gmac Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 it gets better, if you're a student from the EU you get it free as well! Just not the English, Welsh or Northern Irish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Isn't this actually being challenged by the courts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raining_again Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 You would genuinely think that people are being tied down and made to go to uni here... Think far too many people are using uni for the "craic" as we say here, just to get away from the parents and rack up shitloads of debt (on mostly alcohol) then come out with no more prospects than a school leaver.. I know there's a car crash economy at the moment but that's no reason to get yourself into a bucket load of debt for nothin. There are actually great jobs for a lot of people out there that......GASP....don't need a degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Odwin Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I don't think anyone would agree with the idea of having to pay several thousand pounds to go a secondary school to do their GCSEs? I don't think anyone would agree with the idea of having to pay several thousand pounds to go on to study A-Levels? But then university we should pay for? Tax the rich more - they gain so much more than we do by being a part of this country, let them fund it more. I have no finely tuned politics - no perfect answers, but the rich are too rich, and people shouldn't go into debt for education. Yesterday I was listening to Radio 2 on the way to work - people were calling in to bid for a car experience (winning bid going to Children in Need) and the top bid with 20 minutes to go was already at £60k. That person has too much money. When kids are going into thousands of pounds of debt to fund uni there is this other class of people that pays £60k to drive around in cars for a day. That is just wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbob Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I was listening to Radio 2 on the way to work - people were calling in to bid for a car experience (winning bid going to Children in Need) and the top bid with 20 minutes to go was already at £60k. That person has too much money. When kids are going into thousands of pounds of debt to fund uni there is this other class of people that pays £60k to drive around in cars for a day. That is just wrong. It does sicken me the amount of money people bid on things like this. If you have that much money, unless you won the lottery then i believe you should be taxed more. Thats the problem with this country, too many rich people squirreling away money so the tax man can't touch it. I know at the moment this country has signed an agreement to bring in a few billion pounds of unpaid tax with people hiding money in Switzerland. Uni fee's are getting rediculous, over-pricing courses and putting students into near-unpayable debts. Also makes matters worse when there are no jobs either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cube Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Uni fee's are getting rediculous, over-pricing courses and putting students into near-unpayable debts. Also makes matters worse when there are no jobs either. If they have no job, then they don't have to pay a penny of it back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ville Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Wow, it's about 100€ per year here, but the government actually pays you to study! Something like 400-450€ per month, i.e. after rent you still have 100-200€ for food... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daft Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Yeah, the amount of money that gets thrown about in the private sector is sickening (you know, unless they're giving it to me). These people need to be taxed way more. Having said that, Labour really fucked everything up by trying to achieve a target of 50% going onto University. Firstly, it's a bizarrely arbitrary number. Secondly, university shouldn't be viewed as the main, potentially only means to proceed in life (This whole debacle is derived from Labour enforcing their middle-class view that university is a must. It isn't and it shouldn't be). Thirdly, this need to increase the numbers at university has led to a whole host of (I'm going to offend people here but here goes...) absolutely crap third rate degrees. Seriously, media studies (I don't care that Oxford have decided to 'validate' it with their own version), marketing and creative advertising? No. No way are you going to convince me they should constitute a degree. If an art degree has aspects of advertising in it, that makes sense. If an anthropology degree decides to cover media studies, I'm all for that. Etc, etc. This is has got to play into higher graduate unemployment. So the whole system needs a radical shake up. People's mentalities need to be changed. Having said that, anyone who thinks they need to go to university should go, for free. You cannot measure education's worth with a price tag. Anyone who thinks that is either an idiot or wasted their time at university. Why should the tax payer pay? Because students are the future of this country. (Analogy time) If a village in ye olden times has a crap harvest everyone starves to death (probably); if the quality of students dives then there will be repercussions for everyone. Economically and culturally. You cannot defend the current system. If you want to see an example of what happens when you progress the situation further, take it to an extreme, just look at what it takes to become a barrister. It's a career that prices out like no other (and srsly, how can a legal system based on it be completely fair and just?). It's the biggest 'old boys' club outside Eton and Westminster (Although those two are arguably the same). And honestly, with Vodafone dodging £6,000,000,000 in tax there is no excuse whatsoever to not fund students. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 (edited) Thirdly, this need to increase the numbers at university has led to a whole host of (I'm going to offend people here but here goes...) absolutely crap third rate degrees. marketing and creative advertising? No. No way are you going to convince me they should constitute a degree. If an art degree has aspects of advertising in it, that makes sense. Fuck right off. I studied marketing at University for 4 years. Almost everyone I know from my class have now gone onto get jobs at large firms; The Big 4 Consultancy, banks, major PR firms etc. There's more to marketing than creating advertisements; that's just one very small part of it. A marketing/business degree completely sets you up for later life and getting a job. You come out of it with such a broad range of skills that can be put to use in almost any position. I think the fact that such a large number of marketing graduates get employed soon after, or even before, they graduate, shows that it is does "constitute a degree". I'm not even going to touch on your point of art + advertising being a better option because I don't want to drop to your very low level of rubbishing other peoples' degrees when you clearly don't know anything about it. As you said yourself, there's no way that anyone can convince you otherwise so I can only assume that you're so narrow minded that you can't see the benefit of degrees like that and how useful they are. Edited November 18, 2011 by Charlie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyboy-the-Dane Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Yeah, the amount of money that gets thrown about in the private sector is sickening (you know, unless they're giving it to me). These people need to be taxed way more. Having said that, Labour really fucked everything up by trying to achieve a target of 50% going onto University. Firstly, it's a bizarrely arbitrary number. Secondly, university shouldn't be viewed as the main, potentially only means to proceed in life (This whole debacle is derived from Labour enforcing their middle-class view that university is a must. It isn't and it shouldn't be). Thirdly, this need to increase the numbers at university has led to a whole host of (I'm going to offend people here but here goes...) absolutely crap third rate degrees. Seriously, media studies (I don't care that Oxford have decided to 'validate' it with their own version), marketing and creative advertising? No. No way are you going to convince me they should constitute a degree. If an art degree has aspects of advertising in it, that makes sense. If an anthropology degree decides to cover media studies, I'm all for that. Etc, etc. This is has got to play into higher graduate unemployment. So the whole system needs a radical shake up. People's mentalities need to be changed. Having said that, anyone who thinks they need to go to university should go, for free. You cannot measure education's worth with a price tag. Anyone who thinks that is either an idiot or wasted their time at university. Why should the tax payer pay? Because students are the future of this country. (Analogy time) If a village in ye olden times has a crap harvest everyone starves to death (probably); if the quality of students dives then there will be repercussions for everyone. Economically and culturally. You cannot defend the current system. If you want to see an example of what happens when you progress the situation further, take it to an extreme, just look at what it takes to become a barrister. It's a career that prices out like no other (and srsly, how can a legal system based on it be completely fair and just?). It's the biggest 'old boys' club outside Eton and Westminster (Although those two are arguably the same). And honestly, with Vodafone dodging £6,000,000,000 in tax there is no excuse whatsoever to not fund students. I agree with everything except your opinion on what degrees are "valid". The amount of elitism you meet regarding what subjects and fields of study are "valid" and useful is astounding. It's disgusting how many people view anything outside hard science and economy, law, politics, etc. as absolutely worthless and a waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diageo Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Am I wrong in assuming that if the rich get taxed more they will just leave and then the government will have even less money? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoogleViper Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Am I wrong in assuming that if the rich get taxed more they will just leave and then the government will have even less money? No. Why would people leave their multi-million pound a year jobs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yvonne Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2011/11/11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diageo Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 No. Why would people leave their multi-million pound a year jobs? I mean more like the company. I know that Google Headquarters is only in Ireland because of some low tax scheme that they've worked out. So if for example, you were to tax Vodafone more, they might move the company to another country. Some countries keep their taxes for companies low so they can attract more of them. If you drastically raise taxes, some will leave and less will come in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoogleViper Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I mean more like the company. I know that Google Headquarters is only in Ireland because of some low tax scheme that they've worked out. So if for example, you were to tax Vodafone more, they might move the company to another country. Some countries keep their taxes for companies low so they can attract more of them. If you drastically raise taxes, some will leave and less will come in. They still won't leave. That might be the case for smaller companies, but when you have a market of 70 million affluent customers, it would be stupid to leave. Besides the UK corporation tax system is usually lower than a lot of foreign countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emasher Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Just to clarify, is this 2000 Euro a semester, or a year? Either way, those are perfectly manageable tuition costs. Provided you take your studies seriously and have some sort of plan to get yourself employed afterwards, you could easily just get some sort of student loan and pay it off afterwards. Its not like in the US where tuition is so high the debt becomes unmanageable. The truth is that Universities never really have enough money to operate, and putting more of the burden on the government to fund them will just end with them being underfunded even more, which leads to all sorts of other problems for the universities. As for Daft's comments regarding the types of degrees people are going for today, I can see where he's coming from, although I don't think what he's saying is quite correct. The problem isn't that liberal arts degrees are completely useless its more just that a lot of people study the arts for the wrong reasons. People look at degrees as some sort of magical ticket to employment, and a lot of people decide to study the arts, because they find it to be an easier area of study, just so they can get some sort of degree. There are a ton of people who have absolutely no idea how their degree can even lead to any sort of career, yet continue to study it thinking they'll just magically end up with a job when they graduate. If someone is genuinely interested in English, or Psychology, or anything really and actually has a plan as to how they're going to proceed in life after they study it, there's nothing wrong with them going for a degree in it. But there are too many people today who end up going to a university straight out of high school (or whatever you call it in the country you're from), studying something just for the sake of studying something, and then end up unemployed, when they would have been much better off going to a trade school or something like that. And then they end up in some tent city on wall street demanding that rich people pay for everything. And the same thing applies to science and engineering degrees, its just there's more demand for people skilled in such fields and so its much easier to justify getting a degree there from an investment perspective. Actually having to pay tuition deters such behavior to an extent. When most people have to spend money on something, they end up taking it seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chairdriver Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 People who apply to do something they aren't interested in should die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayseven Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I think more money should be invested in primary and secondary education. More focused teaching, fewer pupils per teacher, better facilities and greater specialisation for individual student needs. If you want a smarter population you won't get it by sending everyone to university. By the time people attend uni they've already cemented their areas of ignorance. Far too many people are going to university, many for the wrong reasons, and coming out with an unspecific area of skills that does nothing for the economy at all. Unrelated points and tangents aplenty! But generally I think rioting is selfish. Fund the young, I say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tales Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Approx, 65 punds. My semester fee^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emasher Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 People who apply to do something they aren't interested in should die. If that was directed at me, that's not quite what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you shouldn't blindly study a particular field if you don't have any plan for how to be successful (to a certain extent) with such an education. This by no means implies that you should study something you're not interested in just because there's money in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieColeslaw Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 You would genuinely think that people are being tied down and made to go to uni here... Think far too many people are using uni for the "craic" as we say here, just to get away from the parents and rack up shitloads of debt (on mostly alcohol) then come out with no more prospects than a school leaver.. I know there's a car crash economy at the moment but that's no reason to get yourself into a bucket load of debt for nothin. There are actually great jobs for a lot of people out there that......GASP....don't need a degree. Going to uni doesn't automatically imply debt imo. Going to uni means equipping yourself with a (hopefully useful) degree that you can use to get a job to pay back debts (that are hopefully reasonable) and start your own life. i.e. what Emasher said: Just to clarify, is this 2000 Euro a semester, or a year? Either way, those are perfectly manageable tuition costs. Provided you take your studies seriously and have some sort of plan to get yourself employed afterwards, you could easily just get some sort of student loan and pay it off afterwards. Its not like in the US where tuition is so high the debt becomes unmanageable. The truth is that Universities never really have enough money to operate, and putting more of the burden on the government to fund them will just end with them being underfunded even more, which leads to all sorts of other problems for the universities. [..] Actually having to pay tuition deters such behavior to an extent. When most people have to spend money on something, they end up taking it seriously. But the main point of the protest Frank is talking about is not blindly protesting about having to pay more in fees, it's the fact that we were assured to some degree that the fees would not rise along with taxes, etc. so that third-level education would remain accessible instead of adding to other struggles. People who apply to do something they aren't interested in should die. As long as it's useful (in terms of future job prospects/to society) they should be ok. Sometimes not everyone is privileged enough to choose to study what they're interested in, due to financial issues, availability, hassle in general... edit: Wait...was that mean to be a joke? :s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daft Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 (edited) Fuck right off. I studied marketing at University for 4 years. Almost everyone I know from my class have now gone onto get jobs at large firms; The Big 4 Consultancy, banks, major PR firms etc. There's more to marketing than creating advertisements; that's just one very small part of it. A marketing/business degree completely sets you up for later life and getting a job. You come out of it with such a broad range of skills that can be put to use in almost any position. I think the fact that such a large number of marketing graduates get employed soon after, or even before, they graduate, shows that it is does "constitute a degree". I'm not even going to touch on your point of art + advertising being a better option because I don't want to drop to your very low level of rubbishing other peoples' degrees when you clearly don't know anything about it. As you said yourself, there's no way that anyone can convince you otherwise so I can only assume that you're so narrow minded that you can't see the benefit of degrees like that and how useful they are. Calm down. I made a mistake. You must have been fun in tutorials. Although I did mean 'Creative Advertising' not 'Marketing and Creative Advertising'. Still, while I didn't use the best of examples, my point still stands. There are too many unnecessary degrees and too many people thinking certain subject warrant being a degree. I agree with everything except your opinion on what degrees are "valid". The amount of elitism you meet regarding what subjects and fields of study are "valid" and useful is astounding. It's disgusting how many people view anything outside hard science and economy, law, politics, etc. as absolutely worthless and a waste of time. I'm talking about subjects being valid as a degree. To me, a degree should be about academia first and foremost (See above for the whole 'Sets you up for life/A job' argument'). Not something that is undertaken with a view to a specific job or function within society. First and foremost it should be about contributing to the academic discourse. Although there needs to be leeway with something like medicine. But then that comes with a whole host of other circumstances, like competence and putting people's lives at risk. Aaaaaaand, I've just read what Emasher said. Thank you for translating my breakfast talk. Edited November 18, 2011 by Daft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyboy-the-Dane Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I see. I believe I agree with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heroicjanitor Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I mean more like the company. I know that Google Headquarters is only in Ireland because of some low tax scheme that they've worked out. So if for example, you were to tax Vodafone more, they might move the company to another country. Some countries keep their taxes for companies low so they can attract more of them. If you drastically raise taxes, some will leave and less will come in. Tbh, a lot of the big technology companies would probably like to leave Ireland right now, and go to somewhere like Poland for cheaper labour, but the fact is they don't have the skillset they need. It's not as easy as you'd think to just leave, it would take over a decade to get the education system set up in the new country. Ireland knew it didn't have enough people to compete in every field and took a punt on technology a few decades ago. It worked out wonderfully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emasher Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 But the main point of the protest Frank is talking about is not blindly protesting about having to pay more in fees, it's the fact that we were assured to some degree that the fees would not rise along with taxes, etc. so that third-level education would remain accessible instead of adding to other struggles. But again, the fees haven't gone up to the point where someone who takes out a student loan is going to have a lot of trouble paying it back (provided they make reasonable decisions while in school). 2000 Euro a semester is still quite accessible for that reason. When you consider the fact that the country is having financial troubles, subsidizing tuition a little bit less doesn't seem like such a big deal. What the protesters should really be protesting is lying politicians. If politicians actually did their jobs and represented the people in their electoral districts, people wouldn't need to protest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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