Forum Federato

@cstross

I'm not convinced by the common UK view that increasing fees have been driven by the expansion of university places. In France anybody that passes their 'bac' at the end of school automatically gets a uni place - and more students go, and more get degrees, than in the UK.

My daughter has just finished a 5-year university course here in France. Both her fees and living costs were paid by the state. She could get a 3-course meal at her uni every day for 1€. She could hire a bike for 1€ a YEAR. She could go from home to her uni in Strasbourg by train for 60€ - a journey further than Newcastle-London. She spent a term in Portugal, entirely funded by the state and EU (and she was doing chemistry, not languages), as well as another term in Paris, also paid.

If France can do this, why can't the UK?

@HighlandLawyer
@ChrisMayLA6

@ChrisMayLA6

I wonder why you would apply that argument to education but (presumably) not to other public services - eg health.

If there is a personal benefit measurable in financial terms, then it is surely reflected in future income/wealth, and a genuinely progressive tax system would deal with it; if we're talking about benefits that cannot be expressed in material terms - say, 'personal growth', artistic excellence - what's the result of charging money for them?

Seems to me it either inhibits people that want to go to university for such reasons but have little money - selection by wealth - or you must create a means tested grants and/or loans scheme which has the same overall result as progressive taxation (graduates that remain poor never repay the loans) but with added bureaucratic costs.

@ChrisMayLA6

The thing I find most depressing is the naivety of people that imagine if you make students pay you won't turn them into customers, and universities into businesses.