So many reasons for this, I don’t even know where to begin. It depresses the fuck out of me. We have the most expensive tuition fees in Europe but degrees do not cost £9000 a year. That figure is a con. The reason why most Universities charge that much is out of social status and marketing. E.g. The fear that University A would have in charging less than £9000, is that if University B down the road charge the full amount, then applicants may believe that B is the “stronger” “better” university. So A charges as much as B.
And from the perspective of the applicant, If you’re paying £6000, what’s £3000 more on a loan for a better degree and what seems negligible and in the far off future of adulthood? Bear in mind that people are 17 years old when applying to University. They haven’t been taught extensively about loans and finances and money and banks . It is morally repugnant we prepare students so little for the cost of it all. Granted, who would want to do that? If schools and sixth forms do it, students may be put off from going to University and that brings their conversion rate down which in turn hurts the government’s image.
So Universities charge the full amount, sanctioned by the government, accepted by new undergraduates, and now only a minority of people are angry about it. Even though Universities are amassing a huge surplus of cash. The current estimate being that across all institutions since 2010, reserves have risen 72% to over 21 billion pounds. Universities aren’t quite sure what to do with this, but they certainly want as much of it as they can get. Not that it feeds back into University staff. The majority of which have been offered an annual pay rise of a miserly 1.1%, meanwhile vice-chancellors have seen an average rise of 6.1%. The amount of money increasing at the top of University hierarchies is increasing rapidly, with over 5000 University employees being paid over £100,000 a year. Longstoryshort: degrees are now another large cog within the capitalist economy.
We’ve allowed this to happen. How? Well, votes. Younger people generally don’t have high turnout, and if they did maybe things would different. Older people who are financially secure, who may vote Tory, who may be middle/upper class, they don’t see the fee as an issue. Because it’s a loan where there is little penalty for not paying it back, and because those voters aren’t immediately concerned by the cost.
So it’s a poor/rich divide? With the rich wanting fees and the poor not? No, it’s not that simple. A lot of older working class people who typically haven’t been to University, also don’t have a problem with fees. To them (and this is speaking generally) they believe the tuition fees are fair because a lot of graduates go into high paying employment and can pay it back. Of course, the truth is that finding a job as a graduate for many people is a real struggle, with many not earning enough to cover the interest on their loan. These voters would rather other services be saved by tuition fees e.g. Pensions. And maybe that’s fair, maybe it’s not.
But the University system is now built to take advantage of people financially. Yes many degrees are essential to their strands of employment e.g. Pharmacy, Law. However there are too many people going to University who are not academic in nature, studying degrees that won’t benefit their future employment or their state of mind. Yet there is the misguided belief amongst many, that most people who graduate from University are adults with greater skills superior to those who don’t attend higher education.