Am I missing the point about tuition fees?

[beorhthelm]

... However, the global recession as a result of uncontrolled bankers (and they would have had less regulation had the Tories been in power) shafted the proposed spending plans and resulted in the massive deficit

people should remember that the debt and deficit was already growing before the recession, and the majority of the deficit is due purely down to overspending in a period where growth was already expected to slow. Brown thought he had worked an economic miracle and growth would continue forever, ignoring his own policy of prudence and budgeting within the economic cycle. the only thing he done right was keeping us out of the Euro, which would really have screwed us when the credit train derailed.

 

[El Presidente]

the socialist government

New Labour socialist? You cannot be serious!

 

[El Presidente]

A number of people on this thread ( and others ) have claimed the increase in fees and cuts in spending are nothing more than Tory policy rather than necessity.

My beef is that it is all smoke and mirrors. Under the old scheme students borrowed £3,000 from a government agency, which the agency itself had to borrow, and the government borrowed the other £3,000, and £6,000 went to the university. Under the new scheme students borrow £6,000 from a government agency, BUT the agency still has to borrow this sum in the first place as before. The only difference is that these debts are off balance sheet, and therefore do not appear on the government borrowing list, but are there nonetheless.

Under the new scheme graduates only pay 9% of their income above £21,000 (index linked), and the first repayments will only start in 2015. There will therefore be ZERO actual improvement in cash flow to the government coffers until the next parliament at the very earliest.

 

[El Presidente]

Does anyone else think that HovaGirl is Sarah Palin?

 

[sten_super]

My beef is that it is all smoke and mirrors. Under the old scheme students borrowed £3,000 from a government agency, which the agency itself had to borrow, and the government borrowed the other £3,000, and £6,000 went to the university. Under the new scheme students borrow £6,000 from a government agency, BUT the agency still has to borrow this sum in the first place as before. The only difference is that these debts are off balance sheet, and therefore do not appear on the government borrowing list, but are there nonetheless.

Under the new scheme graduates only pay 9% of their income above £21,000 (index linked), and the first repayments will only start in 2015. There will therefore be ZERO actual improvement in cash flow to the government coffers until the next parliament at the very earliest.

I agree with all of that, it's an accounting trick and nothing else. That doesn't necessarily make it a policy decision though. The more pressing issue is that the current model of FE funding was viewed as unsustainable by the people on both sides of the house, and hence Lord Browne was asked to investigate alternatives. The policy that has been voted in takes substantially from the results of the review, and attempts to make it more 'fair' (I put that in quotation marks as it's obviously up for debate). It's not about the immediate concern of addressing the large debt held by UK PLC, but a measure aimed at reducing the structural deficit which was contributed to by the government covering £3k+ of a students university fees.

 

[Jim D]

Does anyone else think that HovaGirl is Sarah Palin?

No, but maybe Michael - seems never to be in the country.

 

[bhaexpress]

just as a point of information, Further Education (HNC/NVQ) institutions are only funded for students who complete a course

Not according to the college I was at and given the lack of effort by them to encourage people to stay on the course I believe it. This course was 'Industrial Training'. The course was an utter shambles including having a large slice of the syllabus being incomplete as they didn't know how to teach the subject concerned, we had an assignment that was forced to use software that could not actually do half the things we were taught, something that only came to light when we tried o do them. To cap it all they expected us to set up our own work experience section, they did nothing, I have no reason to believe that this is uncommon in academia, the universities and their management needs to be overhauled and rationalised to get rid of the overpaid dead wood that runs these institutions.

 

[HovaGirl]

Does anyone else think that HovaGirl is Sarah Palin?

Hmm. No answers?

 

[simmo]

However, the global recession as a result of uncontrolled bankers (and they would have had less regulation had the Tories been in power) shafted the proposed spending plans and resulted in the massive deficit (and let's not forget it was the tories who first started to deregulate the finance sector). Unfortunately, some have a blinkered view of labour and dismiss anything worthwhile they achieved. They didn't get everything right, but they didn't get everything wrong either.

I still don't understand why Labour with 13 years to do something about it did precisely nothing about these uncontrolled bankers and actually positively encouraged them to do what they did. Why could they not legislate against 100+% mortgages for example (which Northern Rock were the ones that pushed this the most and guess whom were the first bank to get into trouble in the UK were) at the time many people were saying 100+% mortgages were not right. The bankers operated under the rules of the land which are ultimately allowed and potentially changed by parliament, which in all those years was Labour controlled. Whom does the buck stop with??

The intimation from this last update that things would have been much worse under the Tories is total and utter conjecture on your part. You and I and the general public at large do not know whether things would have been worse under the Tories, maybe it would be but maybe they wouldn't have run the country with so much of a defecit as Labour did, maybe if they had access to the Financial data that the treasury had up until 2008 they might have been able to act differently and better before/during/after the crisis. None of us know, it is your updates that show your bias because your personal bias just assumes that EVERYTHING would be worse under the Cons. The general public have all seen where 13 years of Labour rule leave us now and that is why they were resoundly rejected when they put these 13 years of rule up for re-election in May.

 

[El Presidente]

The general public have all seen where 13 years of Labour rule leave us now and that is why they were resoundly rejected when they put these 13 years of rule up for re-election in May.

I think you will find that all three parties were resoundly rejected in May.

All western governments reacted to the recession in the same way, which was to use a fiscal stimulus to prevent the worst excesses of the recession, and nationalise a number of financial institutions to prevent a global collapse of banking. Excessive lending and lax financial control is more of the domain of the B of E and FSA than parliament. Labour did make some errors during their 13 years of tenure, but blaming them for a global recession is just plain silly.

 

[drew]

I still don't understand why Labour with 13 years to do something about it did precisely nothing about these uncontrolled bankers and actually positively encouraged them to do what they did. Why could they not legislate against 100+% mortgages for example (which Northern Rock were the ones that pushed this the most and guess whom were the first bank to get into trouble in the UK were) at the time many people were saying 100+% mortgages were not right. The bankers operated under the rules of the land which are ultimately allowed and potentially changed by parliament, which in all those years was Labour controlled. Whom does the buck stop with??

The intimation from this last update that things would have been much worse under the Tories is total and utter conjecture on your part. You and I and the general public at large do not know whether things would have been worse under the Tories, maybe it would be but maybe they wouldn't have run the country with so much of a defecit as Labour did, maybe if they had access to the Financial data that the treasury had up until 2008 they might have been able to act differently and better before/during/after the crisis. None of us know, it is your updates that show your bias because your personal bias just assumes that EVERYTHING would be worse under the Cons. The general public have all seen where 13 years of Labour rule leave us now and that is why they were resoundly rejected when they put these 13 years of rule up for re-election in May.

Yes, I am biased towards labour although as a party I don't like them but they are the closest to what I believe in (and no, I'm not a communist). Yes I don't like the conservatives because I saw what 18 years of their rule did. And exactly how do you suggest that a hung parliament reflects a resounding victory for the Tories. With the bad press, the recession and a leader who was everything but, Cameron could still not deliver a 'resounding' victory. The conservatives are only in power because the libdems prostituted themselves, demonstrated by the about turn on tuition fees. Let's see what happens at the next few by-elections.

 

[clapham_gull]

I still don't understand why Labour with 13 years to do something about it did precisely nothing about these uncontrolled bankers and actually positively encouraged them to do what they did. Why could they not legislate against 100+% mortgages for example (which Northern Rock were the ones that pushed this the most and guess whom were the first bank to get into trouble in the UK were) at the time many people were saying 100+% mortgages were not right. The bankers operated under the rules of the land which are ultimately allowed and potentially changed by parliament, which in all those years was Labour controlled. Whom does the buck stop with??

Northern Rock didn't get into trouble because of their mortgages - not sure any other financial institution in this country did either.

More to do with the highly complex financial products that they were trading to each other, some of which were seen to be retrospectively were made of air. I really don't understand these financial products but unfortunately neither did a lot of the people trading them.

 

[clapham_gull]

There is a little known tip regarding degree courses, you can generally observe what they prepare you for by reading their title.

What exactly is Media Studies going to prepare you for?

Working in the media (clue is in the title)

A degree in History will prepare you for the analytical thinking required of a lawyer and get you into law school.

Or you could study a Law degree

..you may even diversify into archaeology

Or you could study archaeology.

..It would even be useful if you want to go into politics, later.

Not sure, but I reckon a politics degree would be better.

A maths degree will help prepare you for life as an accountant..

I'd suggest accountancy.

Building surveyor or computer programmer.

Surveying and computer science, probably the best choices.

A degree in science will pave the way if you want to become a doctor, vet, pharmacist, psychiatrist or even a research scientist.

Again good suggestions, but medicine, veterinary medicine and pharmacy are the best way to go. I'll give you the last one, but I'd imagine a degree of some sort of science (and probably at least a masters) is a prerequisite for being a research scientist.

My personal bone of contention, is Sociology,

Are we back to archaeology ?

These qualifications should prepare you for a specific practical skill in society, such as midwifery, but it won't help you become a vet, if you wanted to change discipline part-way through.

I think you've have finally got it !

 

[KneeOn]

Not sure, but I reckon a politics degree would be better.

Actually, it wouldn't. Studying politics allows you to understand the processes, the instutions and the way we are Governed (assuming you go for the UK politics courses) but as for ACTUALLY going in to politics as an MP Economics, Law or a science would be better because you become an expert in something that will need experts in the government. Minister of xxx needs to be an expert (theoretically) in area xxx - an ideal not easily reached i know but theoretically that is what you would want.

 

[ROSM]

people should remember that the debt and deficit was already growing before the recession, and the majority of the deficit is due purely down to overspending in a period where growth was already expected to slow. Brown thought he had worked an economic miracle and growth would continue forever, ignoring his own policy of prudence and budgeting within the economic cycle. the only thing he done right was keeping us out of the Euro, which would really have screwed us when the credit train derailed.

This would be at the time the Conservatives under Howard and then Cameron said they would match the money being spent by the Labour government? let's not kid ourselves that there was widespread condemnation of the spending plans - because there wasn't

 

[ROSM]

I am touched that the question I asked about what was deemed a mickey mouse degree and how many people as a percentage of students were taking them has illicited just one reply and to be fair to Hova Girl she didn't really answer the question. She did give us a nice insight on her views of the propulsion of marxism in modern britain though. Worthy of a sociology dissertation that.

The reason why this wouldn't be answered could be found in a story I heard from a Daily Mail journalist (see I've been a bit naughty here as I've mentioned them and I knew there would be no real answer to this) who was asked to write a piece on this very subject but once they argued with the editorial team about what was a mickey mouse degree they ended up having to rule out things like media studies (as some of them had got their NCTJ quals that way) and History of Art (as two others had this) and Sociology as some had this before looking to go into politics or the civil service (or had combined with Economics) or indeed it was being studied by their offspring.

So they were left with things like The Beatles, History of Comedy, Contemporary Flower Arranging etc It worked out that they could only find c800 people in the country studying these courses. Or less than one tenth of the students studying at Sussex University.

Not a great story in the end and so quietly dropped.

 

[beorhthelm]

Northern Rock didn't get into trouble because of their mortgages

i think Northern Rock did, because thats all they where involved in. when banks/buliding societies lend you money they fund it from a loan in the money markets. these loans are short term and constantly being rolled over, and in the more recent past, sold on to other or insured against default (all the complex shit). but at the end of the day it was simple: they became over borrowed just as credit was drying up or getting too expensive. they looked like they couldnt make upcoming payments so the lenders shut the door.

if they hadnt had so much high risk debt or engaged in such an agressive business plan that tried to leverage what should be stable income (from nice people paying for a roof over their head) they'd have avoid getting in to such a position. other banks with less risky strategies didnt have any problems (until they were asked to bail out another bank in the case of llyods)

This would be at the time the Conservatives under Howard and then Cameron said they would match the money being spent by the Labour government? let's not kid ourselves that there was widespread condemnation of the spending plans - because there wasn't

the tory's do themselves any favors either (though i recall Howard fought his election on cutting whitehall costs). but i will forever correct those who believe Brown was a innocent bystander caught in events beyond his control, where he very much made the bed we now sleep in.

 

[clapham_gull]

i think Northern Rock did, because thats all they where involved in.

From what I've read (and I could well be wrong) what buggered Northern rock was liquidity in the financial markets.

Not the fact they were offering 100% mortgages.

That's my point.

 

[clapham_gull]

Actually, it wouldn't. Studying politics allows you to understand the processes, the instutions and the way we are Governed (assuming you go for the UK politics courses) but as for ACTUALLY going in to politics as an MP Economics, Law or a science would be better because you become an expert in something that will need experts in the government. Minister of xxx needs to be an expert (theoretically) in area xxx - an ideal not easily reached i know but theoretically that is what you would want.

F*ck me - lighten up a bit. I was dissecting Sarah Palin's post - not asking an exam question.

 

[ROKERITE]

Does anyone else think that HovaGirl is Sarah Palin?

I think Hovagirl seems a delightful and intelligent young lady; not a description I'd apply to the dreadful Mrs Palin. The only thing I'd point out is that the beheading of Charles 1 came at the end of The Civil War, it didn't initiate it.