University Fees
On the face of it the Coalition’s plans are reasonable and fair, yet I am much troubled by this, because however it is structured, there will be issues and it cannot be right to start working life in debt. It is too much debt that has landed people, business and the government in trouble. We need to get away from provision by borrowing, rather than by earning. Moreover the students from better off homes will be able to avoid the debt by paying it off with a surcharge, whereas the less well off will be saddled with it. In addition there will be a tendency to go for higher paying jobs( or employers who pay off the debt as a golden hallo) which may not be either socially useful or nationally necessary.
The problem with the previously favoured idea of a graduate tax was mainly administrative, so useless and inflexible is the Whitehall database. Yet even here there is an underlying issue. Graduates pay more tax anyway because they earn more and spend more. The answer is, I am afraid, we should not be charging at all. There is no more fundamental benefit a society can provide to raise standards, reduce poverty and ensure its progress, than free eduction of the highest quality. We should not have moved from that position.
There is a better case for introducing some extended charging structure into the NHS. We already pay for prescriptions and dental care. Why not a tenner to see the doctor or go to a clinic, with the current exemptions for prescription charges also free? The answer is that in our society the free NHS is an over valued totem which politicians dare not challenge, whereas free university education is not. We may have got our priorities badly wrong. this Blog thinks we have.