I just popped out for lunch. I couldn't quite understand the discreet, but nevertheless, heavy police presence. Until I saw a minibus from UWICSU (University of Wales in Cardiff Student Union), presumably down to protest the top-up fees. A two-ambulance, two-prone-bodies, one motorbike RTA that shut half of Victoria Street didn't help.
People who oppose top-up fees live in a dream world. Universities are under-funded. In a socialist utopia the shortfall would come from general taxation. But the capitalist Press rail against taxation. Anyway, it is patently obvious that an increase in general taxation would be much better spent on pre-school and Early Years education. Perhaps if the young children of woefully inadequate parents can be given a decent education before the age of seven, society will pay a much lower cost of taming the ferile beasts as they approach and pass their teens.
Of course it is worrying to leave University with debt. When I left in 1989, I had to take a commercial loan with a commercial bank, at an annual interest rate of 29%. My monthly payments were about 30% of my net pay. It was incredibly difficult living like that. Hey, I survived. It was a major contribution to me learning about responsibility, negotiating with commercial organisations and growing up.
The middle classes are bleating; stories about the poor suffering are somewhat disingenuous. Perhaps the middle classes want to go back to my era, or to that of my mother's generation, when the only people who went to proper Universities (Manchester for her, Nottingham for me) were an absolute academic elite (okay, an elite who possessed the ability to pass exams and were fortunate enough to have supportive parents).
If 18 year olds are deterred from Higher Education by the prospect of a debt that doesn't need repaying until their earnings reach a decency threshold, perhaps they really aren't sufficiently motivated or mature, or lack the intellectual rigour to benefit from a massive state handout, paid for largely by people who themselves didn't have that opportunity to seize.
Of course, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of hard cases. But hard cases make bad policy.
Personally, I think that the parents of any sudent under twenty-five should be obliged to pay, up front, an inflation adjusted amount in tuition fees equivalent to what they paid in school fees.
Now shoot me!
Update: Adrian says it so much better...
