Post by rjdgull on Dec 4, 2010 9:37:26 GMT
In the popularity stakes this week it came down to between tufc01 and the the92ndfish. Maybe advocating a boy band was not the way forward ;D as this week I am pleased to say that the92ndfish is the winner with a number of thought provoking posts in a range of topics.
In the small matter of student protests this was his initial take:
Before I state my views I this I should make the disclaimer that I'm currently at University and locked into the old standard of tutition fees, so the rise in tutition fees won't affect me and I'm pretty lucky for that. People might point at this as a reason for my views or they might not, whatever.
Anyways I think the rise is probably justified. The fact is that for many years in this country the poor working classes have been supporting the middle classes to go to university and accquire better jobs, earn higher wages and further entrench them as a middle class more affluent and seperate from the working class. This doesn't make sense to me, we're supposed to live in a dynamic society where the differences in class are lessening and anyone can make anything they want out of themselves. However we still have an education system whereby the poorer majority are supporting a generally more affluent upper strata (still only around 40% of teenagers go to uni) to entrench themselves as middle class and gain better jobs. Many people will have put thousands of pounds into the universities system over their lifetime via their taxes and yet never seen any of the benefits of a university education because of lack of opportunity or a lack of academic prowess. That's not particularly fair.
Surely this is wrong and we should expect those better off to foot a good percentage of their higher education. Let us remember that Higher Education is not like Primary and Secondary Schooling, it is not an essential nor is it needed for life skills or progression in life. Many of our richest businessmen such as Richard Branson never stepped foot in a university in an academic way.
Indeed a large amount of the problems in funding universities since the turn of the millenium have come about as a result of trying to expand university education to those that shouldn't have it. Labour put forth this ridiculous notion of 50% of young people going to university. It sounds good on paper but it's not in reality. Firstly because of the massive bulge in funding these extra places have had a large part to play in the state no longer being able to afford to pay for it. This lead directly to the introduction of first top up fees and then tutition fees. Had the system stayed more elitist then the state would still have been able to fund the more limited number of students. Secondly a great deal of degrees especially those coming out the new 'universities' (formerly polytehnics) are irrelevant and useless wastes of time. They exist merely because of this idea that has developed over the past two decades that teenagers should go to university and it's a part of growing up. Things like Media Studies degrees and photography degrees. These are not things that should be taught at universities. Furthermore any relevance they have to the workplace could be accquire via on the job training and apprenticeship programs. These subjects shouldn't be taught at all (Media Studies), should be taught at local higher education colleges or should be vocationally based/apprenticeships. So what we've undergone is a massive expansion of both student numbers and a great expansion of largely useless degrees alongside it. This stretched the system to breaking point and resulted in students having to part fund their education.
The numbers initially look very scary jumping from £3,290 p/a to £6k - £9k p/a. This will undoubtedly leave the new batch of graduates after myself in more debt. However a few points must be pointed out. Firstly universities will not be able to charge £9k unless they show they are broadening access and helping those from poorer backgrounds to get into university. A very good idea and something which may annoy the Oxbridge colleges a little considering they still heavily discriminate against those from less privledged backgrounds. Secondly if you're from a poor background the repayments of your loan actually become more generous under this new tutition fee regime. You don't start repaying until you earn £21,000 (compared to £15,000 for myself) and the interest rates for low earners are miniscule. The repayments are 9% on the margin, so if you earn £22,000 p/a you'll only be repaying £90 a year in student repayments. It is in fact a better deal than what I got considering I start repaying my loan at a much lower threshold After about 35 years your debt is wiped out. Student loans also will not affect your eligibility for mortgages or normal loans. Considering £90/12 = £7.50 a month. I highly doubt any bank is going to turn away a highly educated person with a well paid job because they have a loan costing them £7.50 a month. Finally the tution fees are forwarded to you upfront, a minor point perhaps but something many of the radical lefties protesting tend to forget when they say it'll block working class access to university education.
So what we have is a situation where yes you will come out of university with more debt than at current but it's a very attractively structured debt. Indeed more so than current university structures. Furthermore the universitites will be required to broaden out access to working class people. This I think undermines the fallacy of many of the very middle class people protesting against this mood. They often use the concept that this will stop working class people from entering university as a reason for their protests. This is an absolute strawman, the system still remains very beneficial and helpful for those from a working background. Who it will affect the most is the middle classes who linger between being too rich to get student grants and the lower repayments but not being quite rich enough to comfortably afford the tutition fees. I do feel bad for these people but their constant use of the poor is a bit of an underhanded political trick. The fact is that these middle class people will have to adapt to a more American mindset of university, where they'll have to save up for their children to go. Yes it'll be tougher than now but it'll still be affordable and more importantly they can afford it.
Furthermore paying for their education makes more students motivated because they obviously have a financial stake in it and it'll also improve our universities by making them more responsive to students needs. With students funding something like 1/2 the cost of science degres and most the cost of humanities degrees the universities will no longer be able to ignore them. It'll also have the lovely side effect of gutting out most of these useless degrees that have sprung up over the past few years as people will not be prepared to pay £27k for something of dubious academic merit and certainly little career benefit.
Some of you may well disagree with me, I know I'm one of only a small cluster of students at my university who actually are slightly in favour of the rise. However a lot of the scare stories are just that scare stories. Taking Joe as an example if I may, yes he will come out of university with more debt than myself. However he'll come out with a better repayment scheme than myself and also will start repaying at a higher wage. If he's working class (I have no clue) he won't be particularly disadvantaged by the reforms other than the higher loan, indeed they will probably enable him to access more institutions. Furthermore theres not really much fear involved in a government loan, you see the money go off your wage packet each month and it's basically a tax. It's not like you're going to lose your house or be kneecapped if you don't keep up with repayments.
If he is middle class yes his family will be hit by the reform and may have to tighten their belts but it must be remembered that he is the one that will benefit from his university education. The £27k should be looked upon as an investment not a burden. Sadly the times are gone were the government can support the student population and although I feel bad for the students coming after me, the deal the Conservatives and Lib Dems have struck is actually the best of a bad situation. The alternative is to retract University education to 30-35% of the population and have them wholly state funded as they used to be, however I don't see this being particularly popular amongst the country as a whole either.
PS. Joe you'll have a vastly larger budget than £6-20 per week for food and drink. In my first year I had about £50 a week plus £1k a year bursary from my university. In fact I wasn't -that- much worse off than when I was working a 40 hr week in a minimum wage job for a year before I went to Uni.
These are his thoughts on the FIFA bidding process:
One of those votes was by an Englishman aswell. Whoever
was the only non English FIFA member to vote for England deserves a beer. What is patently obvious from the voting pattern is that contrary to what FIFA said, they were very annoyed by the expose of their corruption and they have punished England for it. What's more annoying is everyone knows FIFA are corrupt as sin but can't do anything about it because of how they control world football.
Russia I can accept even though it has MASSIVE hurdles to overcome, what I can't accept is the bid that was by far and away technically the best getting only 2 votes, it just smacks of FIFA's corruption and self interest. I'm also beyond annoyed at the Sunday Times and BBC for putting us in this situation. Although I hope they run wild on FIFA in the coming months and try to drag out every story they can find.
Qatar is just batshit insane. It smacks of corruption aswell. Previously FIFA had a rule whereby you couldn't have two stadiums in one city in a world cup bid. Only one exception was allowed and this was usually the capital city. Qatar's bid has all but one stadium in the Doha Metro area, the only stadium not in Doha is in a town of 5,000 people. More like a village. It's an utter sham of a bid and should have been disqualified before you go into it's logistics (it only has one airport), it's lack of hotels, how hosting in a Muslim country will nuke sponsorship deals, it's lack of things to do outside of football matches, the risk of terrorism and the extreme heat during the summer. The only thing I'm left wondering is how much the FIFA ExCom got from Qatar for voting in this crazy bid. It would have been infinitely better to have gone to the USA or Australia.
Speaking of how much money England has put into world football recently. It's huge sums. Our 2006 bid was a shambles because we were over arrogant and didn't put in the effect of courting backers. So over the past four or so years we've made a massive effort to get involved in Africa and Asia funding football workshops and training and sending coaches out there. The idea was that the FA would gain some respect and thanks from the world football community.
We even sent the entire England national team over to Trinidad and Tobago for a meaningless end of season friendly to try and appease Jack Warner. Admittedly this was kowtowing to his corruption but we took the view that we had to do these things to get the support of FIFA.
Now Jack Warner said he'd support England's bid after that friendly and continued to support it right up until recently when he switched sides probably because of our media's exposure of his and FIFA's corruption. However he got a hell of a lot out of messing us around and it's just indicative of FIFA's corruption.
Interestingly had Warner stayed on side we may well have pushed Russia to the wire. Warner controls 3 votes on the ExComm and these were promised to England until very recently. That would have given us 5 votes and would have edged out Belgium/Holland in the first round. In this case we were expected to pick up Belgium/Holland's votes, which would have given us 9 and enough to edge out Spain/Portugal in the next round. Then it would have all come down to which out of Russia and England managed to pick up the most of Spain-Portugal's voters in the final round. Which we may well have won.
Why didn't this happen? basically because Warner switched sides at the last moment, despite Cameron meeting him and our bidding team heavily lobbying him. Looking at the voting numbers it looks like he switched to supporting Russia and that he'd made this decision at least by the beginning of the week, thus why Putin never showed up.
It's a pretty sickening representation of the corruption within FIFA. I agree with Andy Anson the voting procedure needs to be reformed and more people need to have a say to make it fair. Somewhat like the IOC (although they have their issues aswell). As far as I'm concerned every national FA should have a vote, thats 208 voters rather than the 22/24 voters we have now. It'd be much fairer.
In the small matter of student protests this was his initial take:
Before I state my views I this I should make the disclaimer that I'm currently at University and locked into the old standard of tutition fees, so the rise in tutition fees won't affect me and I'm pretty lucky for that. People might point at this as a reason for my views or they might not, whatever.
Anyways I think the rise is probably justified. The fact is that for many years in this country the poor working classes have been supporting the middle classes to go to university and accquire better jobs, earn higher wages and further entrench them as a middle class more affluent and seperate from the working class. This doesn't make sense to me, we're supposed to live in a dynamic society where the differences in class are lessening and anyone can make anything they want out of themselves. However we still have an education system whereby the poorer majority are supporting a generally more affluent upper strata (still only around 40% of teenagers go to uni) to entrench themselves as middle class and gain better jobs. Many people will have put thousands of pounds into the universities system over their lifetime via their taxes and yet never seen any of the benefits of a university education because of lack of opportunity or a lack of academic prowess. That's not particularly fair.
Surely this is wrong and we should expect those better off to foot a good percentage of their higher education. Let us remember that Higher Education is not like Primary and Secondary Schooling, it is not an essential nor is it needed for life skills or progression in life. Many of our richest businessmen such as Richard Branson never stepped foot in a university in an academic way.
Indeed a large amount of the problems in funding universities since the turn of the millenium have come about as a result of trying to expand university education to those that shouldn't have it. Labour put forth this ridiculous notion of 50% of young people going to university. It sounds good on paper but it's not in reality. Firstly because of the massive bulge in funding these extra places have had a large part to play in the state no longer being able to afford to pay for it. This lead directly to the introduction of first top up fees and then tutition fees. Had the system stayed more elitist then the state would still have been able to fund the more limited number of students. Secondly a great deal of degrees especially those coming out the new 'universities' (formerly polytehnics) are irrelevant and useless wastes of time. They exist merely because of this idea that has developed over the past two decades that teenagers should go to university and it's a part of growing up. Things like Media Studies degrees and photography degrees. These are not things that should be taught at universities. Furthermore any relevance they have to the workplace could be accquire via on the job training and apprenticeship programs. These subjects shouldn't be taught at all (Media Studies), should be taught at local higher education colleges or should be vocationally based/apprenticeships. So what we've undergone is a massive expansion of both student numbers and a great expansion of largely useless degrees alongside it. This stretched the system to breaking point and resulted in students having to part fund their education.
The numbers initially look very scary jumping from £3,290 p/a to £6k - £9k p/a. This will undoubtedly leave the new batch of graduates after myself in more debt. However a few points must be pointed out. Firstly universities will not be able to charge £9k unless they show they are broadening access and helping those from poorer backgrounds to get into university. A very good idea and something which may annoy the Oxbridge colleges a little considering they still heavily discriminate against those from less privledged backgrounds. Secondly if you're from a poor background the repayments of your loan actually become more generous under this new tutition fee regime. You don't start repaying until you earn £21,000 (compared to £15,000 for myself) and the interest rates for low earners are miniscule. The repayments are 9% on the margin, so if you earn £22,000 p/a you'll only be repaying £90 a year in student repayments. It is in fact a better deal than what I got considering I start repaying my loan at a much lower threshold After about 35 years your debt is wiped out. Student loans also will not affect your eligibility for mortgages or normal loans. Considering £90/12 = £7.50 a month. I highly doubt any bank is going to turn away a highly educated person with a well paid job because they have a loan costing them £7.50 a month. Finally the tution fees are forwarded to you upfront, a minor point perhaps but something many of the radical lefties protesting tend to forget when they say it'll block working class access to university education.
So what we have is a situation where yes you will come out of university with more debt than at current but it's a very attractively structured debt. Indeed more so than current university structures. Furthermore the universitites will be required to broaden out access to working class people. This I think undermines the fallacy of many of the very middle class people protesting against this mood. They often use the concept that this will stop working class people from entering university as a reason for their protests. This is an absolute strawman, the system still remains very beneficial and helpful for those from a working background. Who it will affect the most is the middle classes who linger between being too rich to get student grants and the lower repayments but not being quite rich enough to comfortably afford the tutition fees. I do feel bad for these people but their constant use of the poor is a bit of an underhanded political trick. The fact is that these middle class people will have to adapt to a more American mindset of university, where they'll have to save up for their children to go. Yes it'll be tougher than now but it'll still be affordable and more importantly they can afford it.
Furthermore paying for their education makes more students motivated because they obviously have a financial stake in it and it'll also improve our universities by making them more responsive to students needs. With students funding something like 1/2 the cost of science degres and most the cost of humanities degrees the universities will no longer be able to ignore them. It'll also have the lovely side effect of gutting out most of these useless degrees that have sprung up over the past few years as people will not be prepared to pay £27k for something of dubious academic merit and certainly little career benefit.
Some of you may well disagree with me, I know I'm one of only a small cluster of students at my university who actually are slightly in favour of the rise. However a lot of the scare stories are just that scare stories. Taking Joe as an example if I may, yes he will come out of university with more debt than myself. However he'll come out with a better repayment scheme than myself and also will start repaying at a higher wage. If he's working class (I have no clue) he won't be particularly disadvantaged by the reforms other than the higher loan, indeed they will probably enable him to access more institutions. Furthermore theres not really much fear involved in a government loan, you see the money go off your wage packet each month and it's basically a tax. It's not like you're going to lose your house or be kneecapped if you don't keep up with repayments.
If he is middle class yes his family will be hit by the reform and may have to tighten their belts but it must be remembered that he is the one that will benefit from his university education. The £27k should be looked upon as an investment not a burden. Sadly the times are gone were the government can support the student population and although I feel bad for the students coming after me, the deal the Conservatives and Lib Dems have struck is actually the best of a bad situation. The alternative is to retract University education to 30-35% of the population and have them wholly state funded as they used to be, however I don't see this being particularly popular amongst the country as a whole either.
PS. Joe you'll have a vastly larger budget than £6-20 per week for food and drink. In my first year I had about £50 a week plus £1k a year bursary from my university. In fact I wasn't -that- much worse off than when I was working a 40 hr week in a minimum wage job for a year before I went to Uni.
These are his thoughts on the FIFA bidding process:
One of those votes was by an Englishman aswell. Whoever
was the only non English FIFA member to vote for England deserves a beer. What is patently obvious from the voting pattern is that contrary to what FIFA said, they were very annoyed by the expose of their corruption and they have punished England for it. What's more annoying is everyone knows FIFA are corrupt as sin but can't do anything about it because of how they control world football.
Russia I can accept even though it has MASSIVE hurdles to overcome, what I can't accept is the bid that was by far and away technically the best getting only 2 votes, it just smacks of FIFA's corruption and self interest. I'm also beyond annoyed at the Sunday Times and BBC for putting us in this situation. Although I hope they run wild on FIFA in the coming months and try to drag out every story they can find.
Qatar is just batshit insane. It smacks of corruption aswell. Previously FIFA had a rule whereby you couldn't have two stadiums in one city in a world cup bid. Only one exception was allowed and this was usually the capital city. Qatar's bid has all but one stadium in the Doha Metro area, the only stadium not in Doha is in a town of 5,000 people. More like a village. It's an utter sham of a bid and should have been disqualified before you go into it's logistics (it only has one airport), it's lack of hotels, how hosting in a Muslim country will nuke sponsorship deals, it's lack of things to do outside of football matches, the risk of terrorism and the extreme heat during the summer. The only thing I'm left wondering is how much the FIFA ExCom got from Qatar for voting in this crazy bid. It would have been infinitely better to have gone to the USA or Australia.
Speaking of how much money England has put into world football recently. It's huge sums. Our 2006 bid was a shambles because we were over arrogant and didn't put in the effect of courting backers. So over the past four or so years we've made a massive effort to get involved in Africa and Asia funding football workshops and training and sending coaches out there. The idea was that the FA would gain some respect and thanks from the world football community.
We even sent the entire England national team over to Trinidad and Tobago for a meaningless end of season friendly to try and appease Jack Warner. Admittedly this was kowtowing to his corruption but we took the view that we had to do these things to get the support of FIFA.
Now Jack Warner said he'd support England's bid after that friendly and continued to support it right up until recently when he switched sides probably because of our media's exposure of his and FIFA's corruption. However he got a hell of a lot out of messing us around and it's just indicative of FIFA's corruption.
Interestingly had Warner stayed on side we may well have pushed Russia to the wire. Warner controls 3 votes on the ExComm and these were promised to England until very recently. That would have given us 5 votes and would have edged out Belgium/Holland in the first round. In this case we were expected to pick up Belgium/Holland's votes, which would have given us 9 and enough to edge out Spain/Portugal in the next round. Then it would have all come down to which out of Russia and England managed to pick up the most of Spain-Portugal's voters in the final round. Which we may well have won.
Why didn't this happen? basically because Warner switched sides at the last moment, despite Cameron meeting him and our bidding team heavily lobbying him. Looking at the voting numbers it looks like he switched to supporting Russia and that he'd made this decision at least by the beginning of the week, thus why Putin never showed up.
It's a pretty sickening representation of the corruption within FIFA. I agree with Andy Anson the voting procedure needs to be reformed and more people need to have a say to make it fair. Somewhat like the IOC (although they have their issues aswell). As far as I'm concerned every national FA should have a vote, thats 208 voters rather than the 22/24 voters we have now. It'd be much fairer.
