College fees

Johnnnybravo

laugh wrote: »

Me too. Re-read my post.

I feel if you need to borrow a big whack of cash to pay for college (e.g. 30 -40K) , people from poorer backgrounds will have difficulty.

I read it right the 1st time, just because people qualify for grants does not make their parents "losers"!

Acacia

I'm against them, unless there's some sort of effective grant system to be brought in to help the less well-off. Beleive it or not, not all college students are lazy spongers who go to college ''for the craic'' and I don't think "most of them spend their money on nothing but drink!" ( a ridiculous generalisation) should be used to justify putting people into crippling debt.

Of course, you can't get anything for free, but I think some financial aid should be given to genuine , talented people who want to get a decent education.

The only reason I was able to go to college was because of free fees and a grant. I also had a part-time job for most of my time there, and worked during the summers . If fees are brought in, there are going to be even more unskilled people either trapped in menial jobs or on the dole. It's hard enough to break out of the poverty cycle in this country as it is, without fees coming in.

There's the usual Irish short-sighted solutions and mean-spirited begrudgery on this thread- propagated, no doubt, by people who themselves went through the college system without having to pay fees.

DigiGal

I don't understand this..

The Government need graduates to encourage foregin investment.....
So they make to expensive for working class people to afford college...

Oh them and their eternal wisdom

994

Novella wrote: »

I dunno, everything in life can't be free. If it was we'd have a great ole time!

It's not free anyway, you pay for it in future taxes.

bleg wrote: »

I met a lot of people who rarely indulged too. They were in the huge minority though.

What's a huge minority?

jape wrote: »

I already have my degree so.. yea bring back fees!

Ireland in a nutshell.

deisedude wrote: »

They don't. Its predicted that $2.9 billion of the 10.2 billion dollars owed will go unpaid. Thats an awful load of bad debt. I cant understand why we are hell bent on copying the Australian system if they cant get it right

We also copied the Aussie medical "aptitude" test ... just as they were getting rid of it.

bleg wrote: »

Anyway the real barrier preventing people from lower socio economic background is their primary and secondary level education. If the State redistributes even half the money saved to primary and second level education for kids from lower socio economic backgrounds it would help their education and job prospects far far more than a free ride in 3rd level.

Tbh it's not their schools, it's their families. That's the un-PC fact.

snyper wrote: »

you want something? You pay for it.

Pretty simple logic.

You pay tax, that's how you pay for it. No-one pays directly for their primary/secondary education, their water, the gardaí, fire brigade, yet somehow they are magically funded.

snyper wrote: »

Well in reality Sam (girl with a boys name) from portmarnock wont pay.. mommy ond doddy will (and no my "a" button isnt broken), while Jimmy from clondalkins parents cant afford to, so he works inorder to pay for his accomadation and food because he has to go to a college down the bog somewhere outside the pale, becaue the points were lower for the same course but didnt get a private education in secondary school.

If Jimmy's parents can't afford it, then there are grants already. And you don't need private school to do well, i got 600 pts in a bog-standard rural school. And it may well be that Samantha's parents had to work damn hard to attain their wealth, and they can spend it how they please.

mahamageehad wrote: »

People who do law and medicine may "help the country" but after using your taxes to get a free ride through college, they will charge you ridiculously high fees.

Then take that up with the Bar Association, the HSE, the IMO. School leavers have no effect on what fees are charged.

Toulousain wrote: »

It wasn't just the bankers or property developers. It was also the ordinary Joe on the street who wanted a mortgage he couldn't afford, so he could buy a house 100 miles from work, rather than rent 5 miles away. No-one is blameless in this recession.

Which doesn't change the fact that developers are a hell of a lot more guilty, and will suffer a lot less.

Acacia wrote: »

There's the usual Irish short-sighted solutions and mean-spirited begrudgery on this thread- propagated, no doubt, by people who themselves went through the college system without having to pay fees.

Indeed. The Irish Green Party were doomed from the start. No politician thinks further than the next election, and no citizen thinks further than his/her own situation.

Toulousain wrote: »

People who wish to go to college should pay for it themselves and not expect other people to pay for them. 3rd level education is a privelage, not a right. Nothing in life is free.

You mean "privilege", and not so long ago all education was a privilege, not a right - as were freedom, suffrage, etc. The distinction between the two is kind of meaningless.

miralize

The government is worrying too early about an economy that will probably pick up in 3 - 4 years. And if this goes ahead, there wont be enough graduates to fill the high-qualification jobs, so even more companies will leave.

Doing this will leave thousands of people jobless, and we will be an even worse position that before. People will emigrate and the standard of education will drop even more..

Baird

miralize wrote: »

The government is worrying too early about an economy that will probably pick up in 3 - 4 years. And if this goes ahead, there wont be enough graduates to fill the high-qualification jobs, so even more companies will leave.

Doing this will leave thousands of people jobless, and we will be an even worse position that before. People will emigrate and the standard of education will drop even more..

Your post makes absolutely no sense at all.
Unemployment is currently 11.7% and is predicted to top 16% next year.
Lets say it takes 3 or 4 years to get out of this recession and unemployment hits 18% or even 20%, thats almost 700,000 people unemployed.
Thats the fastest rate of contraction ever seen in the western world!!!!!!
A fair share of those people will be graduates
When the recession finally ends that DOESNT mean things go back to the way they were. This country will have to change profoundly. 30% of our GDP was related to construction, a level we will never ever see again. Therefore the thousands of people who became bricklayers and carpenters etc no longer really have that option open to them as there is no work in that field anymore.
Their choice now is retool to a knowledge based job, go overseas to work or else settle for an unskilled job if they can get it.

We wont need a single new graduate for 10 years probably with that size of unused workforce.
It will be very easy for a company like microsoft to come to ireland and say your country has 50,000 engineers on the dole. We will employ 5000 of them on 30k a year. These people are extremely highly skilled and deserve much higher wages, but many will have little choice due to the houses they own which they cant sell/rent and them prevents them moving overseas. The number of potential graduates in college will not matter a jot to a company who has access to a gigantic unused highly educated workforce.

In summary there will be plenty of graduates or highly skilled people to fill the jobs when the economy comes out of the recession, the reason is that its not just people in low skill manufacturing losing their jobs, its also highly skilled workers (Intel for example)

AckwelFoley

994 wrote: »

You pay tax, that's how you pay for it. No-one pays directly for their primary/secondary education, their water, the gardaí, fire brigade, yet somehow they are magically funded.



.

Ah yes..the greatest reason of self entitlement in this country. "I pay tax"
You certainly do, but most of the people that do pay tax do pay very little.

Yes its taken in many way perhaps not in income tax, but even uf you are on 40k per year and pay half of that in taxed of some form or other, do you possibly think that would py for your expected entitlement of free education free healthcare your childrens allowance and the other costs of maintaining th country? Not even close.

The bottom line there is finite amount of taxation resources there, there seems to be an infinate amount of things to spend it on. in times such as these we need to prune expenses as people and as a nation

994

snyper wrote: »

Ah yes..the greatest reason of self entitlement in this country. "I pay tax"
You certainly do, but most of the people that do pay tax do pay very little.

Yes its taken in many way perhaps not in income tax, but even uf you are on 40k per year and pay half of that in taxed of some form or other, do you possibly think that would py for your expected entitlement of free education free healthcare your childrens allowance and the other costs of maintaining th country? Not even close.

The bottom line there is finite amount of taxation resources there, there seems to be an infinate amount of things to spend it on. in times such as these we need to prune expenses as people and as a nation

That makes no sense. If no-one paid enough taxes to account for the benefit they receive from taxes, then how would there be enough in the Exchequer? High earners pay more than they receive. Low earners pay less than they receive.

dearg lady

994 wrote: »

That makes no sense. If no-one paid enough taxes to account for the benefit they receive from taxes, then how would there be enough in the Exchequer? High earners pay more than they receive. Low earners pay less than they receive.

994, you make a lot of good points above, but this is unfortunately not always the case. High earners and especially very high earners will make use of various reliefs to bring down their tax liability massively. There is a stipulation for people earning over 500,000 that they must pay a minimum of 20% tax(ie can only use enough reliefs to meet this level) now I know myself taking everything into account I pay more than 20% and I'm on a pretty lowly wage so this is frustrating.

Baird

994 wrote: »

That makes no sense. If no-one paid enough taxes to account for the benefit they receive from taxes, then how would there be enough in the Exchequer? High earners pay more than they receive. Low earners pay less than they receive.

Income tax only makes up a small part of the gov tax take in this country.
Tax on corporate profits, vat, excise duty etc have always played a much bigger role in the tax take of this country than simple income tax
Have a look here
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2TONRBOd21o/Sk3kYwrOQPI/AAAAAAAAA0M/6epAVQc5tgQ/s1600/Mo%2BReceipts.png
Now however the consumer has given up the ghost as it were, vat take is collapsing, excise duty is on the floor and CGT is in terminal decline due to the stalling of the housing market. Ireland is an extremely low tax economy. Instead we use a range of stealth taxes on things like fuel, excise etc to make up the shortfall. This has come back to bite us hard as these income streams are collapsing. Only way forward is to raise income tax or else annouce a raft of further stealth taxes. Neither will be popular.


That my friend is how we have free education (and yes it is free so dont start whinging about 1500 in registration fees or accomodation costs) free healthcare etc despite no one paying large amount of taxes.

Johnnnybravo

Baird wrote: »

Income tax only makes up a small part of the gov tax take in this country.
Tax on corporate profits, vat, excise duty etc have always played a much bigger role in the tax take of this country than simple income tax
Have a look here
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2TONRBOd21o/Sk3kYwrOQPI/AAAAAAAAA0M/6epAVQc5tgQ/s1600/Mo%2BReceipts.png
Now however the consumer has given up the ghost as it were, vat take is collapsing, excise duty is on the floor and CGT is in terminal decline due to the stalling of the housing market. Ireland is an extremely low tax economy. Instead we use a range of stealth taxes on things like fuel, excise etc to make up the shortfall. This has come back to bite us hard as these income streams are collapsing. Only way forward is to raise income tax or else annouce a raft of further stealth taxes. Neither will be popular.


That my friend is how we have free education (and yes it is free so dont start whinging about 1500 in registration fees or accomodation costs) free healthcare etc despite no one paying large amount of taxes.

how is it free if people pay 1500e?? I dont think you understand what free is?? Also point me in the direction of this free healthcare as I paid 60e to see my doctor yesterday???

DigiGal

I've noticed that alot of people are saying students are all wasters etc

Only going to college for the craic, getting plastered every night, loads of designer clothes etc etc

I actually owkred really fuking hard to get into college I worked my fcuking arse off doing both a part time job and school

Both my parents passed away and left me with nothing and I have to pay for college myself
I don't get pissed or have any designer clothes or party oor travel...
and what is worng with young people enjoying thyemselves they are only young once. I bet you did it when you were young!
How would you all feel if your doctors and lawyers and teachers all din't go to college. I can't believe we are living in a society where trying to get a degree is a stigma it makes no sense.

We need graduates to get us out of the rut we are in financially.

Jesus Juice

Would it be a good idea for me to start saving now?Im going into 5th year btw!

deisedude

Jesus Juice wrote: »

Would it be a good idea for me to start saving now?Im going into 5th year btw!

Shouldnt really make any difference as you pay after you graduate when you have a job. No need to save specifically for it now. Spend your money on shiny things!:D

DigiGal

Jesus Juice wrote: »

Would it be a good idea for me to start saving now?Im going into 5th year btw!

Probably...lol