Coalescent

The Amazing Adventures of Lethem and Chabon.

Snarkalicious!

Though perhaps she has not read Girl In Landscape.

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I find myself in equal parts sympathizing with Tom's plan and wanting to stamp it into iddle bits. This is probably a good sign.

Also, Candace Bushnell in that outfit is not something I ever needed to see.

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kalorlo.livejournal.com

*Reads the Tom plan* Dear god, putting living expenses money in the hands of student unions? We'd all be utterly screwed. People & Planet would donate it all to trees or anti-animal-experimentation activism (or campaign funding to get them into actual government...) Assuming they don't spend it all on doing up old bars in hideously expensive "trendy" ways that make people stop going to them. Our union can't be the only one incredibly bad at using the money it already has.

We also need to recognise that universities and colleges can only impart book-learning - well, they *mostly* do, but "can only"? What about all the practical stuff? Practising the desired skill does actually happen at universities, just in an environment where if you mess up, you don't lose some company lots of money. And surely creating lots of vocational colleges would be all about learning things practically. Apprenticeship, fine, but there's no reason this can't start at the college in question.

Not touching the "mickey-mouse degrees like media studies" bit...

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Oxbridge has a lot of decentralisation, so sticking money in thehands of the individual *college* unions to spend on, eg, TVs and newspapers for the common room, cheaper drinks, would probably work quite well. I wouldn't want to see that run through Cambridge University Student's Union, even if we don't have the mad people and planet bit.

I, also, am not going to touch the bit about media studies with a long pole.

I don't agree that different universities should be allowed to set different rates of the hypothetical graduate tax int he same way that I object to differential top-up fees, ie I don't think it's fair to make people pay extra for going to a better university.

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Dear god, putting living expenses money in the hands of student unions? We'd all be utterly screwed.

Given that he also wants to pretty much change the working definitions of 'university', 'education' etc, I think there's probably a certain amount of wishful thinking going on. :)

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I don't think it's fair to make people pay extra for going to a better university.

Why not? I was having this debate with Su the other night--personally, I'd be quite prepared to pay a weighted graduate tax, since I feel I've benefitted hugely from my education.

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Neither have I. Elaborate ...?

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Well, Storms is taking a pop at them for being manchilds (menchildren?) with a blokish Hornby-like obession with boy's stuff. Girl In Landscape is a coming of age/sexual awakening story of a young girl on an alien planet.

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I don't like it because I dislike the idea that anyone who can get accepted to a top university might be put off going because they charge you more money. This is lessened with a graduate tax than paying upfront tuition fees, so I don't mind it as much, but then it carries a certain assumption that a better education carries with it a higher salary, which doesn't always work out.

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There are many people who would balk at going to a better university as a result. They balk at going to university period, because they are very scared of debt - it's something that they have been told time and again to avoid like the plague, in a way that is quite alien to 'higher' echelons of society. The deferred nature of a graduate tax is not in itself enough to win it the mantle of inclusivity.

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This is lessened with a graduate tax than paying upfront tuition fees, so I don't mind it as much, but then it carries a certain assumption that a better education carries with it a higher salary, which doesn't always work out.

Luckily I have invented a tax that takes this into account. I call it an "Income Tax".

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veggiesu.livejournal.com

Well, quite. :-)

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But that's a problem with their perceptions, not with the system being suggested. /controversial?

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When I say that I have benefitted hugely from my education, I am not talking about my vast and enviable salary (ha!). I mean everything else that went along with it. It's nebulous, but that's what I'm willing to pay for.

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veggiesu.livejournal.com

Ref Tom's plans. He has hit upon one issue which is huely relevant - Higher Education (or better yet, Tertiary Education) is not All About University. We *really* need to move away from the idea that there is something inherently better about the acquisition of knowledge (especially if simply for it's own sake) than the acquisition of skills, or a mixture of skills and applied knowledge. "Vocational" education is still regarded as the poor relation of academic learning, and I'm at a loss to know why. The vocational learning the a CORGI-registerd plumber has to acquire during their apprenticeship will probably save more lives than the academic learning acquired during an education in law, and yet is regarded as less worthy of respect. My tertiary education started with vocational education, and that learning has been an order of magnitutde more useful to me during my career than my degree.

Oh, and since, IMHO, a better educated society is a better society per se, I reckon that imposing an arbitrary cut-off point for free education is a specious concept. Contiguous education should be free. All education up to at least C & G, HND, Bachelors, etc level should be free.

I'll go away again now

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snowking.livejournal.com

Oh, and since, IMHO, a better educated society is a better society per se, I reckon that imposing an arbitrary cut-off point for free education is a specious concept.

Yes.

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snowking.livejournal.com

I'd argue the problem is with your perception, not theirs.

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At the moment it's a problem of their perceptions that it costs more to go to certain universities. A differential gradual tax will make it a fact that going to a better university will cost them more, and reinforce the perception that top universities are only for the rich.

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Oh, and since, IMHO, a better educated society is a better society per se, I reckon that imposing an arbitrary cut-off point for free education is a specious concept.

Indeed.

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Well, no. It's a matter of survival for people from certain economic groupings to avoid debt like the proverbial plague. It's not a perception that debt is bad for them - it's an absolute truth. If you are paid hourly for unskilled work and earn the minimum wage, it's just stupid to get too far into debt. You're not looking at a quaint little misconception that you can educate out of the council estates - it's a fact of life, and any system that is proposed, if it pretends to be inclusive, has to address it.

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This is why I voted for Pope Su.

Also cookies.

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At the moment it's a problem of their perceptions that it costs more to go to certain universities.

Not quite. It does cost more to go away from home; it does cost more to go to an Oxford than it does to a Wolverhampton (if not in terms of fees etc.). But, yes, by and large it's a problem of perception that people (including to some extent myself) don't currently apply to Oxbridge. Introduce OMGCRAZYOXBRIDGETOPUPFEES or the tax we're talking about, and you're right - the situation changes. Absolutely.

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I love Su, too.

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I don't get this. If you have to pay up-front then yes, what you say is true. But we're not talking about getting into debt; we're talking about paying after the degree is completed. It should have nothing to do with whether or not a graduate decides to leverage their degree into $$$, it should be about how much they have gained from their degree, in total.

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