Tonight will see the first Live Blog/debate being held on this blog discussing the issues relating to student loans, top up fees, graduate tax and higher education funding in general. Soon I will post/link to some blog posts that people have contributed to aid the discussion before the debate but before that I thought I'd share a round up of some of the different values and goals that different authors have view points have stressed.
Everyone agrees that Higher Education has to be available for all and that whatever option is chosen it has to make this available. I have not heard a single person say that their view point will hinder universal access and everyone arguing for an alternative idea says that their choice will allow more people from worse of backgrounds to have the option to go to university.
Another key idea is that universities should be able to provide top quality education and how can different types of funding provide this. As such ideas such as top up fees to raise more funds, the current Browne review (which is addressing the lack of funds for university) and market mechanisms to ensure top quality education is provided, are all argued as ways to achieve this.
Many writers encourage the idea that those who benefit from higher education should be the ones who pay at least for the majority of the costs. However there are different views about how direct these benefits should be and as such some argue for just those who go to university, some for businesses as well and some for the whole of society.
In a change from the previous points, the desire to avoid discouraging students from either not going to university, choosing a course that would have less of a financial cost on them or even leaving the country to avoid having to pay of higher taxes/student loan/higher tax rate in general. This point is sometimes labelled "brain drain" and can be used to refer to a general lowering of education standards within the country due to the above factors. This point is obviously linked into the first point about higher education being available for all yet sometimes people argue that this will occur even under systems that stress they would be available for people from any back ground.
Not directly linked but often discussed is the numbers of people who are in higher education as this obviously impacts budgets, availability to all, quality of education etc. As such policies regarding further education can also seep into discussions and should certainly be considered when debating higher education as well.
Well I hope you enjoyed my round up, bellow I have some links to articles for further reading include two put forward for the debate tonight.
Some responses to Vince Cable suggesting the Browne review looked at a graduate tax.
Lee Griffin on Why now is the time for a radical change to higher education funding
Joe Jordan on Why the graduate tax idea is acceptable...for now.
The Debate thread
[If you are taking part in the debate tonight and want to put forward a blog post to be published/linked to on your views please email it to wilsonswordsblog@gmail.com]
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