to learn

so anyway, for my own benefit i thought i would try and write (or 'blog') where i stand on this recent tuition fee malarkey. because i'm rather confused myself.

firstly, these things:
1. i benefited from having my fees paid. my family had zero pounds when i went to university, so i can only speculate about whether i'd have gone if i'd faced £9k a year in fees. i think i would have gone, but that's easy to say now.
2. i think that the fee protests were a good thing. some people crossed the line, but generally it was great to see some political engagement. breaking windows is, and should never been equated with, 'violence'. occupying buildings is fair enough when that many people believe in something and were genuinely protesting about politicians breaking explicit promises.
3. any libdem mp who signed the pledge to vote against a fee increases should have honoured it. being in coalition does not absolve individual mp's of personal responsibility for their votes. that our system 'forces' people to vote against conscience is wrong, but even if the system does that, the individual is still sovereign over his or her actions.
4. i'm not a conservative, lib dem or labour supporter. i voted lib-dem in the election because i thought that a large share of the popular vote would provide a mandate for real electoral reform. i am actually a paid-up green party member, though not for much longer. in summary, i think a lot of people have a lot of good ideas... but that party politics is horseshit and is not for me.

education is good. one of the functions of the state should be to facilitate the education of the population. it seems that there is a dispute about where 'facilitation' should and shouldn't include 'funding'. previously we have fully funded education up until the age of 18, and then things start to get fuzzy.

university education is expensive. i think it's too expensive. my degree course (law, at a good university) was not worth £9k a year. the certificate at the end might have been... but the service and experience along the way was not. obviously, different subjects are taught differently and cost institutions different amounts. an engineering degree, which requires practical facilities and high levels of 1-on-1 contact and suchlike, will cost more than a law degree which just needs a library and a guy to talk at a room with 200 people in it. we pay the same for every course regardless, with the less costly ones subsidising the others. that's how it should be. nobody should choose a course based on what it costs.

the cost of education needs to be paid by people. even when the state pays, that's still people. i wonder if sometimes that gets forgotten. the uk is in a lot of debt, which means that where the state pays for something the cost is actually going to fall on future generations. that, to me, is key in all of this... and is the main reason why i think that it's right to cut state funding of higher education. it's one thing for me to support state funding that i will pay for.. but another to support state funding that future generations will pay for.

i accept that higher education can be good for society. but i think that case is deeply over-stated. graduate unemployment is a growing problem, so how can it be that the system is benefiting society? of course.. it does for many students, but it doesn't for many others. i think that too many people go to university and study subjects which benefit neither the students nor society. i think that there are many institutions who prey on these students and sell 'them' qualifications which are of no value.. and at the moment they're getting the taxpayer to subsidise that. it seems this is a controversial view... but can anyone seriously tell me that someone who has got two C's in a-level is suited to three years of expensive in-depth academic study?

university should not be only for the rich. but it should be only for the smart. elitism on an academic level is fine by me. alas, years ago it seemed that it was decided that other forms of post-18 education were inferior. snobbery against vocational training has done the nation a great disservice and so funding has been thrown at universities to the detriment of further education colleges, apprenticeships, and other forms of training.

of course, the new system isn't actually going to help all that much. it might deter some people from going to university... but it's more likely to do so on economic grounds than academic grounds. furthermore, the system of loans and repayments means that people who don't attain qualifications which benefit them in an academic sense will still end up with the taxpayer funding them.

but what about education for the sake of education? what about study that has no economic benefit to the student or society? surely we should not marketise these courses? surely we should not have a system which says that unless a degree leads to a high salary it is of no value. well... no... but also, surely the state cannot be asked to blindly fund anyone that has a burning desire to study latin or art history? does society really benefit from that? will people stop making great music if they can't study a music degree? i don't think so. indeed... how many great artists became great artists because they went to university and studied how to be great artists? should someone who wants to do film studies be given a taxpayer subsidy that's significantly more than someone who wants to go to college and learn how to be a builder? is that fair? is that progressive? or is that asking nurses and social workers to help fund middle-class curiosities?

i don't think that the new system fixes the problems. there needs to be a radical rethink of what we wish our education system to achieve for learners and for society. we are in the age of the internet, but we're still wedded to an education system born of the industrial revolution. years of unchecked state-control mean it is, in many places, inefficient, ineffective and self-serving.

university students are stereotyped as lazy drunkards who are there for the social side of things, not to learn. some are, some are not, and there's no value in debating the balance. people aged 18-21 want to be sociable regardless of what they are doing... it's natural and healthy and they shouldn't be criticised for it. however, it's not unfair to compare and contrast the degree to which state funding facilitates a lifestyle and at the moment the people who go to university get a disproportionately good deal to those who do not.

i have evolving views on the role of the state. i am constantly frustrated by those who ask the state to pay for things in apparent ignorance at the fact that the state has no money of it's own.. only that which it takes as tax. i think many people miss the fact that if the state pays for a university education then it creates debt on future society, and that what these measures do is shift the burden of that more to the individual who gains the greatest benefit from it. i realise that it seems unfair that generations who didn't have to pay for their degrees are now changing the rules for young people today... but i think it was an inappropriate use of state funds beforehand, and somebody has to suffer from a correction in policy.

older generations, including my own, were lucky.. and something else is required to correct that and reduce the burden on those younger than us so that, at the very least, they only have to pay for their own degrees and don't also have to keep up the debt repayments resulting from ours. the biggest economic crime of modern capitalism is nothing to do with banker bonuses... it's the accumulation of debt against future generations. as well as preventing that problem from getting worse, we need to find ways to redress this historic inequity. i'm still working on that.