Andrew

What are UKIP's policies on university tuition fees and top-up fees?

Personally I cannot see why there is such opposition to university tuition fees and top-up fees. Personally I believe that Cameron and Osborne were right to say we were wrong to oppose Labour on the issue.

Students will receive a loan to cover their tutition fees, and it'll be paid back to the government over a period of time once they start earning £15,000. I think tuition fees should be about £2,000 more than they currently are – bringing them up to £5,000 per year in total.

Universities need more money than they are getting. Education is a very expensive business, and to keep Britain's universities on top, we need to ensure they can get as much funding as possible.

Why do I support them, and support increasing them?

I don't think anyone denies more higher education funding is needed, but I believe it's wrong to increase taxes and divert money from elsewhere to higher education (I also believe in lower taxes, so when the money is diverted from elsewhere to somewhere, it's to mine and your back pockets!). A large proportion gets wasted in getting it to the universities.

So, I believe in keeping state funding for higher education the same, but increasing it by having students pay more. It's not as if you're paying while learning. You'll only start paying once you've a decent waged job, and you aren't expected to pay unreasonable rates either.

C_steam

Only because of the inordinate amount of 'universities' we now have, and the appaling law standard set by some of them, along with 'mickey mouse' degree titles. It is impossible for an employer now to use the HE system as a marker for recruitment - how to - say - compare a 2.1 from Durham with a first from South Bank?

Blue chips now rely a lot on the old tried and trusted universities for their recruitment. Only 15 -20% of jobs are really degree level, there are an awful lot of bitter young peole out there working in manual jobs having wasted 3 or 4 years of their lives at a great financial cost.

No one doubts people should be better educated. But this needs to start in the school system and work through. Equal importance needs to be given to the FE sector also, vocational jobs are as important (if not more so) than Degree level ones.

Bellatrix

Really? You been to university and racked up a huge debt, honey?

The UKIP policy on this is that the whole argument would be made pointless if you removed this social engineering target of trying to get 50% of 18 year olds INTO phpbb_university, which is counter productive for students themselves. Because we have the intelligence to see that not everyone can and should go to university, and that spending three years doing a course which is unlikely to help you get a job at the other end, we can say things like this. We're also not so socially retarded that we think that being a manual labourer is a good thing, and doesn't make you a lesser being. In fact, given my time again I'd be a plumber.

So, fewer people in university, more people on vocational courses filling the huge gaps in the L market and more vocational courses throughout schooling life. Then you don't need to have this huge crisis over funding, because a smaller percentage of the population will be going to university, and there will be a better distribution of jobs at the other end of it.

Elly Talbot-Cooper

Bellatrix, I'm with you on this one. Given the chance again, I would probably choose not to go to University. If you leave school at 18 and go straight INTO phpbb_a profession, learning it from the ground up, you are likely to have progressed in the 3 years that you would have spent at Uni to a point where you are, in fact, senior both in experience and in the salary you command to your counterparts who have spent 3 years dossing about. You will also have been earning money rather than racking up debt and will have learnt your profession from the ground up so will actually know what you are doing.

Tom Collier

I agree Bellatrix and Elly.

The policy of promoting vocational stuff early as a voluntary choice would prevent post 14 year old academic schooling from being crowd control, as an added benefit.

Elly, I went up to uni in 1996, when the situation was only going to get worse, re funding, hence a feeling of having to go now. I would have enjoyed a liberal education and put up with the disbenefits if only the job market were not so rubbish now. As is I too feel there were better ways to get on. Like you say, just start off at the bottom. You can study in a library.

So I`ll be engaging your recruitment company`s resources in due course I expect. 8)

TC

Alex McKee

Youthkip lauches anti-top up fees campaign - Tue Sep 27, 2005

"Cancel top-up fees, give maintenance grants as necessary, and scrap the student loan scheme"



Regards,



Alex

rjt

Whilst we should encourage people to stand on their own two feet the sate has some basic dutys and one of those in my view is to ensure people are educated to the highest possible standard. Where is the morality in letting young people go out INTO phpbb_the world of work already with massive debts behind them. UKIP should have made clear its opposition at the time but said little. As an ex member of the party it is no longer my concern now what your policy is but it would be nice if you had one that people knew about. It is however encouraging to read the debate you are having even if many of you disagree with my view, that is what the party needs. if you can bring your influence to bear on the leadership and start getting other policys INTO phpbb_the public eye all may not be lost for UKIP. Fail and you will remain nothing more than a protest vote at EU and By-elections.

John Carter

Interesting (or not) thing from the recording industry:

1)
"Hello, I'd like a job."
"Right, what qualifications do you have?"
"None."
"Right, you're hired on probation. Make me a cup of tea".

2)
"Hello, I'd like a job."
"Right, what qualifications do you have?"
"I have a degree in multimedia."
"Right, you're hired on probation. Make me a cup of tea".

Cyburn

Top Up Fees will discourage many lower-middle class students from going to university.

It will be like the American system, which you have to pay to go to university unless youre on a scholarship.

mkpdavies

I maitain that I wasted 2 years at A-level and 3 years at degree level, which could have been used on skilling up in the real world.

I learned more in my first year on the job than all of my "higher" education years.

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