Goverment 1 - 0 Students

[kalniel]

100% with you.

Larger, as occurs with all bureaucratic reshaping, but not by a large margin. I was referring to the overhead involved with the student fees, not the increases.

So, what would you two suggest instead? So far the only two suggestions I've seen are reducing student numbers or introducing a graduate tax. The former would do great harm to the country's education and increase burden on benefits IMHO, while the latter would still involve an administrative overhead and possible be considered unfair, given that at least with fees you can decide whether to go to uni or not, while with a graduate tax you have already made that decision before being told the financial penalty for doing so.

If I remember correctly (BBC breakfast or someone was interviewing a Scottish Lib Dem MP and asked him if they should really vote seeing as these rises only effect English students, could be wrong though considering I put a glass down this morning and it took me five minutes to find it again ) but doesn't these high fees only effect English students with different funding models in place for those from Scotland and Wales?

Devolved govt.s have argued that English university fees still affect non-English countries, and they're right to some extent - in Scotland's case if they get an influx of Students then they might not be able to afford their own budget plans which are based on current numbers. In Wales' case university funding still comes from the central treasury.

[aidanjt]

Scrap student fees, and look into other areas which can actually result in waste cutting, rather than service cutting. The bureaucracy is vast.

[Blitzen]

Is anyone else annoyed at the fact that the government just screwed over the future of this country.

No not all..............because they haven't. They have asked people to pay for a service.
But that's a different thread.

[kalniel]

Scrap student fees, and look into other areas which can actually result in waste cutting, rather than service cutting. The bureaucracy is vast.

They're cutting in all areas, I thought. It's not a case of just cutting university funding while leaving wasteful areas alone.

Therefore to scrap student fees they'd have to massively cull student numbers, which isn't a policy I agree with.

[cleaverlch]

Scrap student fees, and look into other areas which can actually result in waste cutting, rather than service cutting. The bureaucracy is vast.

Why blame the current government for trying to save money so that in the future the UK doesn't need a bailout (see Greece for reference) when the last government were involved in 2 wars (one of which was based on lies) with badly equipped troops, wasted billions on failed IT projects through mismanagement or user rejection(ID card anyone?) and are now using public anger against those who have to fix the problems they created?

[aidanjt]

They're cutting in all areas, I thought. It's not a case of just cutting university funding while leaving wasteful areas alone.

Of course they are. There's *lots* and *lots* of government waste all over the place. Just look at social security, the utter vast majority of social security costs is the bureaucracy, not the actual payouts. Again, the NHS, a massive chunk of expenditure there is bureaucracy, not actual health care.

Therefore to scrap student fees they'd have to massively cull student numbers, which isn't a policy I agree with.

No, they wouldn't. They'd save a ton of money killing yet another useless and wasteful government bureaucracy. And the money will still come out of their income tax.

[aidanjt]

Why blame the current government for trying to save money so that in the future the UK doesn't need a bailout (see Greece for reference) when the last government were involved in 2 wars (one of which was based on lies) with badly equipped troops, wasted billions on failed IT projects through mismanagement or user rejection(ID card anyone?) and are now using public anger against those who have to fix the problems they created?

I'm not blaming the current government for the previous government's mess. I'm blaming the current government for *HOW* they're going about cleaning it up. Rescuing the present by torpedoing the future state of the country is every bit as bad as 'squandering to posterity' Labournomics.

[format]

The cuts won't actually effect the deficit though, will they? Because by the time the legislation is enacted, the new fees begin to be paid back, it'll be what... 8 years down the line?

[Kata]

The fact that there are different rules for Scottish and Welsh students is absurd. They should be part of the UK, or out of it, no cherry-picking the bits they like and sending the bill to Westminster; it's disgusting.

Before anyone brings up the old red herring about Scotland paying it's way through oil; rubbish. Only once or twice in the last century, I believe, has Scotland paid more into the treasury than it has taken out.

[Spud1]

Scrap student fees, and look into other areas which can actually result in waste cutting, rather than service cutting. The bureaucracy is vast.

or even better, keep the current plans to increase student fees, AND cut more waste and bureaucracy.

We'd save even more then.

OK so i'm being a bit silly there - but seriously, can you explain exactly HOW to cut all this mythical waste and bureaucracy from all departments, to save billions of £? Whilst still keeping all the paperwork, records, auditing, communication etc etc that we require in place? They are cutting down the waste as it were, but the bottom line is that we want lots of services and lots of things done for us, but we don't want to pay for it (in general, as a nation). We've been given this for 20 years due to the previous administrations (thats including the end of the last tory stretch - although labour take the majority of the blame here imo) hence why we've run up such debts.

You don't get something for nothing, thats why we're cutting the benefits system down (hopefully massively, we waste billions upon billions there), increasing fees to offset a cut in HE funding (again to mean people have to pay to get something..which is only fair), and cutting spending in as many places as possible.

If there are alternatives to cuts and cost rises then i'm sure we'd all love to implement them instead - its obviously going to be preferable, but in reality I don't think there is without too much radical change, that our country couldn't cope with.

[Spud1]

The cuts won't actually effect the deficit though, will they? Because by the time the legislation is enacted, the new fees begin to be paid back, it'll be what... 8 years down the line?

Not the current deficit no - but it will help to prevent future issues cropping up, which is a better plan than constantly patching up holes from lack of planning in the past.

[format]

The fact that there are different rules for Scottish and Welsh students is absurd. They should be part of the UK, or out of it, no cherry-picking the bits they like and sending the bill to Westminster; it's disgusting.

Before anyone brings up the old red herring about Scotland paying it's way through oil; rubbish. Only once or twice in the last century, I believe, has Scotland paid more into the treasury than it has taken out.

The Scottish government is allocated a budget - it does what it wants with it. Scotland obviously feels that free education is priority, England doesn't. It's not a matter of spend spend spend then sending off the bill to Westminster.

[TheAnimus]

Screw that. Selfish pricks.

Hm pocket hypocrisy meter is tingling.

I mean they could have left it worse! We're not speaking german, the dail mail is only published once a day, and Shorditch keeps most of the pricks out of the rest of London. We have been born into debt. But we have no birth given right to anything. We've been given free food, housing etc from our parents.

But no, thats not enough is it? You should have more, you MUST be entitled to more.

And obviously that should be paid for by someone other than you, because you know, your not a selfish prick are you, so obviously you don't have to pay, because its only the selfish pricks who should have to pay.

What is unfair about these proposals? More people are going to uni than before by a large magnitude, the same pot of grant money probably wouldn't even cover a fraction of the course costs.

It will only cost people money once they are erning £21k, so ultimately its a free ride until you can start paying money back. Its fairer than a graduate tax, because why the hell should I pay for lots of people to study something like Media just because I studied a science subject which industry is chronically short off!

Its even less fair to tax everyone via income tax because what about those who never went to uni!

The problem with these proposals are that top rate institutes will start charging more than bottom rate ones which even thou all payment is deffered is the first step to making it not a metirocratic.

But no, the children are rioting because they might have to pay more themselves, nuts to the slow march to taking ability out of the equation, it might cost me more. Selfish little sh!ts.

[TheAnimus]

The Scottish government is allocated a budget - it does what it wants with it. Scotland obviously feels that free education is priority, England doesn't. It's not a matter of spend spend spend then sending off the bill to Westminster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question

Regrettably no.

They can effectively vote for something for them, against it for everywhere else.

If you imagine a formula so big it has a variable for each voted on peice of cost, they can effectively increase their relative spending ability by diminishing that of Englands.

Its not a simple as the soundbite summation by Kata, but its kinda sorta true.

[aidanjt]

or even better, keep the current plans to increase student fees, AND cut more waste and bureaucracy.

So you'd cut waste and bureaucracy by adding more of it?

[format]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question

Regrettably no.

They can effectively vote for something for them, against it for everywhere else.

If you imagine a formula so big it has a variable for each voted on peice of cost, they can effectively increase their relative spending ability by diminishing that of Englands.

Its not a simple as the soundbite summation by Kata, but its kinda sorta true.

It might be technically possible, but it doesn't really work out like that, does it. The Scottish government had their budget cut by £1bn this year.

Generally, Westminster decides what Scotland gets. Scotland uses that money whichever way it likes. Like I said, Scotland prioritises free education, whereas England (or at least the current government) doesn't.