. When you get older you will be whining that you should not pay tax on your 10 million pound house as it is not fair.
Only if you go into a residential home, not for care delivered in your home.
And actually I’m perfectly happy to start paying a wealth tax now - in fact most of the working posters on this site support the idea, it’s you and a few others who don’t.
That is because I am already paying a wealth tax, thousands a month and it is being pocketed by a bunch of rogues or splaffed up a wall. To also put the tin hat on it , it is also crooks and rogues Scotland did not vote for. PS: Good luck getting care at home, better hope you never need it or are loaded.
Given you're retired (I think) that implies wealth or a pension pot equivalent of at least £1.5 million by my calculations.
Well done.
I am still working actually , even though a pensioner.
I have a feeling the shine will come off Sunak in record time. For two years, all he's had to do is distribute extra money. Popular and easy. Not sure he has the intellectual heft for the actual job. It involves more than repeating memorised lines a SpAd wrote for you. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1452218104675774465
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
When I went to University I was quite heavily funded by the taxpayer. Not only was the University paid proper fees for me by the government (as opposed to the half fees that the Scottish government now pays) but I was given a grant as well. I left University and started work broke but with no debt at all.
The thinking at that time was that society was investing in the 10-15% who were supposedly the brightest (plus me, weirdly) and that the economy and the taxpayer would gain from their investment. I have certainly paid plenty of tax over the years but I, of course, have also gained a lot personally from that investment.
There are really 2 questions, is this fair and is it sustainable when that 10-15% becomes more like 45%?
Although I have gained enormously I do not think that it is fair. Why should those who don't get the privilege of going to University subsidise me? When you add on the middle class bias of those who get to University it becomes even more immoral. I get a life with better earnings, the opportunities that University brings and that whole experience and those who are not bright enough to go or simply didn't go pay for it?
I also question if it is sustainable. From a financial point of view the graduate premium has enormously reduced. In many cases it does not exist at all. I have nieces and nephews who don't use their degrees at all and have jobs which they did not require a degree for. The balance between societal and personal gain has moved towards the latter, heavily.
I think in these circumstances those who get the privilege of University really have to chip in more to bring this back into balance. I seriously doubt that loans are the best way to do this and I agree with you that retrospective changes on the deal are unjustifiable. But given society is not getting the deal it got with me and my cohort something has to give.
More than 50% of the people going to Uni are wasting their time and not only their own but our money as well. Time the gravy train of the second rate Uni's was stopped. Back to being college's of Further Education for most of them would be more benficial.
Much better still would be high quality apprenticeships making them more employable and giving them better opportunities.
Low quality courses at college or University seem to me to do the opposite: they encourage laziness, "that will do" and self indulgence. They do not put a premium on attendance or performance or timekeeping. They do not encourage initiative, study or self motivation. Rather than teaching the important life skills that make them employable they teach the reverse on courses that are part time at best. My niece is an undergraduate on a course that has classes 2 days a week. Why on earth is such a mickey mouse course taking 3-4 years? You could cover the content in 1.
Mr L, you will forgive me, I hope, if I say that I am somewhat surprised at a lawyer making such a comment as that relating to your niece. I was always under the impression that 'reading round' the subject was essential for the practice of law. Certainly when I did a part-time management related MA very late in life we were encouraged to read around the various subjects, rather than just turn up for the lectures.
If that is what she was doing then yes, self study and exploration should be an important part of the course. But no one seems to expect that of them and few, if any, seem to do it.
I think that they are being cheated both of the actual joy of learning and of the skills that they should acquire doing it. In Scotland, as @Gallowgate pointed out, they are not paying their own fees but they do have to repay their maintenance grants and still come out of these institutions with a lot of debt which means that they pay what is effectively higher taxes for most of their working lives.
The only winner I can identify in all of this is the University itself and their rather well paid staff.
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
When I went to University I was quite heavily funded by the taxpayer. Not only was the University paid proper fees for me by the government (as opposed to the half fees that the Scottish government now pays) but I was given a grant as well. I left University and started work broke but with no debt at all.
The thinking at that time was that society was investing in the 10-15% who were supposedly the brightest (plus me, weirdly) and that the economy and the taxpayer would gain from their investment. I have certainly paid plenty of tax over the years but I, of course, have also gained a lot personally from that investment.
There are really 2 questions, is this fair and is it sustainable when that 10-15% becomes more like 45%?
Although I have gained enormously I do not think that it is fair. Why should those who don't get the privilege of going to University subsidise me? When you add on the middle class bias of those who get to University it becomes even more immoral. I get a life with better earnings, the opportunities that University brings and that whole experience and those who are not bright enough to go or simply didn't go pay for it?
I also question if it is sustainable. From a financial point of view the graduate premium has enormously reduced. In many cases it does not exist at all. I have nieces and nephews who don't use their degrees at all and have jobs which they did not require a degree for. The balance between societal and personal gain has moved towards the latter, heavily.
I think in these circumstances those who get the privilege of University really have to chip in more to bring this back into balance. I seriously doubt that loans are the best way to do this and I agree with you that retrospective changes on the deal are unjustifiable. But given society is not getting the deal it got with me and my cohort something has to give.
More than 50% of the people going to Uni are wasting their time and not only their own but our money as well. Time the gravy train of the second rate Uni's was stopped. Back to being college's of Further Education for most of them would be more benficial.
Much better still would be high quality apprenticeships making them more employable and giving them better opportunities.
Low quality courses at college or University seem to me to do the opposite: they encourage laziness, "that will do" and self indulgence. They do not put a premium on attendance or performance or timekeeping. They do not encourage initiative, study or self motivation. Rather than teaching the important life skills that make them employable they teach the reverse on courses that are part time at best. My niece is an undergraduate on a course that has classes 2 days a week. Why on earth is such a mickey mouse course taking 3-4 years? You could cover the content in 1.
Totally agree David, whole system is a joke. Yet it it impossible to get good plumbers etc and when you get one ( even a dodgy one) they cost hundreds a day and must be making way more than most graduates.
We should be careful Malcolm, this agreement thing is becoming a habit!
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I can't comment on the 14% in the late 70s as I can't find the figures anywhere, but I do know that I left school in 1979 and went to University. My school was a Grammar school, yet only about 60% of us went to University, others went into white collar apprenticeships, accountancy, retail management etc. Also the staying on rate to 18 was much lower. Any Grammar school now would expect all of its students to go to University, and Comprehensives would expect most of them to go.
The problem is that Universities have effectively been repurposed to "finishing schools" rather than centres of excellence which they once were. (Much generalisation here).
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
Is there something in the water down south.
I wouldn't know, being further north than most of Ayrshire.
Must be the peat then, you not refereeing today then. PS what county you in if you don't want to keep it secret
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
You don't have to like the policies Sunak is enacting to respect that he is a serious political operator in a government of clowns. We know this is going to be a hard budget, we suspect the clowns will screw it up straight out of the block.
Rishi? Pre-announcing all the £ he is spending on the things you want and the things you expect. Ensuring the journalists have been gifted the "war with Downing Street" story when Clown screws it up.
He is a smart operator. Whatever the merits of the actual budget are. You can have a worthy budget destroyed by bad politics. Or a bad budget made almost acceptable by good politics
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
That is true but it doesn't necessarily apply here. He picked Sunak and he picked Kate Bingham for example.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I can't comment on the 14% in the late 70s as I can't find the figures anywhere, but I do know that I left school in 1979 and went to University. My school was a Grammar school, yet only about 60% of us went to University, others went into white collar apprenticeships, accountancy, retail management etc. Also the staying on rate to 18 was much lower. Any Grammar school now would expect all of its students to go to University, and Comprehensives would expect most of them to go.
The problem is that Universities have effectively been repurposed to "finishing schools" rather than centres of excellence which they once were. (Much generalisation here).
This is the article and is well worth a read to put todays university attendance into its historical context
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
Sure, but you didn't need to in order to be competitive with your peers in the jobs market.
I accept that but the idea that pensioners has a free university education is only true for a small number, as most simply did not go to university
G, they do not like their imaginary grievance bubbles being burst. It is all pensioners fault , showing them the reality that 96% did not have the opportunity or chance to get a free Uni place will only make them rant and rave more. They are on the grievance bus and they ain't getting off till all pensioners are beggared or worse.
I’m not a pensioner yet, I’m 57, but you are right. The idea your and my generation had it easy and had everything handed to us on a platter so we need to be taxed to death as a consequence is nonsense but try explaining it and it is like heating your head against a brick wall.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Yes of course we are! Many in the younger generation don't want to work for it, they want it handed to them on a plate!
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
What an immature response
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
You're a prick and you know nothing, you still have yet to apologise for insulting the memory of my dead grandmother, so sod off with your condescending nonsense
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
Is there something in the water down south.
I wouldn't know, being further north than most of Ayrshire.
Must be the peat then, you not refereeing today then. PS what county you in if you don't want to keep it secret
Is that an oblique reference to Douglas Ross? Not me anyway. I've lived in Scotland for the last 51 years.
You don't have to like the policies Sunak is enacting to respect that he is a serious political operator in a government of clowns. We know this is going to be a hard budget, we suspect the clowns will screw it up straight out of the block.
Rishi? Pre-announcing all the £ he is spending on the things you want and the things you expect. Ensuring the journalists have been gifted the "war with Downing Street" story when Clown screws it up.
He is a smart operator. Whatever the merits of the actual budget are. You can have a worthy budget destroyed by bad politics. Or a bad budget made almost acceptable by good politics
I totally agree he's the best in the cabinet but I completely disagree that he's some superb political operator, so far he has had a very easy job and I will want to judge his ability after he's had to make some tough decisions.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
So let's make it more elitist. Put the ill-educated peasants back in their box.
Much better to invest public funds on Garden Bridges and million pound aircraft flag decals.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I think you need a lesson in how to use the quote button, you're a moron
What an immature response
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
You're a prick and you know nothing, you still have yet to apologise for insulting the memory of my dead grandmother, so sod off with your condescending nonsense
I think you need to step back from your keyboard
Stop telling me what to do, you absolute arse
Personal abuse to posters is not necessary
But abuse at my dead grandmother is acceptable, you're as consistent as BoJo
Just been watching Farage's talking pints with David Starkey, in a (presumably) wetherspoons in Folkestone.
I mentioned yesterday about the effect of outlawing right ideas which were previously co-opted in to edges of the conservative party. This is a good example of the inevitable consequences. In the last few minutes of the video, Starkey is brilliantly convincing in his condemnation of the entire cultural and academic establishment. You just need the right person to carry this baton forward, and we have our own Zemmour.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
Sure, but you didn't need to in order to be competitive with your peers in the jobs market.
I accept that but the idea that pensioners has a free university education is only true for a small number, as most simply did not go to university
G, they do not like their imaginary grievance bubbles being burst. It is all pensioners fault , showing them the reality that 96% did not have the opportunity or chance to get a free Uni place will only make them rant and rave more. They are on the grievance bus and they ain't getting off till all pensioners are beggared or worse.
I’m not a pensioner yet, I’m 57, but you are right. The idea your and my generation had it easy and had everything handed to us on a platter so we need to be taxed to death as a consequence is nonsense but try explaining it and it is like heating your head against a brick wall.
When I left the VIth form if we didn’t got to some form of FE it meant a trip to Singapore and 20 months jungle warfare. Or supporting the warriors. See Virgin Soldiers etc.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
That is true but it doesn't necessarily apply here. He picked Sunak and he picked Kate Bingham for example.
He can choose competent people - forget his name but the cycling bloke in London is another good one - but these are the exception not the rule
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
That is true but it doesn't necessarily apply here. He picked Sunak and he picked Kate Bingham for example.
But Johnson does seem to be conducting guerilla warfare against No 11.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
That is true but it doesn't necessarily apply here. He picked Sunak and he picked Kate Bingham for example.
And Dido, and Matt, and Grant, and... (Note also that picking Sunak is not such a great validation from my viewpoint, he's a bit of an empty vessel)
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
That is true but it doesn't necessarily apply here. He picked Sunak and he picked Kate Bingham for example.
But Johnson does seem to be conducting guerilla warfare against No 11.
One of Sunak's jobs is to rein in Johnson's wilder spending ambitions. Nothing new for the relations between 10 and 11.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
BJ has skills?..Could you remind me of them?
The main one is winning elections. He also sees the bigger picture and can bring enough people along with him. And he can delegate.
Not much help being a good delegator if you have no ability to pick competent people to delegate to.
That is true but it doesn't necessarily apply here. He picked Sunak and he picked Kate Bingham for example.
He can choose competent people - forget his name but the cycling bloke in London is another good one - but these are the exception not the rule
For every Kate Bingham, there's a Dido Harding.
Or a Dominic Cummings, Dominic Raab etc.
And Rishi looks good in part because so much of the rest of the Cabinet is so weak. He's clearly bright, gets politics, all that stuff. But he's also awfully undercooked and could really have done with some time running a spending department and coming to terms with the issues of lack of money.
But an insecure leader will tend to surround themselves by weak potential successors.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
I was the first in my family to go to Uni. And I think law at Durham counts as "proper".....
Of course you in Scotland don’t pay tuition fees, so who cares right?
So what is your solution to funding higher education given the volume of young people now channelled through university ?
Taxing old people of course rather than retrospectively changing the loan system
When I went to University I was quite heavily funded by the taxpayer. Not only was the University paid proper fees for me by the government (as opposed to the half fees that the Scottish government now pays) but I was given a grant as well. I left University and started work broke but with no debt at all.
The thinking at that time was that society was investing in the 10-15% who were supposedly the brightest (plus me, weirdly) and that the economy and the taxpayer would gain from their investment. I have certainly paid plenty of tax over the years but I, of course, have also gained a lot personally from that investment.
There are really 2 questions, is this fair and is it sustainable when that 10-15% becomes more like 45%?
Although I have gained enormously I do not think that it is fair. Why should those who don't get the privilege of going to University subsidise me? When you add on the middle class bias of those who get to University it becomes even more immoral. I get a life with better earnings, the opportunities that University brings and that whole experience and those who are not bright enough to go or simply didn't go pay for it?
I also question if it is sustainable. From a financial point of view the graduate premium has enormously reduced. In many cases it does not exist at all. I have nieces and nephews who don't use their degrees at all and have jobs which they did not require a degree for. The balance between societal and personal gain has moved towards the latter, heavily.
I think in these circumstances those who get the privilege of University really have to chip in more to bring this back into balance. I seriously doubt that loans are the best way to do this and I agree with you that retrospective changes on the deal are unjustifiable. But given society is not getting the deal it got with me and my cohort something has to give.
More than 50% of the people going to Uni are wasting their time and not only their own but our money as well. Time the gravy train of the second rate Uni's was stopped. Back to being college's of Further Education for most of them would be more benficial.
Much better still would be high quality apprenticeships making them more employable and giving them better opportunities.
Low quality courses at college or University seem to me to do the opposite: they encourage laziness, "that will do" and self indulgence. They do not put a premium on attendance or performance or timekeeping. They do not encourage initiative, study or self motivation. Rather than teaching the important life skills that make them employable they teach the reverse on courses that are part time at best. My niece is an undergraduate on a course that has classes 2 days a week. Why on earth is such a mickey mouse course taking 3-4 years? You could cover the content in 1.
Totally agree David, whole system is a joke. Yet it it impossible to get good plumbers etc and when you get one ( even a dodgy one) they cost hundreds a day and must be making way more than most graduates.
We should be careful Malcolm, this agreement thing is becoming a habit!
Sure in an independent country we would be voting very alike for some future centre party.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
The point I have been making is that todays pensioners largely did not go to university so the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as it was a very different time
It is a mistake to judge everything on todays issues rather than taking into account the history which in 1962, when I left school, showed just 4% went to university
Of course as the years advance then more will have had free tuition fees but that is not part of the argument today
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
I was the first in my family to go to Uni. And I think law at Durham counts as "proper".....
Ditto myself. After having gone to a private school fully supported by the Assisted Places Scheme. A very effective programme that helped bright working class kids succeed. No wonder the privately educated, upper middle class Tony Blair abolished it when he came in.
"Rishi is seriously good". He is. And he's in the right job. A details man with mastery of his brief. But that doesn't mean he's ready to move up. The top job needs different skills, which as it happens BJ has. So they are complementary, a bit like Blair and Brown. But Rishi is better than Brown was as CotE.
Is there something in the water down south.
I wouldn't know, being further north than most of Ayrshire.
Must be the peat then, you not refereeing today then. PS what county you in if you don't want to keep it secret
Is that an oblique reference to Douglas Ross? Not me anyway. I've lived in Scotland for the last 51 years.
It was a poor attempt at a joke Geoff. Must try harder next time. @geoffw
Just been watching Farage's talking pints with David Starkey, in a (presumably) wetherspoons in Folkestone.
I mentioned yesterday about the effect of outlawing right ideas which were previously co-opted in to edges of the conservative party. This is a good example of the inevitable consequences. In the last few minutes of the video, Starkey is brilliantly convincing in his condemnation of the entire cultural and academic establishment. You just need the right person to carry this baton forward, and we have our own Zemmour.
At the moment, the Conservative Party has captured that block quite effectively given Brexit and the Eurosceptic / anti-woke bent of most of their MPs. The risk would come if the Tories went back to being led by a Cameron / Osborne type. Cannot see that happening for a while.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
Good for them.
Looking back things seemed more aspirational back then.
Their parents all owned semis built in the 1970s, which were certainly better than the houses they grew up in. Plus cars, foreign holidays, electrical goods which hadn't been available a generation earlier.
Now how many of the teenagers today will be able to afford the lifestyle they grew up in - especially middle class kids in southern England - let alone a better one.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
Hey Malcolm, hope you are well Sir.
I think you need a history lesson
As I said when I left school in 1962 I did not go to university and at the time the numbers doing so were low
I have found the data and this puts the idea pensioners had free university education is not true as the majority did not go to university
It was Blair whose mantra of education, education, education in 1997 was responsible for the explosion in numbers and I would argue too many are going to university today who should be starting apprentices and work placement from school
Todays pensioner's were born on or before 1955 so that is relevant to this discussion
'In the early 1960s, only 4% of school leavers went to university, rising to around 14% by the end of the 1970s. Nowadays, more than 40% of young people start undergraduate degrees – but it comes at a cost.
I can't comment on the 14% in the late 70s as I can't find the figures anywhere, but I do know that I left school in 1979 and went to University. My school was a Grammar school, yet only about 60% of us went to University, others went into white collar apprenticeships, accountancy, retail management etc. Also the staying on rate to 18 was much lower. Any Grammar school now would expect all of its students to go to University, and Comprehensives would expect most of them to go.
The problem is that Universities have effectively been repurposed to "finishing schools" rather than centres of excellence which they once were. (Much generalisation here).
This is the article and is well worth a read to put todays university attendance into its historical context
A very interesting article. I was struck by the statement that the A level student was under a lot of pressure. That could be a function of A level grade inflation of the past coupled with much moire recent toughening of the A level exams now.
I’ve done quite a lot of my and my wife’s family history and the educational patterns are very, very mixed. Maternal grandfather, a farmer, seemed to think education was for girls, not boys. My father, first, so far, as we knew in his family to have any formal FE, used to say that his father-in-law just wanted cheap labour! Although three of my uncles farmed on their own account.
Its important to point out, without resorting to insults, that my generation (i’m 30 in a few months) have been told our whole lives that the route we must take was GCSEs - ALevels - Degree - Job. We did what we were told and now we’re met with “you went to Uni? What a stupid move you entitled lazy so and so.”
And now we’ll potentially have to repay our loans for another 10 years of compounded interest?
I’m personally (although I may be in a minority amongst my peers) do not oppose the loan system, but that was under the proviso that the understanding was not messed with at the whim of the prevailing wind.
An additional graduate tax for 40 years is a very different proposition to one for 30 years. A repayment threshold at 21k is a very different proposition to one at 26k.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
Good for them.
Looking back things seemed more aspirational back then.
Their parents all owned semis built in the 1970s, which were certainly better than the houses they grew up in. Plus cars, foreign holidays, electrical goods which hadn't been available a generation earlier.
Now how many of the teenagers today will be able to afford the lifestyle they grew up in - especially middle class kids in southern England - let alone a better one.
Enter HYUFD with his inheritance talk
This discussion often ends up being about who is to blame, who is lazy or who has had it easy.
It really should be as simple as highlighting the point above. Aspiration is no longer particularly tangible. The youngsters today are mostly either born lucky or not, and for far too many that will be their lot. Society should work really hard and fast to change that, not just from a fairness point of view, but also economic prosperity and social cohesion.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
Good for them.
Looking back things seemed more aspirational back then.
Their parents all owned semis built in the 1970s, which were certainly better than the houses they grew up in. Plus cars, foreign holidays, electrical goods which hadn't been available a generation earlier.
Now how many of the teenagers today will be able to afford the lifestyle they grew up in - especially middle class kids in southern England - let alone a better one.
Enter HYUFD with his inheritance talk
This discussion often ends up being about who is to blame, who is lazy or who has had it easy.
It really should be as simple as highlighting the point above. Aspiration is no longer particularly tangible. The youngsters today are mostly either born lucky or not, and for far too many that will be their lot. Society should work really hard and fast to change that, not just from a fairness point of view, but also economic prosperity and social cohesion.
I think it depends on where you live. I think aspiration remains entirely tangible in places where house prices have not become absurdly decoupled from incomes.
But, it's not good that earned income be taxed more heavily, so that capital is protected. Capital is there to be spent, when necessary.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
Good for them.
Looking back things seemed more aspirational back then.
Their parents all owned semis built in the 1970s, which were certainly better than the houses they grew up in. Plus cars, foreign holidays, electrical goods which hadn't been available a generation earlier.
Now how many of the teenagers today will be able to afford the lifestyle they grew up in - especially middle class kids in southern England - let alone a better one.
Enter HYUFD with his inheritance talk
Implementing a monetary framework that ignored house price inflation was one of Gordon Brown's biggest mistakes.
How can levelling up entail making poor graduates pay more for university.
Let’s make pensioners pay, they don’t pay for anything else and get everything handed to them on a platter. Including housing prices, no tuition fees, free transport
Raving Lunatic
It’s just the politics of envy. How many pensioners never paid tuition fees as they never got the chance to go.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
I have already made the point that the vast majority of todays pensioners did not go to University
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
It wasn’t much higher when I left school in 1980.
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Bright working class kids could certainly go to university in the 1980s.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
Good for them.
Looking back things seemed more aspirational back then.
Their parents all owned semis built in the 1970s, which were certainly better than the houses they grew up in. Plus cars, foreign holidays, electrical goods which hadn't been available a generation earlier.
Now how many of the teenagers today will be able to afford the lifestyle they grew up in - especially middle class kids in southern England - let alone a better one.
Enter HYUFD with his inheritance talk
Worse than that, today’s kids are constantly being exposed, via social media, to the totally unattainable lifestyles of 1%ers and ‘fake 1%ers’, making constant holidays and riches without work seem normal to them.
Its important to point out, without resorting to insults, that my generation (i’m 30 in a few months) have been told our whole lives that the route we must take was GCSEs - ALevels - Degree - Job. We did what we were told and now we’re met with “you went to Uni? What a stupid move you entitled lazy so and so.”
And now we’ll potentially have to repay our loans for another 10 years of compounded interest?
I’m personally (although I may be in a minority amongst my peers) do not oppose the loan system, but that was under the proviso that the understanding was not messed with at the whim of the prevailing wind.
An additional graduate tax for 40 years is a very different proposition to one for 30 years. A repayment threshold at 21k is a very different proposition to one at 26k.
40 years and a lower threshold is completely outrageous. You’re being screwed over. It also, as Martin Lewis says, goes against natural justice, to change the payback terms after the loan is taken out.
It’s basically financial abuse of 17 year olds.
But we are where we are. Until you can convince enough people to vote labour to kick the bastards out, or at least keep them on their toes (Cf, May 2017), you’re going to continue to be screwed over.
New Labour's biggest failure was probably totally failing to resolve the issue with housing.
I am a fan of New Labour but they made the housing problem worse, as have all our governments this century. The other really big mistake was not bringing in PR, the one time in my lifetime when it could have been done. I know lots/most will say Iraq.
Comments
Strangely Labour members on here seem a bit blase about it, something to maybe, perhaps put in a future manifesto at some point, rather than something to propose now and create a clear political divide with the government.
Maybe read the lesson in history and accept the point rather than play pedantic
I suspect there should be about 20% max go to university , the rest would be far better in employment and doing college part time.
To imagine that politicians pick their preferred snack on the basis of focus group responses is utterly mental.
What would they even ask in the focus group?
"Which snack would you prefer your CofE to eat before the budget?"
Surely nobody could have an answer other than "What a stupid question"
Anyone want to defend this?
Well done.
This Idea pensioners have had everything handed them in a platter and never worked for anything is for the birds but something some of the young like gallowgate seem to think. They’ll grow up one day.
However he is my choice to succeed Boris
In my case I went from the SE to the NE; my wife from Lancashire to the NE. My sister was offered the choice of the Midlands or London; my mother said very firmly that she ought to go to the Midlands Uni and 'learn to stand on her own two feet'.
To me, part of Uni (etc) life is getting away from home.
In the same timeframe, 95,666 people died in the UK.
Japan has nearly twice the population of the UK.
https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1451831857834774536
However, I could vote labour if it had a Blair like figure and committed to policies
Right now it is an empty void
When I left school in 1962 it was just 4%
In reality I suspect he has a graze subscription and drinks one of the fabulously expensive bottled water brands, and had to borrow the props from an unfortunate underling in a desperate attempt to appear normal.
"Did you notice what Keir Starmer had for breakfast at the Labour Party Conference? If not, you’ll never guess. Cheese and fruit and fish. The sort of breakfast you might have if you were at your lakeside house near Copenhagen. The breakfast your four-year-old picks if you let them loose on the breakfast buffet unsupervised. Or, the kind of breakfast a beleagured leader of the Labour Party chooses after a focus group.
Looked at objectively the fish-cheese-fruit choice has got plenty going for it: it’s not too lily-livered and middle class (yogurt and granola); not too unreconstructed (mixed grill); it’s healthy without being precious (egg white omelette) and adventurous without being weird (seaweed and a wheatgrass shot). Maybe there was no actual focus group. Maybe it just involved a swift exchange with a SPAD along the lines of: “Whatever you do don’t look greedy and gammony and avoid bacon sandwiches. And ketchup.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/does-breakfast-say-take-note-sir-keir-starmer/
I think that they are being cheated both of the actual joy of learning and of the skills that they should acquire doing it. In Scotland, as @Gallowgate pointed out, they are not paying their own fees but they do have to repay their maintenance grants and still come out of these institutions with a lot of debt which means that they pay what is effectively higher taxes for most of their working lives.
The only winner I can identify in all of this is the University itself and their rather well paid staff.
The problem is that Universities have effectively been repurposed to "finishing schools" rather than centres of excellence which they once were. (Much generalisation here).
PS what county you in if you don't want to keep it secret
So are we to be expected to fund this generations university fees as well as that of our own generation and every subsequent one while never having had the opportunity to go ourselves ?
Rishi? Pre-announcing all the £ he is spending on the things you want and the things you expect. Ensuring the journalists have been gifted the "war with Downing Street" story when Clown screws it up.
He is a smart operator. Whatever the merits of the actual budget are. You can have a worthy budget destroyed by bad politics. Or a bad budget made almost acceptable by good politics
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/24/has-university-life-changed-student-experience-past-present-parents-vox-pops?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
"Joe Biden's popularity has fallen more in his first nine months than any other US President since the Second World War.
An exhaustive study by Gallup showed Mr Biden's approval rating had plummeted by 11.3 per cent, worse than all the other 10 presidents before him."
Telegraph
Much better to invest public funds on Garden Bridges and million pound aircraft flag decals.
I mentioned yesterday about the effect of outlawing right ideas which were previously co-opted in to edges of the conservative party. This is a good example of the inevitable consequences. In the last few minutes of the video, Starkey is brilliantly convincing in his condemnation of the entire cultural and academic establishment. You just need the right person to carry this baton forward, and we have our own Zemmour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CPXPDnr-8s
See Virgin Soldiers etc.
I had at least three cousins from C2 families who went to university in the 1980s.
And it was proper universities they went to.
(Note also that picking Sunak is not such a great validation from my viewpoint, he's a bit of an empty vessel)
Or a Dominic Cummings, Dominic Raab etc.
And Rishi looks good in part because so much of the rest of the Cabinet is so weak. He's clearly bright, gets politics, all that stuff. But he's also awfully undercooked and could really have done with some time running a spending department and coming to terms with the issues of lack of money.
But an insecure leader will tend to surround themselves by weak potential successors.
Rishi, old chap. Get your scooter off my lawn. #Twix
https://twitter.com/PeterMannionMP/status/1452223668982009856?t=tAVy1xtNXDwMzpMcBvcDVA&s=19
It is a mistake to judge everything on todays issues rather than taking into account the history which in 1962, when I left school, showed just 4% went to university
Of course as the years advance then more will have had free tuition fees but that is not part of the argument today
France is a very unhappy place. The U.K. is not.
Their parents all owned semis built in the 1970s, which were certainly better than the houses they grew up in. Plus cars, foreign holidays, electrical goods which hadn't been available a generation earlier.
Now how many of the teenagers today will be able to afford the lifestyle they grew up in - especially middle class kids in southern England - let alone a better one.
Enter HYUFD with his inheritance talk
My father, first, so far, as we knew in his family to have any formal FE, used to say that his father-in-law just wanted cheap labour! Although three of my uncles farmed on their own account.
And now we’ll potentially have to repay our loans for another 10 years of compounded interest?
I’m personally (although I may be in a minority amongst my peers) do not oppose the loan system, but that was under the proviso that the understanding was not messed with at the whim of the prevailing wind.
An additional graduate tax for 40 years is a very different proposition to one for 30 years. A repayment threshold at 21k is a very different proposition to one at 26k.
It really should be as simple as highlighting the point above. Aspiration is no longer particularly tangible. The youngsters today are mostly either born lucky or not, and for far too many that will be their lot. Society should work really hard and fast to change that, not just from a fairness point of view, but also economic prosperity and social cohesion.
But, it's not good that earned income be taxed more heavily, so that capital is protected. Capital is there to be spent, when necessary.
China Property tax.
Smart move from Xi. If he can take on the vested interests, why can’t we?
It’s basically financial abuse of 17 year olds.
But we are where we are. Until you can convince enough people to vote labour to kick the bastards out, or at least keep them on their toes (Cf, May 2017), you’re going to continue to be screwed over.