Actually stop and think about it: tuition fees just don’t make sense

The debate over tuition fees is one of the most prevalent in British politics, jostling with the likes of Brexit and the NHS crisis for the spot of most important issue facing young voters at the general election earlier this year. Obviously, as the demographic who suffer the most directly from their imposition, university students are (at least at a glance) overwhelmingly against tuition fees and any proposed increases to them, hence writing an article to a student newspaper in opposition to them could be seen as more than a little pointless. However, I shall attempt to outline some of the plethora of arguments against them that go beyond mere financial self-interest.

For starters, we have the UK’s majorly flawed student finance system, which loans students the money for their fees and general living costs whilst at university, in exchange for repayments over the 30 years following a student’s graduation, at a rate of 9% of their salary over £21,000 plus interest. This system is certainly a good deal for students, as it almost completely mitigates our losses if our degree fails to add value to our future earnings – comparable to companies that guarantee their customers a refund if the product they bought fails to function as it should.

“We have the UK’s majorly flawed student finance system, which is vastly inefficacious: only 55% of money lonaed is paid back”

Nevertheless, it is vastly inefficacious, with only 55% of the total money loaned ever being repaid as things stand. For those who back tuition fees on the basis that degrees ought to be funded by people who directly benefit from them as opposed to the taxpayer, this means that around half of that £9250 per student per year is tax-funded regardless. This reduces the effective amount graduates pay to universities via the government loan scheme to less than a quarter of total university income.

These statistics explain exactly why the argument for tuition fees on the basis that students ought to foot their own costs is absolutely bonkers: they just cost everyone more. As was conveniently pointed out in last month’s article in defence of fees, the average graduate can expect an annual salary that is significantly higher than those who do not attend university – they are the people who will tend to go on to pay higher taxes than the general populace. In fact, due to their salary premium, they end up paying an average of £8,000 more in income tax than they borrowed to pay for university in the first place – this is on top of the money they spend in loan repayments.

“A more educated population can innovate more and perform more highly skilled jobs”

A further issue with our current system is the emotive form of debate facilitated by having a loan system. When politicians and public figures are commonly tossing around such phrases as “fifty thousand pounds worth of debt”, can they really be surprised when students complain that it doesn’t sound particularly fair? Of course, this is regularly followed by the aforementioned statistics about degrees adding value to future earnings, but once you’ve planted the seed of that feeling of injustice, you’ve already gone a long way towards polarising the argument. All that’s needed to finish it off is for another group of people to start calling young people “entitled” and “ungrateful”, and lo and behold, you’ve ended any chance of rational debate and compromise! Of course, we’re yet to even touch upon the actual reason that governments want their citizens to go to university. Though I would hate to generalise, in my experience, those who argue in favour of tuition fees don’t tend to factor in the wider economic benefits of people attending university. A more educated population can innovate more and perform more highly skilled jobs, which in turn means more money is spent and earned in the country, so governments can take in more tax revenue to spend on improving or creating public services, which increases everyone’s quality of life. Yes, these effects are difficult to measure and may seem intangible, but they improve everyone’s lives, graduate or not. It seems utterly ridiculous to economically disincentivise such behaviour!

Whilst these more nuanced ways of looking at the issue may not appeal to the archaic view that whatever one costs an institution must be paid back directly and precisely, those of us who oppose tuition fees may at least take solace in knowing that our viewpoint makes demonstrably more sense. The entirety of modern Western civilisation is based upon the fact that life does not have to be a zero-sum game – someone somewhere doesn’t necessarily have to pay a price so that you can gain a benefit. There are many ways to fix this issue: a graduate tax (which has its problems, but is at least an improvement), or perhaps just generally raising taxation levels slightly to alleviate pressure on other public services as well. One thing is for certain – tuition fees are not the answer.