University Funding - Solved

Yes, with no real knowledge on the subject, no formal planning of what I am about to write and no grasp of the intricacies of Higher Education funding, I think I have the answer.

And it is based squarely on a conversation I had with a female student out in Sydney. (My chat up techniques have always been bad).

How it works is, or how I remember it as working, I did have quite a few Bluetongues and Toohey's New that night, but if a student works a certain amount; that is, if they earn over a certain limit in a year, then they get their tuition fees paid for them by the state. Otherwise, they have to pay for the fees themselves.

So it's a double-win for the students who actually have a work ethic and understand that they have to put in some hard graft for a degree that will help them (and society) in the future. They don't have to pay fees and they have some spending money, society gets fairly low paying jobs filled by enthusiastic youngsters and the government gets some income tax back. And at 20% rather than 10% thanks to Gordon Brown's tax plans.

Tack onto the above that almost all degrees can be done in 3 years rather than 4, saving even more tuition cash, and you have yourself a stunningly good education policy.


I do think that writing off all student debt does seem a bit generous of the SNP (though I won't complain too much as I'll be £5,000 better off!)

But at the same time, emerging from university with a degree which is increasingly meaningless shouldn't cost an arm and a leg. And it certainly shouldn't cost a genuinely hard working youngster the same as what it costs a drop-out or a supremely rich TT-driving toff.


And also, assuming that students have better chat up lines than I do, they will always have the incentive of drinks/clubbing money to get them through 3 or 4 years of minimum-wage labour.