So Ed Miliband has announced his alternative plan for university funding. He’s going to cap the fees at £6000 rather than £9000. Wow. Given that most fees are less than £6000 anyway, and he’s pretty much accepting the rest of the government policy on this, it looks like a bit of a climb down to me. At the time they offered up the ghost of some mythical alternative policy which would have made everyone really really happy, if only they had been in power, but it turns out they basically agreed with the policy which saw mass demonstrations and riots in London.
My own view was at the time that the demonstrators had walked into a trap. The real argument was about general government cuts, which people wanted to protest, not the specific univerisity fees policy, which was more nuanced and arguably fairer and more egalitarian than the current system. It was an unwinable argument for the protesters and the failure of these protest have blunted the enthusiasm for any protests against ‘real’ cuts. Milliband and Labour can take a lot of the blame . They should have shown good faith and judgement by backing the policy even against public opinion, then they would have been listened too when the real cuts came.
- University fees will not be paid by students.
- They are paid for by well-to-do, relatively successful people in their late 20s and 30s, who have been to Uni and benefited.
- The lower the fees, the more that Mrs Khan who works 40hrs at Tescos ends up paying taxes for Timmy to lark about at Uni.
- Anyone who doesn’t go to Uni because they think they can’t afford it, simply hasn’t understood how it works ! and perhaps doesn’t have the intellect to go anyway
