egafd.com

Hi

You make some interesting points. And it is fair to say that although the government has accepted the approach used by Lord Browne in his report, the detail has not been finalised yet.

However, in the world of statistics, damn statistics, the key things to remember are that in the report, the cap on student fees is removed entirely i.e. universities can charge what they think the market will bear so that for example, medicine, law degrees could be at a much higher student tuition fee rate at Oxford than say media studies at Northampton or wherever.

Second thing to remember is that the whole motivator behind this report is that it is based on something like a 66%, reduction in state spending on university education.

"For example the threshold where you being to pay back the loan has been increased from 15k to 23k I believe, and it was explained that someone on say 25k a year would only be paying back ?30 a month with payments naturally rising incrememently accoring to salary etc.

Here it is worth remembering that the time to repay this loan has been extended to 30 years and it is 21K rather than 23K that has been suggested. The monthly repayment amount raises substantially as income increases e.g. ?68 a month if your gross income is ?30K a year, ?143 a month if your gross income is ?40K etc. However remember that a wage of ?25K in 20 years time might be a total pittance and people's gross incomes will be higher most probably and therefore their repayments will also rise .

"And perhaps the psychological pressure placed on those under-taking useless degrees to delay their entry properly into the adult world might see a decline in the numbers of these pointless courses with the funds then being diverted into more useful areas ie science/engineering "

I dont see how this follows from the proposed system. They plan to up the income from 15K to 21K as the point at which you start repaying the student fees so there will still be people, particularly those from well-off parents who will be doiing it almost as a leisure activity.

Cheers
D

The twatt's a polotician, so what's fucking new?

Hold the front page: "Politician in policy U-turn shock" (the horror!).

Who'd have thunk it?

As I have said elsewhere, we all know politicians can change policies once elected. But I cannot remember a case in political history where a senior party politician, in this example, Vince Cable stated that the Lib Dems are no longer prepared to stand by a single pledge or commitment made in their election manifesto even though the economic situation now is pretty much what it was in April..

If you are aware of a previous example of this, I would be interested to know.

Cheers
D

If

What i'm saying about politicians is to believe the spin they dress up as policy while their campaigning is foolish

It ony leads to becoming cynical as I know a few English students are
as we speak...mortified over what they see as a betrayal by the liberal democrats

I've seen too many promises pre-election become nothing more than hot air gone up in flames post


Our Ex PM John Howard said for years there will be No Goods and services tax(your VAT)for almost 20 years...We now have one...he would have implemented one earlier but it was political suicide

as they cliche goes in politics there are only 2 aims
get elected...get re-elected

Are we racial profiling, PH?

And I suppose the black guy's the only one that could pull a knife out and demand your mobile phone, eh?

Well done! All three could indeed be capable of carrying knives and using it to rob people of their mobiles. Award yourself a Mr. Men sticker for that conclusion.

Now, for an extra sticker, can you explain why you only said two of the three could be carrying bombs? I'm guessing you're referring to the two Asian kids (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).