(22 November 2012, 00:17)Hexyprep Wrote: when you need a nurse and there is not one or a doctor or a lawyer even do you really only want it to be the rich who are those people who may not understand your point of view because they have a silver spoon in their mouthes already?
You want to keep the rich rich and the poor poor, which is what raising fees does!
Means testing would mean all the rich can go as they have always done.... but also the best of the poor can too and improve their lives. People should work hard and pay their way, but if you work hard but CAN NOT pay your way why should you not be helped.
I grew up on one of the worst areas of Tyneside. As my Father was self employed, when I went to uni, who ever makes a decision about fees and such things looked at his last 4-5 years income. They said he could pay.
1. why would I want some one else to pay for me when I am an adult?
2. He made a fraction whilst I was at uni of what he made in the years before that.
As I have said, I may have grown up in a bad area, but I was always taught to make the best and have some dignity. Once everyone learns that talent and hard work get you to places that handouts and x-factor sob stories never can, we will see real improvements.
My Brother made some bad life choices. Ended up spending a few years injecting herion into himself followed by a few years in prison. He sorted his life out in jail.
With no help from anyone but himself he now works full time and is doing a degree full time.
The reason for this is because we have grit, gumption and determination. If you are poor and say to yourself
'well, I am going to get into debt going to university, best not go without a leg up'
You have written yourself off already, you do not deserve to go to university as you have shown that you have the wrong attitude.
The idea that people just would not go unless they came from a privileged background is rot. It does not hold true at the present time and it does not hold true in other countries that charge upfront fees.
Look into the research that exists why people from lower socio-economic backgrounds did not attend higher education in any numbers pre-1950's. You will see that cost is a secondary concern; the primary concern was the ideas from the socio-economic group that university education was not for them as it would benefit them little - it was the small mindedness of the group keeping it back.
Look back at the great movers and shakers, the great engineers and pioneers in the medical profession in the last 200 years. Very few of them were silver spoon people. You are just repeating socialist clap trap that has been repeated so many times people believe it to be true and indoing so perpetuating a myth.
Look at the real jumps in social mobility in the UK and you will see the jumps turn to barely a tremor from the early 20th century onwards - funnily enough a time coinciding with New Liberal policies to 'help' social mobility and the growth of a certain political party.