3rd Level Fees or Free Education for Everyone

durruti

How do people feel about the re-introduction of third level fees?

The Minister for Finance Batt O'Keefe is expected to make a decision on the matter in June / July, and it is proposed to have either a direct re-introduction of fees, a graduate tax or loan system. It will most likely be a direct re-introduction. http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0312/fees.html

Do people feel that fees for students are something that should be stopped?

If people are aware about the Free Education for Everyone (FEE) campaign, do they feel that this is something DIT students would / should get involved in? FEE are currently active in UCD, TCD, NUIM, NUIG and UL as it stands.

Info on FEE: http://free-education.info/

The Volt

We had a huge contingent at the protests so I would imagine there'd be plenty of interest from DITSU

My big problem with things like these is that they always turn in to rallies for the socialist party & Ogra Sinn Fein etc

projectmayhem

Voltwad wrote: »

My big problem with things like these is that they always turn in to rallies for the socialist party & Ogra Sinn Fein etc

...and this is why I don't show up to most student protests myself. They usually become party political broadcasts rather then actual speech about the issue to hand.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the single largest reasons this economy did so well (ignoring fake money and all the banking sector failures of late) is that we have such a well trained, young and intelligent workforce. Free education is the main driving force behind this.

Rich kids will be fine, but go into any normal workforce and the true genius' aren't the rich kids at all, they're the smart middle classes, and even lower income families produce great engineers, programmers, scientists, etc. These families won't be able to do this anymore.

The solution for these families is simply to suck it up and get a bank loan, remortgage the house, etc. Or, of course, for the student his/herself to get a loan and pay it back when they have a job. Well now jobs are getting more scarce, so repayments may take some time. Couple that with the unwillingness of banks to lend (keep in mind if I got a loan for college it'd be the first loan I got, so I'd no doubt have difficulty getting it) and you've got yourself a bit of a black hole.

I understand the governments difficulty here. They're in massive financial trouble, with huge debts to pay off now. Money needs to be recouped. You also have the issue of training up an elite workforce who just ends up going off to another country to use their qualifications. Well, this might happen. It happened before - but once the country got its act together, these people came back. The same will happen. The government needs a well trained workforce to attract employers, and keep the economy afloat, as well as to keep your well trained employees here. The economy doesn't need to charge more for services, it needs to micro-manage the economy into shape. Bringing back fee's will not help anyone.

miss no stars

I'm very much in favour of some kind of reintroduction.

The way I'd like to see it done is - you go to college, don't pay while you're in college. Pay it back in the form of a graduate tax or likewise, but if you want to leave the country to work elsewhere (other than volunteering for stuff like build it week etc) you have to pay off any remaining debt. Treat your fees as a loan from the government. When you can pay it back (earning over a certain level) you pay it back. Want to leave? Gotta pay it back!

Tea_Bag

miss no stars wrote: »

but if you want to leave the country to work elsewhere (other than volunteering for stuff like build it week etc) you have to pay off any remaining debt.

how do you propose they get you to pay taxes from another country? i feel a human rights issue coming on here in the way that wages can vary greatly in other countries.

eg (with no research whatsoever done) lets say Bob gets a geography degree of sime kinds, and then ships off to an OPEC, which is where his degree leads him to. and lets say he has to pay back €500 to Irish tax, but because of the recession and the OPEC's economical status, he earns €5p/h (which is easily possible, Dell in poland is said to pay €3ph) now you can understand that that fiver an hour affords him to live comfortably there, but 400 yo yo's is a HUGE dent in his salary to be going back home. thats 100 hours he has to work per month JUST to pay his irish tax.

doolox

A graduate tax would be very difficult to implement because you would have an increase in attendence in non degree courses and a flight to other jurisdictions to finish study up to degree level. Also how do you account for people in receipt of scholarships, company payment of fees etc.
How do you differentiate between foreign people working in Ireland with degree qualifications and Irish qualified with similar qualifications?
People starting out in their first job will need money for their first house and marriage. Graduates wages are not much higher than equivalent trade wages if the non-building trades are taken as an example. Graduates do not get paid overtime or get high pay until late into their twenties, ask any doctor or teacher how long they had to wait for their first high paycheck...........
In my 30 years in the electronics industry I have seen a convergence in pay between the higher technical grades and junior Engineering grades. To expect the Engineers to a pay a graduate tax on much the same wages as a technician would be discriminatory.
Britain tried to solve the 3rd level education problem with student loans but with the result that many graduates could only get jobs at little above non-degree people and hadn't enough money to pay back the loans and had to go bankrupt as a result with IVA's...they will not be able to get a mortgage as a result and this has had a knock-on effect on the housing market. Also parental debt brought on by late-life extensions on mortgages are a problem when financing childrens education. The government will now have to pay for the parents future nursing-home care because the parents had to stump up for their adult "childrens" education, something the state should do for selected degree courses for the good of all.......
Note I am not advocating a free for all regarding 3rd level education, the courses getting reduced costings ( they are NOT free....) should have a compelling economic or cultural basis but this is another battlefield for people to decide whats necessary and whats not. Also care will have to be taken as to the quality of the colleges allowed to take part but there is already a framework in place through CAO for this.
If the government is allowed to re-introduce fees for 3rd level students they will target other courses in time. Apprenticeships, PLC's and other non-degree courses will be hit with fees next. All working people will lose out.

miss no stars

you're missing the point i was making, you treat the fees as a loan from the government. a graduate may only make a little more than a tech initially, but by and large, their salary has much more scope to increase than the tech's does.

Tea bag - it doesn't become a human rights issue. If you take out a loan, you take out a loan. simple as. If you can't repay it, you're defaulting on a loan. 3rd level education is not a human right :rolleyes:

That said, I would be in favour of a morotorium on repayments until you earn over a certain threshold. Which is something I already said but has been ignored.

Tea_Bag

miss no stars wrote: »

you're missing the point i was making, you treat the fees as a loan from the government. a graduate may only make a little more than a tech initially, but by and large, their salary has much more scope to increase than the tech's does.

Tea bag - it doesn't become a human rights issue. If you take out a loan, you take out a loan. simple as. If you can't repay it, you're defaulting on a loan. 3rd level education is not a human right :rolleyes:

That said, I would be in favour of a morotorium on repayments until you earn over a certain threshold. Which is something I already said but has been ignored.

by human rights, perhaps not the best choice in words, i mean Bob cant afford to put food on the table because he's working off a LOAN for an education that wasnt worth its weight in sand.

Ass

I'm in favor of adopting American College style fees for colleges in about a years time. Like 40 grand a year.

projectmayhem

Ass wrote: »

I'm in favor of adopting American College style fees for colleges in about a years time. Like 40 grand a year.

Stop trolling.

Strange_Fruit

Im not too pleased about the fees but to be honest theres not much you can do.At the end of the day if their gonna do it they'll do it..
But when it comes to repeating a year..and the fees will already be expensive..ontop of the new fees too..:mad:

The Volt

If people aren't even guaranteed a job coming out of college then they'd be paying back the loan through the dole.

A society can be judged on how it looks after its' young, old, weak, ill and poor. Given the aims of the government the past year or so I don't think we can be too proud of ourselves.

If I had my way what I'd do is have students work one day a week somewhere that would pay directly for their college fees. Seeing as how there's no jobs out there at the moment though it's not ever likely to happen. Without trying to mimic that Shane Kelly fella too much, education is indeed a human right and just because America or Australia has large fees doesn't mean that we should be. If that's the arguement people are putting forward then we could counter that people in Britain actually get paid to go to college in some circumstances.

For the forseeable future it appears that protests are finished, thank god. All they ever were was hot air. I saw no effort in DIT whatsoever (or any other college for that matter) to help students not from Dublin get on to the register, nor have USI or any students union made any substantial effort to get the elections held on a weekend so students could actually get home to vote (an alternative to this would be to give students a postal vote) but the last elections were held on a Friday and I'd imagine there was a huge number of students who'd vote went to waste. This is something that could be argued against the government by USI if they'd only realize. If enough pressure was put on them to help students actually use their vote and they STILL denied change then we'd have them by the proverbials so to speak, not only would they be hindering our education but they'd be denying us our right to vote as well. The protests showed the number of people opposed to fees but if you have power then you have to know how to use it and sometimes you have to play dirty.

With that tangent finished I'd just like to reiterate how I feel about fees. The stance that some people are taking on this annoys me. It's the old story really, people who can afford it don't care, the same people don't want to pay tax to build better schools, hospitals, roads etc because they can send their children to boarding schools, Blackrock clinic and travel around in a helicopter. Fees aren't so simple for the rest of us, people work two jobs just to pay what they already have to, including rent and food/drink. Fees will harm the motivation of teenagers in all working class areas. If they are in 5th year and already know that their parents can't afford to help them into college then why would they even bother putting effort into the LC?

And to say having students pay loans back is a decent alternative when the future of the economy is so uncertain is a disgrace.

Frankiestylee

I would be in favour of an introduction of fees if they were means tested, or if it was a student loan system that had to be paid back once a certain wage threshold was hit.

Surely with a means tested system all those that can afford it have to pay and those who can't don't.

With a government loan, you pay it back when you can afford to. If you can't afford to pay it back then you can't.

sdanseo

Not that this hasn't already been done to death but:

While it's free to do so, everyone who wants to will take a qualification on board. If it costs money, the jobs market will loosen up ~4 years later, with more available for those who can afford the degree/diploma etc.

While that's all well and good for those that can afford it, anyone having to forego a qualification on financial grounds will be left behind. Grants will not increase to match the fees even if they do go up, because the current government are utter idiots.

Either way, it leads to a two-tier system which in this day and age is bollocks. This government should have to learn the hard way that they can't give out benefits when times are good and then recall them because they fúcked up. Keep them and cut their own salaries, costs, benefits etc to pay for it.

Frankiestylee

Yeah, nobody wants a two-tiered system, but that's where the aul means testing comes into play.
It's going to come back and bite us in the ass somehow. If we don't have fees then we'll have higher taxes. Plenty of people messed up over the last few years to get us into the situation we're in, but even if they all get punished it's not going to generate the money the country needs.

If someone is earning a hundred grand or so a year then yeah, I think they should pay for their kid to go to college. Fair enough you can say they pay it in their taxes already and that's another argument.
I changed courses after two years and had to pay the full whack for two years of college, just working part-time. It was a pain in the ass but it was doable.

In the same vein, if you introduce a government loan you have to pay back when you earn a certain amount, you're not going to be hitting the graduate trying to scrape by, you're to get it if and when he/she starts making decent money.

If everybody has to do their part then that means everybody, otherwise it all falls apart.

melekalikimaka

i'm up for reintroduction also. this free fees farse has been milked too long and people now are under the impression its something to be expected... not at all... its a privilage we got when times were good, times are bad now... time to suck it up

The Volt

Frankiestylee wrote: »

If we don't have fees then we'll have higher taxes

Typical greedy attitude, taxation is a good thing, the fairest way of redistributing wealth.

Frankiestylee

Voltwad wrote: »

Typical greedy attitude, taxation is a good thing, the fairest way of redistributing wealth.

Greedy? I'm in favour of introducing fees, greedy would be to expect something for nothing.
If we raise taxes, money will most likely get shared around and education won't benefit as much as if the there was a fee to go to college and the college directly profited.
I'm all for the re-distribution of wealth, that's why I think those that have it should pay for their kids to go to college. Eg. At the moment we've millionaires who contribute no more to their child's education than someone just over the higher tax bracket etc.

melekalikimaka

so you think its fair for make a man whos worked hard to make a man whos worked all his life to make good money to be penalised y his government and forced to pay for his childs education, while welfare spunging leeches get in free? not gonna happen

Tea_Bag

melekalikimaka wrote: »

so you think its fair for make a man whos worked hard to make a man whos worked all his life to make good money to be penalised y his government and forced to pay for his childs education, while welfare spunging leeches get in free? not gonna happen

SO you think its fair that smart people shouldnt go to college because they're poor? If they introduce fees, only the people with money to spare are going to go to college.

melekalikimaka

Tea_Bag wrote: »

SO you think its fair that smart people shouldnt go to college because they're poor? If they introduce fees, only the people with money to spare are going to go to college.

that wont happen... lon systems will be implimented. I just dont think you should be subject to discrimination by your own government because you pay more tax... kinda double smack in the face because the poor cant afford college... what do you think every other civilised nation does?

amacachi

melekalikimaka wrote: »

that wont happen... lon systems will be implimented. I just dont think you should be subject to discrimination by your own government because you pay more tax... kinda double smack in the face because the poor cant afford college... what do you think every other civilised nation does?

That right there. Anyone who is "poor" and decides not to go to college despite loans being available is full of ****. If they're brought back in (which I think they should) there's no way I could pay them up front and I hope that I have to take a loan out. I'm sick of the skewed balance in this country, being from a low income family doesn't make me feel that I deserve to be handed free education when someone from a slightly better-off family has to pay.

durruti

I made the original post so I could gain an idea of the general mood in DIT around the possible re-introduction of fees, since I'll be a student there in September and I am also a member of the Free Education for Everyone (FEE) campaign.

The argument for the re-introdcution of fees is being couched, by the government, in the media as something that will only affect the rich. It is being proposed that fees are re-introduced using a means-test that will hit the rich, and the poor will still avail of free fees. The anecdotal argument so goes, that it's only middle-class students who moan about the re-introduction of fees so 'Daddy' doesn't have open his wallet.

However, this argument is completely fatuous. The re-introduction of fees will not stop at those who can afford it, but will eventually be expected of students from all socio-economic backgrounds, similar to the UK. This will have a devastating effect on the working-class, and will lead to massive polarisation between those who can afford college, and those who can't.

The desire for the effective privatisation of third level institutions is sought after by the government in much the same way they are attempting to privatise the health service (and look how that has turned out). Third level privatisation has been on the agenda since the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which aims to turn any state services (transport, education, utilities, etc.) into commodities to be traded on the 'market.'

The re-introdcution of fees would in essence be about hiding shortfalls in the funding of the education service, which was typical throughout the 'Celtic Tiger.' Some made billions over the previous decade in this country, and ended up paying little or nothing in taxes. Little investment in public services was carried out by the state, and in the case of the health service, a few of the government's cronies managed to avail of lucrative deals on public land for the building of private hospitals. So, now that the economy has declined into a recession, they are asking us, working-people, to pay for our ailing public services. Why? They didn't share the wealth, why should we share the pain? There are still plenty of millionaires (and billionaires) in this country, it is time now even more than ever to make them pay.

The FEE campaign is argueing that the rich should pay for third level education (and the other public services) through progressive taxation. Taxing the rich, and big business, could generate countless amounts of finance for public services. The proposed re-introduction of fees, whether it be in the form of a graduate tax, loan system or direct re-introduction will have a detremental effect on working-class students. We want the extension of the maintainence grant (and it's immediate un-freezing by the Minister for Education, Batt O'Keefe), free fees for post-graduates and the removal of the college registration fees. We want the state to stop using public finance to fund private educational institutions (by paying their teacher's salaries) and the money used to reverse the cutbacks in the education system at all levels; primary, secondary, third level, adult education and special needs.

The FEE campaign has been involved in the fight against fees for the past year. We are a grassroots campaign made up of students and college workers, open to the participation of all interested in the ideal of Free Education for Everyone. We are currently active in UCD, TCD, NUIM, NUIG, UL and soon to be DIT.

For more information: http://free-education.info/

melekalikimaka

times like these i wish i wasnt a mod...

<bites tongue and sulks>

The Volt

Frankiestylee wrote: »

Greedy? I'm in favour of introducing fees, greedy would be to expect something for nothing.
If we raise taxes, money will most likely get shared around and education won't benefit as much as if the there was a fee to go to college and the college directly profited.
I'm all for the re-distribution of wealth, that's why I think those that have it should pay for their kids to go to college. Eg. At the moment we've millionaires who contribute no more to their child's education than someone just over the higher tax bracket etc.

The constitution of Ireland states that all children will be treated equally. If this comes in then that wont be the case

melekalikimaka

Voltwad wrote: »

The constitution of Ireland states that all children will be treated equally. If this comes in then that wont be the case

ehhh they will be, the price wont be different... some lower income familys cant afford for children to go to college now too....

The Volt

It wont affect them equally though, we're not all on a level playing field

melekalikimaka

thats capitalism dude

durruti

As the previous poster mentioned, the re-introduction of third level fees is inevitably desired because "that is Capitalism." However, instead of lamenting, and accepting, that inequalities exist between those who can afford college and those who can't (like that previous poster), we can have a say about protecting our interests and fighting to eliminate unequal treatment in education from primary school through post-graduate education.

Grassroots movements put immense pressure on governments, and in an Irish context they have been extremely successful. Most importantly to the debate on education is the role that the Campaign for Free Education (CFE) played in a previous anti-fees campaign, which was, obviously, successful.

Fees can be defeated, and so too can the cutbacks in other public services (health, transport, etc.). Don't roll over and accept the 'inevitability of Capitalism,' we can fight back to protect our interests. The Free Education for Everyone (FEE) campaign has been taking the lead in the fight against fees since the start of 2009, taking up the banner from the CFE. The national campaign (FEE) will be having meetings in DIT at the start of the coming academic year.

djt0607

I am by no means in favour of the re-introduction of student fees; however, having been through a four year degree course and am now doing another 4 year degree course, I have had to pay full-fees (~4,000/yr) for my 2nd degree. I don't agree with this as I see it as a punishement despite the fact that i have never failed an exam to date;

However, when i hear of many students that have worked throughout the summer months earning ~ €10,000 and then when college comes around they are out almost every night blowing their hard-earned cash on booze and fags, I think to myself "if they can afford to blow all this money on booze and fags and other stupid stuff, surely they can afford to pay for their education no matter what the cost" assuming they believe their education is more important than going to the pub and getting locked out of their skulls 3 or 4 times a week.

in my opinion, there is no such a thing as a "poor student" and they should pay for their education.

On the other hand, I cannot see why students should be hammered with fees when the people who put us in this whole financial mess are definitely not students. However, with the fees increasing, the rate of degrees being handed out will decrease and thus the value of possessing a degree will increase.

Apparently there was once a time when in order to get a job as a petrol pump attendant, you needed to have at least a good leaving cert.


D

durruti

In relation to the last post, two points were made, which are quite typical of the argument in favour of the re-introduction of third level fees, and must be challenged in order to fully develop the argument against them.
]Firstly, it’s important to steer the argument away from the anecdotal view of drunken time-wasting students. It’s an argument used to paint students (and the anti-fees campaign / activists) as whining middle-class students who don’t deserve free-fees because their rich parents can pay for college. What students get up to on nights out has no bearing on the debate around fees, and villifying their drinking habits (in a reactionary way) can only be used as fuel for those who believe in favour of fees. Students, working and middle – class, for the most part are dependent on their parents to pay for college. Therefore the re-introduction of fees is not necessarily placed on students themselves but their parents. It would then place huge pressure on working-class people to put their kids through college.
The debate around fees should centre upon on the desire by the government to fulfill an international neo-liberal trend to privatise public services. This will exacerbate social inequalities, excluding many working-class kids from college and therefore keeping college for the rich (as in the UK / US).
The second argument made in the previous post concerned the ‘value’ placed on degrees; basically if more people have a particular degree, the less it’s worth. The argument, however, should be turned on it’s head. If we have a situation where only the certain people can afford degrees, technically the ‘value’ of degrees would be higher. This would, however, only be for the rich, again excluding working-class kids from collegeThe government needs to provide completely free education, since we have paid for it already through taxation. They also need to stop giving hand-outs to private interests (e.g. paying for private school teachers salaries) and use the money to reduce inequalities in education from primary school onwards.