ForumsWEPREngland's Tuition Riots: The Flow of Knowledge

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wolf1991
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wolf1991
3,437 posts
Farmer

If you've been paying attention to the news lately you'll know that the English Parliment has passed a bill that has allowed the tuition fees of all English universities and colleges to triple. This has led to massive riots of the students who attend, or planning to attend post secondary education. The reasoning behind the government's move is to help the English economy, however, what may help now, could possibly hinder in the long run. Over in England the cost of living is almost double that of what it is here in North America. Housing and food are generally more expensive, and while people make enough to pay for these things it doesn't make the life of a student any easier. Many people make enough to save a little, but not enough to save for something like post secondary education, which is why it was government funded for so long, it helped out the students when they only had to pay a fraction of the tuition fee. Now, I support these riots whole heartedly, because I am in somewhat of the same situation, I make enough money to live, but not to further my education without placing myself in massive amounts of debt.

The problem with expensive university costs is this: You cut off the flow of knowledge. If post secondary education is too expensive beyond a reasonable amount of debt then it severely discourages students from attending. You can argue that people should work harder, but that argument holds no water when you are already working hard and yet can't seem to make the money you need to to further your education which could allow you to pull yourself out of debt. You cut off reasonable access to further education and you end up with people giving up on their education, not because they want to, but because they have to. There is only so far in debt you can go before you realize that you have to start paying that debt, and the only way that will happen is if you get some job, and drop out of school. Or, you go to school, but you don't achieve your full potential and end up working to pay for something you didn't want in the first place because debt forced your hand.

I am not saying that the government should pay for ALL of the tuition, I am saying that the government pays enough to make it reasonable for a student to manage their education. What the English government has done is wrong. To deny someone the right to education is to deny someone their right to live to their full potential. By all means argue that I am wrong, that I am an idealist, that I have no grasp on reality. But let me ask you this, what if the government decided to tripple YOUR tuition right now. Currently the average tuition is $6000 dollars give or take. This doesn't include food, books, transportation and living quarters. Triple that and you have $18,000 not for a top of the line school, but for an average one. Think about it.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.html

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harryoconnor
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harryoconnor
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Peasant

The most expensive universities in UK are still cheaper then USA. The one thing I hate is the fact the scots, welsh and irish get free higher education in anywhere in UK when people in England are paying for it.

FireflyIV
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FireflyIV
3,224 posts
Nomad

The one thing I hate is the fact the scots, welsh and irish get free higher education in anywhere in UK when people in England are paying for it.


It's the double standard of devolution. They clamour for it yet want none of the financial responsibility.

As for the riots, I don't agree with how far they went. I'm all for civil disobedience, but to be honest the behaviour of most of the youths undermined their cause. Most of the people that went there didn't even plan on going to university before the tuition fee rise. It was just an excuse for aggs teenagers to riot. Pitiful really.

That said I think education is one of the most important things a government can and should provide to its people and do disagree with the fee rise in principle. The problem is we are bankrupt as a country. The solution however is to cut more wisely in areas that don't actually give much back to the economy like whitehall waste of whiich there's so much it's shameful.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

You can argue that people should work harder, but that argument holds no water when you are already working hard and yet can't seem to make the money you need to to further your education which could allow you to pull yourself out of debt.



The UK system also penalises couples in the same household and you can earn almost as much from the dole as a lower end full time job payes... with the added benefit of free time. Its like they are consistently saying "we need more doctors and people in jobs" yet making it harder for students and people at the lower end of the full time scale.

The one thing I hate is the fact the scots, welsh and irish get free higher education in anywhere in UK when people in England are paying for it.


Lets see how long that lasts... I have no doubt that "our" government will follow suit.
FireflyIV
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FireflyIV
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Nomad

"we need more doctors and people in jobs" yet making it harder for students and people at the lower end of the full time scale.


If there's one thing we don't need more of it's doctors. We have so many coming in from the Commonwealth and the EU already. There's actually a danger doctors and nurses training today won't be able to find jobs when they complete their respective courses. I agree with the other things you said though. We either need to make the current benefit system more robust so as to penalise lazy gits or alternatively revamp the taxation and benefit system simultaneously to encourage employment. I plump for the latter. The issues go hand in hand. The 10k tax threshold should go some way to help this, although that's not enough in my opinion.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
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Blacksmith

We either need to make the current benefit system more robust so as to penalise lazy gits or alternatively revamp the taxation and benefit system simultaneously to encourage employment


Perhaps doctors was a bad example. As far as Im aware we really need skilled tradesmen: plumbers, engineers etc

I totally agree things need revamped though I reckon a saviour will appear on the job market side to make it worth people time and effort to be in work FT. Doing Part time work is also a joke, or at least it was when I was looking for employment some years back. I worked out that just to break even on the income I would have to work around 20 hours a week. So I pretended to look for work and waited, then found a FT job that paid £12k a year. I may have worked twice as long but I came away with money. There was no incentive to give up my time.
ArmorL3gend
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ArmorL3gend
239 posts
Peasant

I think in 2011 their also going to take away EMA

wolf1991
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wolf1991
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Farmer

Perhaps doctors was a bad example


Maybe for England. Yet, here in Canada we have a shortage of doctors. It doesn't help that it's crazily expensive to go to Med School and then the only way to get out of debt is to either specialize or go to the U.S. If things were cheaper then maybe we wouldn't have this situation. I have a friend who wanted to be a doctor but she decided not to because it was simply too much money.
Parsat
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Parsat
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Blacksmith

I know very little about England's system of education, but coming from a university where tuition alone is $40k+, the equivalent of 9000 pounds (~$14-15k) doesn't sound too bad.

I would agree that higher prices represent a limit to the flow of knowledge, but I think that the segmented market structure of today is clear enough to people that they pursue a college education to get ahead. In California, tuition in the UC system is already reaching $25k, and yet more students than ever are being admitted.

wolf1991
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wolf1991
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In California, tuition in the UC system is already reaching $25k, and yet more students than ever are being admitted.


Yet how many of those will drop out due to debt and financial problems? Hell I'm having trouble making enough money for a 6K tuition not to mention other expenses like residence. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if it trippled.
NoNameC68
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NoNameC68
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Shepherd

As response to OP's first paragraph.

You go to school for an education that you use to get a better job. If there are less students going to college due to costs, then the standards for getting a job may drop, making it easier to get a job without needing a degree or having to be a college student. At the same time, colleges will have to figure out ways to become more efficient.

You admitted that the government is cutting tuition because they can't afford it, but because students suffer, you believe this is a bad idea. That is absolutely and utterly selfish. The government pays for tuition through tax dollars. If you wish for the government to continue paying for student tuition, then you must realize that taxes may go up as a result, increasing the cost of living even more for everyone.

The problem with expensive university costs is this: You cut off the flow of knowledge.


Knowledge can be acquired in a number of different ways. The best way to acquire knowledge is through experience. But before we get into all that, why should the government be responsible for supplying people with knowledge? That alone is not a reason for the government to pay. No, the reason why the government is responsible is because knowledge is required to get a well paying job.

To understand what I'm trying to say, let's assume that the only reason to go to college is to learn. If you go to college, it offers no advantage to getting a job directly. This means there are no degrees and there's no point in saying you went to the college on your resume. The only purpose of college here is to gain knowledge, knowledge you can use to give yourself an advantage over other people, or knowledge merely because you're a curious person. Now, if college offered no direct advantage to acquiring a job, would you still demand that college invests in a system that does not necessarily make it easier to get a job? Sure, maybe it would be a noble thing, but there's no way the government can profit in any way. You don't need it to get a job, and people will find other ways of gaining knowledge.

Now, for many jobs out there, you merely need experience to understand how to do that job. In the US, if you want to become a hair stylist, you need I believe 8 months of education to do so. However, there are many ways to learn how to become a hair stylist, such as becoming an apprentice for a while.

If you want to go into radio, help a radio station out. Not only is it cheaper, you're gaining knowledge without having to go to school. If you do go to school to work at a radio station, then you should gain some advantages when you apply for the job, but it should by no means be a requirement.

You can argue that people should work harder, but that argument holds no water when you are already working hard and yet can't seem to make the money you need to to further your education which could allow you to pull yourself out of debt.


It's hard to promote yourself when you need an education to do so. Rather than fighting for an education, you should fight for less restrictions when applying for jobs. You should fight to make it easier to promote yourself through work rather than fighting to make college cheaper.

There is only so far in debt you can go before you realize that you have to start paying that debt, and the only way that will happen is if you get some job, and drop out of school.


Yeah, the only way to get out debt is to stop spending! Oh, I'm talking about the government. Did you stop and ask yourself how the government makes the money to fund education? Taxes.

What the English government has done is wrong. To deny someone the right to education is to deny someone their right to live to their full potential.


You misused the word right. A right is protection from the government, not an entitlement to a goods or programs.

Regardless, the mistake the government made was that they started paying for student fees. This allowed colleges to become dependent on these fees being provided by the government. This means that as soon as the government starts to have financial problems, the colleges suffer. And if the colleges get less money from the government, the colleges must increase their prices. If these colleges were not so dependent on government aid from the start, then they would have had to find a way to become cheaper so students could afford an education. Education does not have to be expensive. If you have a lot of cheap colleges, then they start to compete with each other by providing better services and education that help the students. This means colleges are fighting each other to be as cheap as possible while maintaining the best quality as possible.

Currently the average tuition is $6000 dollars give or take. This doesn't include food, books, transportation and living quarters. Triple that and you have $18,000 not for a top of the line school, but for an average one. Think about it.


So instead of making the students pay, the tax payers should pay?

Hell I'm having trouble making enough money for a 6K tuition not to mention other expenses like residence. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if it tripled.


But why did they triple in the first place?

I enjoyed the pictures that were posted. If you need a job, join the police force!

The protesters are vandalizing and rioting because they want someone else to pay for their tuition. How could I ever back such mentality? Of course, to be fair, these students believe college is the only solution to living a good life and they feel it is being taken away. This could have been prevented if colleges weren't funded by the government in the first place. Not only would there be more demand for uneducated workers, but schools would be cheaper due to competition. It's a win win situation.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
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Blacksmith

However, there are many ways to learn how to become a hair stylist, such as becoming an apprentice for a while.

It's hard to promote yourself when you need an education to do so. Rather than fighting for an education, you should fight for less restrictions when applying for jobs.


Sadly apprenticeships are much rarer these days and because jobs ask for so much in the way of paper qualifications I fully agree that the standards of getting a job need to change.

Im in college learning sound production. Not how to make music but how to shape sound and understand the properties of it i.e. how sound moves thru the air, how the brains inner ear works and how we locate sound thru minute echos and filters. While I count myself lucky that I got in (there were over 500 applicants) I also know its not just luck. I showed them that I was coming to the course with genuine interest and already had fundamental knowledge of how sound works as well as songs that I had engineered. I want to understand sound more than plucking my strings and I want to make a career for myself and become successful. My point is the level of education I need for what I will be doing is much much much higher than a guitarists or a hairdressers.

These guys would be better served with an apprenticeship. Else they start to feel like this...
these students believe college is the only solution to living a good life and they feel it is being taken away.


I dont agree with cuts to education but thats another story and the picture is much bigger imo. Im sure you know where I would be headed with that one so I will zip it and keep to the topic.
NoNameC68
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NoNameC68
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Shepherd

I dont agree with cuts to education but thats another story and the picture is much bigger imo.


When you say something like "We should cut education costs," it sounds like you just say "We should refuse people education to screw their lives up." The suggestion of cutting costs sounds absolutely horrible because we have this mindset where we view the success of something such as college with the costs being thrown into it. You don't need to throw a bunch of money into a system for it to be successful.

When I got married, I paid my wife's student loan also and we are proud to have done it.
This is about class warfare and organized riots created by whomever paid for all those pre printed signs. When each of us emerge from our mother's womb, we are not guaranteed anything but the air we breath. The rest of our success is up to us individually, and should not depend on others.
Socialism has caused the hand out mentality and the giving hand is fed up and I don't blame them.
Someone said once that if you take ALL of the wealth in the country and hand it over to the non productive, that wealth will eventually end up back in the hands where it came from because they will find things and products that even the new people with the money will want. ANd since they are not use to producing, then it will be frittered away.
God bless FREEDOM and LIBERTY and private property, a commodity that the freeloaders with their signs and hands out will never know.
Ciao

-Posted by lou December 12, 2010 02:00 PM
Comment 412

The big picture

If the government pays for tuition, then they continue to lose money! As I mentioned before, who's going to pay? The tax payers, all of them.

You can suggest an increase in taxes for only the rich, but such a suggestion is counter intuitive. By increasing taxes for the rich, you decrease the amount of money they can spend on hiring more people.

Let's face it, when a company doesn't hire, it's either because they don't have enough money, *or they already have enough people.

* If a restauran seats 10 to 20 tables, there's no reason they should hire any more than 3 or 4 dishwashers per shift.
NoNameC68
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NoNameC68
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Shepherd

My point is the level of education I need for what I will be doing is much much much higher than a guitarists or a hairdressers.


This may be true, and if you must invest money and time for this education, then it should be worth it. I believe college is too expensive, but there's no reason why colleges should lower their costs because they get their money from the government (at least a bunch of it). There's no incentive to become cheaper.

dont agree with cuts to education but thats another story and the picture is much bigger imo.


The funding destroys the incentive to lower prices.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

There's no incentive to become cheaper.


What I really feel is that education should be free, but I feel the same way about food, communication and clothing. I know some people moan on about what is deserved etc but we are fully capable of achieving this. Wealth is meant to be a tool for progress. The wealthy have responsibilities to shape the world around them, just as a baron would tax his tenants but protect them and care for the land.

that wealth will eventually end up back in the hands where it came from because they will find things and products that even the new people with the money will want


Its a nice thought but I feel this deflects personal responsibility of ones world and sidesteps the issue of exploitation that still happens. "its not my fault I killed the guy, he should have stepped out the way of my gun, so its his fault I shot him and took his wealth"
manny6574
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manny6574
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Nomad

What I really feel is that education should be free, but I feel the same way about food, communication and clothing.


No, but it should be affordable for many people.
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