Is Cutting Tuition Fees Fair On Current Students?

[Ellipsis]

Labour promises to cut tuition fees to £6,000

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31640592
"Ed Miliband says Labour would cut university tuition fees in England to £6,000 per year from autumn 2016."

If this happens, this will mean that tuition fees went 3000->9000->6000, meaning that a typical three year course would incur a loan of £9000, £27000 or £18000 respectively.

How are the students with the £27000 loan supposed to compete in the future job market, when candidates with the same degree both older than them and younger than them will be able to accept a lower wage (or derive a greater net income from the same wage)? Should Labour be backdating the £6000 pa to 2010? And why is it waiting until 2016 to bring the fees down, rather than doing it in 2015 if they get in?

This matters to current students. It's not nice for them to know that, for the course they're on and paying £27000 for, students a few years before them paid £9000 and students a few years after them will be paying £18000 should Labour get in, and that this will reduce their competitiveness in the job market.

[factor-fiction]

Hi Ellipsis. prices of things go up and down. If someone studying now was happy to go to university on the basis of fees of £9000pa why should they be compensated if the cost falls for future students?
But I think the main point that's still being overlooked is that for most students it won't make any difference as the 'loans' will never be repaid anyway. The only ones who will benefit from Ed's change would be the best paid graduates in jobs paying maybe £40000 a year for many years.

[Svejk]

Listening to the students on Any Questions, they should be shutting down a lot of these Uni's.

[DTCwordfan]

And, pray, how this is to be funded by Mr Balls-up?

[Ellipsis]

FF, thanks for at least answering the question rather than using this as an opportunity to have a rant about the good old days (although FWIW I do agree that they were the good old days).

> If someone studying now was happy to go to university on the basis of fees of £9000pa why should they be compensated if the cost falls for future students?

Of course they were not "happy" to go to university on that basis. They went because that's what they felt was needed in order to get on with their lives. For example, if it's your ambition to be a doctor, then you go to University - you don't sit on your hands and wait for the fees to go down before you go.

Most students at university now have never voted. They would need to have been 18 in 2010 to have voted in the last General Election. Now here is Labour appealing to the student vote in 2015, but even if Labour win in May their reduction won't come in until late 2016 - so any current student voting for it would only see it for part of their degree at best, and they would disadvantage themselves compared to future students. It just doesn't stack up and it's a dishonest pledge.

It would be hugely unfair for the current batch of students to graduate with greater debts for the same degree, not only than the students that went before them, but also the students that come after them.

[Svejk]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/miliband-unveils-massively-stupid-idea-2015022795809

[Ellipsis]

Yes, it is a massively stupid idea in many different ways. The people it would help most aren't even voting yet, it's designed as a bribe to the people it would actually harm most, and it's paid for by taking money off the people who vote most.