Believable?

Does it mean anyone without a degree is entitled to free tuition? A saving of over £9,000 a year?

Already exists in several other countries, I believe Norway even offers it to Foreign students too.

Other countries include Scotland (though not to English students)

This would reverse the £3k fees introduced by Blair and upped to £9k by Cameron/Clegg.

I don't think it's realistic. Nor do I think it's wise. I don't think so many people should be doing degrees. British companies are already complaining that graduates are not being endowed with the qualities or skills that they need and as a result, graduates are struggling to get jobs. They spend 3 years and 30k intensely studying a subject and very often use hardly any of what they have learned. What a waste of money and if labour get in, taxpayers money.

Now I'm all for investing in the future of our country but as a tax payer, I don't believe degrees provide value for money. Its better used to provide vocational programs. Getting industry to take on apprentices to produce the employees that they need endowed with the skills and qualifications that they want them to have. There could still be subsidised degrees for people studying to fill the gaps in the NHS etc..... At least that is good value for money and gets the young uns in jobs.

Yes let's just make sure the rich people go to Uni ..not for the likes of us .ffs give it a break. .Remind me again how much tuition fees where when this lot of back sliders went to Uni and how much they are in Scotland.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

now that,s a good post phil, but some don,t like to read things like you wrote. too many going to university now and not even going into jobs what their course studies were all about. most of us oldies who were bright left school after O levels, got a job and took qualifications by correspondence course or local tech. if you were lucky. it was blair who increased university places as another way to reduce youth unemployment years ago as well.

Spot on.

It's fucking hilarious reading the anti university post's on here.

Like offshore says.....a good education is not for the likes of us.

The race to the bottom continues and is being supported by the average Joe.

Let's get all our kids trained as brickies joiners welders and platers.

And just fucking hope someone out there builds a factory and gets contracts to employ them.

Both my lads have been or are at uni and it's going to cost them forever......thanks clegg you c until.

Shame they weren't Scottish.

But at least getting degrees from Durham gives them some long term hope of a decent career away from the self destruction place and lifestyle of hartlepool and little insular thinking folk.

We need university graduates and we need a high level of technical training. Education and training are not mutually exclusive.

I am not, however, sure we need technically trained art historians.

Over here you get a guaranteed place at your local university if you get the minimum qualifications, think in the UK that is two E grade A levels. There is a small payment towards fees from parents - anything from €10 to €400 a term depending on your income. No other debt builds up unless you choose to move away from home in which case you have to get the cash to live, you need better than basic qualifications to get a place in another area as well.

Not everybody chooses to go and if you fail the exams at the end of the first year you get kicked out. Seems to work OK and it hasn't bankrupted the country. Most people accept that it costs more to keep young people on benefits, that an educated workforce is a good thing, and that education is a good thing for its own sake anyway. Think most European countries are similar.

The idea of having to pay for a degree directly rather than it being largely state funded is just a mad Tory doctrine borrowed from the good old US of A.

Too many worthless degrees to make it a free for all.
Limit to the professional degrees, doctors, engineers, the sciences the people we actuallly need to have.

I've thought for a long time that one of the answers is to offer funding for degrees that you actually want people to study - so if there's a skills shortage in sciences or engineering, support the people that want to do them - don't necessarily take away the ability to do Art History, but at the same time don't support it in the same way.... then again, in a lot of ways a University Education isn't just about gaining knowledge, it's about developing a capacity to learn and discern... I did Physics and got a job in IT, not really related, but the company that hired me knew I had the capacity to understand and pick it up... though it's less likely now than it was 25 years ago.

Part of the problem is that as we can't realistically compete with low-wage economies like China, Bangladesh etc in terms of manufacturing, we've lost the heavy industry and with it many of the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs that went with it - and unless we want to start a trade war and become a virtual sweatshop ourselves, that's not going to change. It wasn't just Thatcher that devastated heavy industry, it was global manufacturing.... and then when it became possible to export the Call Centres etc as well, we lost even more. A more highly skilled workforce is needed to attract for example the big Tech companies and get them to stay here, unless we want to become so protectionist that we force manufacturers to build factories here (unlikely to happen, we're too small a market), or we accept a big decline in the standard of living for the less skilled workforce....

Never been to Uni myself how ever when i joined the Royal Navy the choice was yes we will train you how ever when you reach 18 you sign for 3 years or 9 years.

So when you look at the logic for a public service for instance i believe any one who goes into a degree for say to be a doctor he or she should be paid to do so as well as accruing no debt how ever for that they should sign for a term to be agreed at least this way allows you to plan for the future in staffing the service required.

The above is just a thought of how it used to be 45 years ago maybe its changed now probably has ?

Correct Chip. When I did my Staff Nurse training I received a wage. The idea of a loan or a bursary would have been ridiculous back then. We worked on wards for 8 week periods then generally did a two week stint in the School of Nursing.

Had it been a loan/bursary situation I can't have seen myself doing it.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... e_btn_link

They don't get nothing at all now Mr Bresslaw . Or to put it another way it's like me doing my apprenticeship again without getting paid. Soon we won't have any nurses but we will be able to import cheap ones from the Philippines when we Brexit .. Vote UKIP

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Why stop at University Tutiton? ..Why not make children pay too..or even better give them a choice of a rewarding apprenticeship cleaning chimneys? ?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Sometimes I think I am reading The Socialist Worker.

Do you think you're enjoying it or do you think it makes you cross?

Ah chip but she's upset the pensioners too now ..

Election rule 1.. Don't upset the pensioners.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

I did a 'nothing' degree and it didn't do me any harm. What it proved to people is that I must be half intelligent, and able to learn stuff.

The most important thing I got out of it was the whole experience. Moving away from home, meeting people from all over the world, having my mind opened.

Also made loads of mates who some people call 'connections'. We pass business to each other, which is definitely good for the economy.

When I went they were still paying grants. If I was 18 now I probably wouldn't go.

Tuition fees are nothing but harking back to the dark ages of cap-doffing, tithes and serfs. Not for the likes of us.

See, I didn't get the chance to move away from home and meet people from all over. I got the chance to meet people from within a 20 mile radius of Teesside. That was because of my own family's situation and finances and I'm not decrying other people who did go to study in Outer Winchester or wherever.
I do not however believe this reduced in any way the value of my education. And I've used and am still using shitloads of stuff I learnt at the poly decades ago. Taught by people who had used shitloads of stuff they learnt. In fact that's probably why there's a queue for my services.

Just watched thatcher mark 2 being interviewed by Andrew Neil, she never answered 1 f.....ing question he asked, totally flannelled her way through repeating the same quote over and over again despite being embarrassed by the interviewer.

I'm not a socialist but I am so going to kill myself partying if Corbyn is the next prime minister.
This country does not need another empress. We've got over Victoria thank you in the 116 years since she died.

The more I look at this election the more I am losing the will to live.

Corbyn has grown on me, but I am not sure if thats because of my utter hatred of Maggie May and the tories.

Horrible nasty party that will destroy, without an ounce of sympathy, the working class North. If we think its bad now wait until Brexit and the third year of complete tory rule.

Everyone else been getting May's propaganda through the post? Referring to Corbyn's coalition chaos over and over it's about the most cringeworthy thing I've read.

Not bothered sending it to me I must be in the naughty corner..

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

What I cannot grasp is like on news tonight people interviewed in this area either not going to vote 'because they do what they want anyway' or 'I've been a labour voter all my life but I'm going to vote for the tories this time'???????????

If that wasn't so pathetic it would be funny. As soon as someone comes along who is actually faithful to labour values, the genetically programmed labour voters decide their real salvation lies in going full-on corporatist. Thus proving they hadn't a clue why they were voting labour in the first place. And possibly also proving you should pass a test before you get a vote.

My advice: just keep voting labour. It'll be so much easier on your brain and it might even postpone 1984 a couple of years.

It is utterly staggering. Yet it was mainly this sort of idiot that got brexit through. And the amount of working class doleites being interviewed on the tv claiming they are lifelong labour supporters saying they are voting tory this time, because of brexit, just makes a need to introduce genicide.

I've said it once I'll say it again this whole episode proves why you shouldn't allow stupid people to vote ..

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

even more ironic, they are all pinning their brexit hopes on a two faced bitch that voted remain.