Make high-earners, not students, pay for our crumbling higher education system.
Paul Twigger - Vice President, Liverpool Students Union | 14.01.2004 12:26 | Analysis | Education | Indymedia | Liverpool | London
Parliament will be voting on the Higher Education Bill on the 27th January; if passed it will severely penalise students and put many prospective students off univeristy. There are alternatives which the government is unwilling to listen to. Great Britain is a democracy and we have a voice... let's make ourselves heard.
The proposed introduction of top-up fees will go nowhere near to solving the higher education funding crisis, in fact quite the opposite. Many students from less well off backgrounds will be put of going to university but, more critically, students from "middle England" will be hit the most; those students whose family income will be greater than the Governments proposed income limit will be forced to pay the full £3,000 fees, which most universities plan to charge, and may not receive a great deal of support from their families. These are the students who will be put off coming to university in increasing numbers. As the number of university entrants drop, university funding will drop also; all in all a vicious cycle that can be solved through a simple system of progressive taxation.
If the £3,000 top-up fees are introduced in 2006 the government will have to fund these sums for several years out of public money before the system becomes self funding. A simple progressive tax on high income earners will create enough cash to fund our universities now - and it is now that our education system desperately needs this money. A mere 3% increase in income tax on earners of over £100,000 a year will create enough cash now to make our higher education system what it should be, instead of a 50% income tax levied on graduates who earn over £35,000 a year.
Of the 300,000 people who earn more than £100,000 a year, 82% are graduates and this number is likely to increase in the coming decades; this is the most simple, effective and intelligent way in which we can fund our universities for the benefit of future generations. High income earners already receive tax incentives and other benefits from the government, a 3% increase will barely effect their disposable income, as opposed to taking half of everything a graduate earns once they reach a pay scale of over £35,000 who, to be frank, cannot be classed in today’s world as ‘high earners’.
The government needs to completely rethink the whole idea of how we can fund our higher education system and give both our students and universities a true alternative to this scandalous bill; I look forward to the 27th January when the government will be defeated by its own back-bench ‘rebels’.
If the £3,000 top-up fees are introduced in 2006 the government will have to fund these sums for several years out of public money before the system becomes self funding. A simple progressive tax on high income earners will create enough cash to fund our universities now - and it is now that our education system desperately needs this money. A mere 3% increase in income tax on earners of over £100,000 a year will create enough cash now to make our higher education system what it should be, instead of a 50% income tax levied on graduates who earn over £35,000 a year.
Of the 300,000 people who earn more than £100,000 a year, 82% are graduates and this number is likely to increase in the coming decades; this is the most simple, effective and intelligent way in which we can fund our universities for the benefit of future generations. High income earners already receive tax incentives and other benefits from the government, a 3% increase will barely effect their disposable income, as opposed to taking half of everything a graduate earns once they reach a pay scale of over £35,000 who, to be frank, cannot be classed in today’s world as ‘high earners’.
The government needs to completely rethink the whole idea of how we can fund our higher education system and give both our students and universities a true alternative to this scandalous bill; I look forward to the 27th January when the government will be defeated by its own back-bench ‘rebels’.
Paul Twigger - Vice President, Liverpool Students Union
e-mail:
lsuptwig@livjm.ac.uk
Homepage:
http://www.l-s-u.com
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