Tuition Fees

[raharley]

I'm a newbie poster but I've read this forum quite extensively over the last few months. Now I want to ask something that seems quite strange to me. A lot of people on here propose free education for all, even university. Coming from the UK, undergraduates can expect to pay around £3000 per year for their course.

It seems strange that university funding should be free for those who go to university.

How I see the system at the moment (UK).

Those who can afford to go to university still go (£3k year is a small amount)

Those who can't afford to go get help in the form of grants, bursaries and the like, so the actual figure they pay is much lower. For example, my friend in the same year as me pays virtually nil fees - both his parents are unemployed.

How is this not fair? The £3k/year paid by the middle/upper classes removes the burden on those who don't go to university at all. After all, why should an ordinary working class person pay for a doctor to obtain a degree and have much greater earning potential thereafter. It seems unfair (and very unsocialist) to have those who don't attend higher education propping up those who do.

In other words, if you want to earn a degree and have greater earning potential, you should pay for it. If you don't, you shouldn't.

One other thing. The fees are only payable once you reach a certain earnings threshold, £15k per year. They're not upfront. The monthly payments are small at this level. It really isn't the barrier to higher education most middle class protesters claim it to be. Again, you have had the benefit of higher education, now you are contributing back - linked to your wages. Where's the unfairness in this?

Seems totally fair to me. So someone put me straight. Why should university be free for those that can best afford it and subsidised by the average worker.

Thanks!

[Starport]

The first thing I would advise you to try and understand is -
we can never organise any justice or fairness of any kind or for
anyone within the "dog eat", "cutthroat" competition of capitalism.

[lulks]

It seems unfair (and very unsocialist) to have those who don't attend higher education propping up those who do.

In other words, if you want to earn a degree and have greater earning potential, you should pay for it. If you don't, you shouldn't.
when people graduate from college, their jobs give them a much greater salary than those who didn't attend college. college graduates make much more doing an easy job than a nongraduate makes doing a difficult job. this is because there's less people to do jobs that require a college education, even if they are easy, because it is more immediately beneficial to get a job and receive wages than pay money to study. this is unfair.

also, when it is more difficult to get education than to immediately get a job, the population will tend to be less educated. i think people should be paid the same as an average job to go to college. this will ensure that if people don't go to college, it's because they just prefer not to, not because they can't afford it. so the average person will be more educated, and this will make the wages for jobs more equal.

so your argument is that people who immediately get a job have to pay for people who go to college, but this cancels out because if people are paid to go to college, jobs that don't require college education pay more anyway.