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Students to protest against 3rd level fees on Thursday 9th

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    #32
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 8,998 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    What are people's problems with fees?
    If parents earn large salaries why should the state pay for their kids education? If students get five months off a year, surely they can work and save up the money to contribute?
    If students are so hard up, why do they all have mobile phones? Surely mobiles are luxury not a necessity?


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    #33
    djpbarry
    Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Breezer wrote: »
    And reintroducing fees will do nothing to help that situation.
    Oh, I wasn't suggesting that it would, I was just pointing out that in some institutions, there's very little to be wasted!
    Breezer wrote: »
    Libertas would not have been founded until after Lisbon was passed...
    Now that would have been interesting.
    Húrin wrote: »
    Another interesting fact is that the government spends €45 million a year subsidising the internal flights industry.
    Do you have a source for that (genuinely interested)?


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    #34
    dodgyme
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,581 ✭✭✭dodgyme


    there is no problem with fees. The reason the students will protest is because they are mainly middle class people whose parents benefit from free education. Fees are a good idea if the entitlement was on a scaled system allowing someone to qualify for a certain percentage of the overall grant depending on parents wages eg. 10% 20% -> 100%. Any one whose parents earn more than say 120k should get nothing. This should be adapted slightly if parents are divorced.


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    #35
    cavedave
    Registered Users Posts: 2,164 ✭✭✭cavedave


    Tim Robbins

    If parents earn large salaries why should the state pay for their kids education?

    Someone who is 18+ is not a kid. If you can charge these adults based on their parents income why not tax all adults more if their parents are rich?


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    #36
    Fighting Irish
    Registered Users Posts: 7,065 ✭✭✭Fighting Irish


    Tim Robbins wrote: »
    What are people's problems with fees?
    If parents earn large salaries why should the state pay for their kids education? If students get five months off a year, surely they can work and save up the money to contribute?
    If students are so hard up, why do they all have mobile phones? Surely mobiles are luxury not a necessity?

    So the more successful you are the more you get screwed? Fook that.


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    #37
    stovelid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    cavedave wrote: »
    Someone who is 18+ is not a kid. If you can charge these adults based on their parents income why not tax all adults more if their parents are rich?

    Disingenuous. The amount of middle-class, 18 year students that pay their own third-level fees must surely be nominal.


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    #38
    Crash
    Registered Users Posts: 11,196 ✭✭✭✭Crash


    Simple fact is, that with the current state of the grant system the people that would suffer would not be those on grants, or those that are middle class, but those unfortunates who are just borderline enough in families earnings, or live half a mile to close to the college to qualify, or any billion and one other issues that the poorly managed grant system at the moment causes.

    As someone who just finished my final year at the start of the summer, I've been for fees being reintroduced for years, provided there is a proper means tested system. But it can't, and should not, be brought in until such a system is in place.


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    #39
    GuanYin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 15,552 ✭✭✭✭GuanYin


    Merged two threads on same subject.


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    #40
    Breezer
    Registered Users Posts: 3,228 ✭✭✭Breezer


    Ned Costello, CEO of the Irish Universities Association, which represents the 7 universities, has come out against a reintroduction of fees:
    http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1009/education.html wrote:
    Warning against return of college fees
    Thursday, 9 October 2008 11:55

    The CEO of the Irish Universities Association says the organisation is not in favour of the re-introduction of college fees.

    Ned Costello said he would not like to see a return to a pre-1996 scenario and said reasons of inequity led to their abolition.

    Mr Costello was speaking before an Oireachtas Committee along with the heads of the country's universities.

    He said there are no proposals from universities to increase registration fees and said the minister for education has not suggested an increase.

    Labour TD Ruari Quinn had asked if there was going to be a rise in such charges as some newspaper reports had suggested.

    Mr Costello went on to say that the sector was bedevilled somewhat because they do not yet now how much funding they will get in forthcoming the Budget.

    He also said that real term funding for individual students has gone down by 17% between the years of 2001 and 2006.

    But this was disputed by FG's Brian Hayes.

    Mr Costello also said a significant number of the seven universities are in deficit.

    The committee also heard that three of the country's 7 universities are not in deficit. They are NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth and Dublin City University.

    Mr Costello also said that the re-introduction of fees can only be considered as part of an overall investment plan for higher education and he said that plan currently does not exist.

    The hearing was also told that there are now 100,000 students attending universities here.


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    #41
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 8,998 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    Fighting Irish wrote: »
    So the more successful you are the more you get screwed? Fook that.

    What's the purpose of the state? So the successful can crush the unsuccesful?
    If you earn a large salary, having to pay for your kids education is hardly being screwed. It may mean you mightn't be able to change the SUV every year, but is that being screwed? No.


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    #42
    asdasd
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭asdasd


    Someone who is 18+ is not a kid. If you can charge these adults based on their parents income why not tax all adults more if their parents are rich?

    This argument is ridiculous. The 18 year olds who would prefer that their parents money not be taken into account had better

    a) Be not living at home
    b) Not getting any money whatsoever from their parents
    c) Agree to not get any money from their parents during their parents lifetime.

    You dont have to be a kid to survive on mummy and daddys largesse. Plenty of twentysomethings do, including getting houses paid - or part-paid for.

    so if they want to be considered financially independent adults they need to sign away their nepotism - otherwise the State is quite right in assuming that they are dependent on their parents and take their parent's income into account.


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    #43
    cavedave
    Registered Users Posts: 2,164 ✭✭✭cavedave


    asdasd
    so if they want to be considered financially independent adults they need to sign away their nepotism - otherwise the State is quite right in assuming that they are dependent on their parents and take their parent's income into account.

    Can you point out where it is possible to sign away your nepotism?


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    #44
    ninty9er
    Registered Users Posts: 9,366 ✭✭✭ninty9er


    Breezer wrote: »
    For example, if you are not eligible in first year, then you are never eligible, regardless of what change in circumstances might happen in between. Additionally, grants are often paid late. Yet there has been no talk of reforming the current grants scheme.
    Both of those statements are untrue.

    You can apply for a grant each year regardless of whether you've previously had one....you just have to submit the supporting documentation just like a continuing applicant would.

    The grant system is proposed to be centrally administered (and was supposed to be this year), but it hasn't happened yet

    Breezer wrote: »
    True, you haven't, but the thread is about a student protest against the re-introduction of fees proposed by Batt O'Keeffe. I believe that O'Keeffe, by grossly fudging his sums, announcing the results of these sums publicly as evidence to support his scheme, eating his words, then continuing as if nothing has happened, has shown himself incapable of making any informed decision as regards means testing.

    Actually, even €100m would clear the 7 university retained deficits within 1 year.
    dodgyme wrote: »
    there is no problem with fees. The reason the students will protest is because they are mainly middle class people whose parents benefit from free education. Fees are a good idea if the entitlement was on a scaled system allowing someone to qualify for a certain percentage of the overall grant depending on parents wages eg. 10% 20% -> 100%. Any one whose parents earn more than say 120k should get nothing. This should be adapted slightly if parents are divorced.
    This is not true either. The amount of (supposedly smart) people that I know from the students' union in UL protested because "everyone will have to pay €7.5k to go to college next year if fees come in"

    That's not true, and they're being fed this sh1t by students' unions the length and breadth of the country. In fact I lambasted the SU president in the pub lastnight for going along with the usual USI lies and propaganda which now looks like causing more people not to go to 3rd level because the reg fee is likely to hit €2k next year
    stovelid wrote: »
    Disingenuous. The amount of middle-class, 18 year students that pay their own third-level fees must surely be nominal.
    +1


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