Yesterday the Coalition Government forced through its education Bill with a majority of 21, effectively increasing the upper limit on tuition fees to £9000 a year for university students. Toby Perkins, Labour Member of Parliament for Chesterfield, has slammed the Coalition’s proposals, which condemns a generation of students to huge debts and betray the election promise of the Liberal Democrats.
Despite tens of thousands of students protesting outside the Houses of Parliament while MPs voted on the Bill, the Government went ahead with its plans to axe higher education funding, landing students with tuition fees three times higher than under the previous system of funding. Students will be saddled with debt for over 30 years as a result of this policy, with poorer and middle class students set to be hit the hardest.
This Bill is part of an overall Higher Education budget slashed by around 80%, far more than other budgets. Two Lib Dem MPs resigned over the decision, but 34 MPs ignored their pre-election promise to force through the increases.
After voting against the rise in tuition fees Mr. Perkins said:-
“Rarely in politics is a promise made so publically, as the one made by Lib Dem MPs, broken in such a ruthless and cynical way. Students from poorer and middle class backgrounds will be burdened with enormous debts as a direct result of the Coalition’s open attack on universities and will affect an entire generation of young men and women across the country. We have known for some time the Tory plans for cutting university funding but this shameful Lib Dem U-turn is the mark of a party prepared to put ministerial jobs before the people who voted for them in the first place”.
Thoughts on Scottish tuition fees, whilst English fees are trippling?
It is interesting that there are more Scottish students applying for places in English universities than the other way round despite the situation on fees. This is clearly because, as has been acknowledged by all the major Scottish universities they are falling behind English universities due to having less funding.
It was for precisely this reason that Labour introduced the far more modest tuition fees originally. They meant that students did contribute towards the cost of their education, whilst the majority of the burden fell on the public purse. Now that there are these huge fee increases matched with the 80% reduction in government contribution it will leave students paying off their university debts for thirty years or so.
Most cruelly of all, due to the interest on the payments low earners will actually repay more than high earners for their degrees over the lifetime of the debt.
For the Lib Dems to claim that they are still opposed to tuition fees in Scotland where (you guessed it, they are in opposition) is breathtakingly cynical.
Dear Mr Perkins
I am slightly bemused why you would take such a keen interest in the cost of tuition fees. Out-pricing Chesterfield students is probably the government’s greatest spark of genius. After graduating in July and moving back to Chesterfield I haven’t found a single graduate job. The best I have managed so far is pub work at minimum wage. Blair’s idea of education to degree level was the greatest amount of hot air I have ever encountered. I now burdened with debts over £20 000 with interest just about to kick in. On the other hand, my younger brother left school after GCSEs, took an apprenticeship at Chesterfield College and is now earning a decent wage and working towards a HND. It’s all good and well trying to maintain the current level of tuition fees but it doesn’t matter if Chesterfield graduates end up in £20 000 of debt or £200 000, if there’s no jobs available why even contemplate university?
Of course you are right that none of this works without work. I also followed a similar path to your brother, going to work at the age of 17, and it did OK for me, but we do need a well educated workforce if we are going to have a chance of growing our way out of the recession.
There have been doors that have been closed to me that would have been opened if I’d have been a graduate. But this government have already seen big increases in youth unemployment since they took over, on top of figures that were already bad. We now have the highest level of youth unemployment snce records began, and with the end of future jobs fund and cuts to public sector jobs putting 600,000 people with extensive work experience onto the jobs market it isn’t about to get better.
However just because the government has a disastrous jobs policy doesn’t mean that a university education is a bad idea. We need a real investment in growth and not ideological cuts. We also need a higher education system where the burden of paying for it is split between that on the student and that on the government, rather than the complete abdication of responsibility for HE that this government seems to be pursuing.
You are the first person I have seen making the argument that it is a good idea to discourage people to go university because it’s all a waste of time, I hope that this idea doesn’t gain currency, it would lead to us being a more ignorant and less educated nation and that would be a terrible thing in the global economy.
This is far from ignorance, it’s realism. You seem to have missed the point that I am talking directly about Chesterfield and I am not the only one who feels this way either. I know people locally who finished university at the same time as me and have been jobseekers since. Of the measly 24 jobs listed by Chesterfield Jobcentre this week, I don’t feel having a degree has any relevance to those jobs posted as not a single one asked for any qualifications. I can genuinely say that not a single job I have applied for in Chesterfield have cared that I have a degree. In fact, having a degree may even be a disadvantage when reading studies like these – http://www.cityandguilds.com/63407.html.
I am now looking for graduate schemes out of the area, such as London. As a rough estimate I’d say 80% of my friends who were bought up in the area and have graduated no longer live locally (I think the coming Census will back me up here). I assume there are at least 300 people graduating from Chesterfield every year and I haven’t seen a single graduate trainee scheme anywhere. It feels that anyone that goes through university and racks up those debts is forced to move or work out of the area and I don’t see how this is beneficial to the local economy.
I think you’re misunderstanding my point about ignorance. I’m not suggesting that you are ignorant at all, simply that to reduce the quality of education that we have as a nation would be a step in the wrong direction.
There is a mjaor problem with graduate employment opportunities nationally and in Chesterfield, but I return to my original point that what we need to change is the work side of the equation not the number of graduates we have.
Attracting major employers like Royal Mail (also CSC), CPP, Auto Windscreens and others has some potential to offer better quality work opportunities and the regeneration potential of the A61 corridor could also make a small step in the right direction, but fundamentally the government needs to support our economy to prevent us having a wasted generation whether that be at graduate or apprenticeship level.
So I do get the point you are making about the impact on Chesterfield and there are some partial local solutions but they are most likely to be improved as part of a credible national strategy.
If they are your idea of Chesterfield’s graduate opportunities then I think I’ve lost all faith. Royal Mail in theory should employ inexperienced graduates according to their website but the 8 jobs I’ve applied for there since June have all ended in ‘I am sorry to inform you that on this occasion your application has not been successful as you did not meet the criteria for this role’. aka come back when you have some experience, this is without an interview. CPP have one of the highest staff turnovers in Chesterfield, I know people that have worked for their outbound sales which has a general feeling of ‘beyond soul destroying’. Auto Windscreens…… erm yeah. The A61 corridor currently looks like a lot of flat industrial ground. Just look at the jobs that have been posted the the jobcentre this week, 8 require experience whilst the other 2 require your own transport (I can’t afford driving lessons). This is the theme I’ve been dealing with for months.
I respect that you jumped to aid of those at Auto Windscreens, but you fail to have jumped to the aid on Connexions. I’m quite bemused why in the debate on 16th Feb on Youth Unemployment you brought the Auto Windscreens issue up. You appear to have stretched the truth in parliament by saying ‘In my constituency, 1,100 people will potentially lose their jobs as a result of Auto Windscreens going into administration this week’. The Hasland site employs 400 people (it’s 1 100 across the UK). There are 875 unemployed under 25′s just in Chesterfield Borough, surely that’s a more pressing issue in a debate on youth unemployment?
I do feel that I’m becoming rather factitious but I’m getting to the end of my tether with your lack of answers. You were elected with a policy that creating jobs was a ‘central plank’, now you seem to be waiting for a credible nation strategy.
Sorry you can’t get a job Tom, but have to say maybe you need to take a look a bit closer to home. Nit-picking about Toby’s efforts to save hundreds of jobs when the government that he is voting against is laying waste to whole areas of the country seems to be barking up the wrong tree.
Hope you find something son, but I for one am grateful that in Toby we have an MP that is standing up for local firms and the public services.
You started by saying it’s a good job they increased tuition fees, because we’d be better not bothering going to uni, I dont honestly know what planet you are on. If you want to have a pop at someone, can I suggest you look at the government that’s already got record youth unemployment and indebting students for generations to come.
Surely there is a requirement for a mixture in the national work force of both graduates and non graduates. Experience is a big problem when applying for jobs and that is why during your time as a student you can use some of your spare time to gain work experience. Whether this should be volunteer work or part time work. Furthermore for the economy to become more productive there has to be an investment in education, this would increase the productivity of the workforce and would increase the output of the nation.
The problem is that there isn’t any balance between graduates and non-graduates. This issue has been covered numerous times in national press. Whilst at university I carried out four work placements as well as being a self-employed music promoter, running my own business. The problem is that with 2 631 people unemployed in Chesterfield District and only 30 jobs posted a week, that’s a lot of competition that graduates are up against with people that have a wealth of experience (this doesn’t include the several thousand unemployed in neighbouring districts such as Bolsover). When I’ve followed up rejected applications, the majority of employers say that ‘more suitable applicants have applied’ which can only mean they have experience. It becomes especially annoying that Toby Perkins pledged to create more local jobs and as far as I’ve seen, it’s no better than when Paul Holmes was in office. It’s especially a kick in the groin when he has the opportunity to air his views on the subject in Parliament and instead he brings up a completely unrelated subject. I wouldn’t class this as nit-picking; I call it making him accountable for his pledges.
David, you seem to be muddled over who created the record youth employment and indebting students. When Labour left office the UK debt was £4.8 trillion!! To put this into perspective, £4.8 trillion is the equivalent of the net worth of every house, flat and car in the UK combined; this debt will burden your children and your children’s children and possibly generations beyond. The coalition government have inherited this debt and although I wouldn’t praise their handling of the situation, they are been proactive in cutting the deficit which Labour weren’t.
The planet I’m on when talking about university is from a personal perspective. I have a £20 000 student debt, with monthly interest of around £40. How am I supposed to pay any of this if I can’t get a job? Let’s not overlook the fact that the average salary in Chesterfield is only just above the threshold of repaying the student loan, therefore graduates in Chesterfield are likely to have this debt overhanging them for much longer than people living in other areas in the UK. I want to move out the area, but my current situation of being jobless and £20 000 in debt is making it impossible.
I’m afraid Mr Fisher is completely misunderstanding both the role of an MP and the current economic situation in his posts.
I graduated in 2008 along with many of my friends. Since then, during one of the toughest periods for graduate employment in modern times, those students who gained work experience and extra curricular hobbies whilst at uni are those with the best jobs today. Nobody is saying that it is easy to obtain graduate level jobs at the moment but likewise it is possible with further training and development to get on and, what’s more, Toby Perkins or any Labour MP is not responsible for his current joblessness.
Mr Perkins’ job is to best represent the people of Chesterfield. To question his decision to riase the AW situation in Parliament would be laughable if it wasn’t so misguided.
New Labour were absolutely right to promote university education as a mode of social mobility. But my frustration would be with the rise of the ‘I must have a top job straight away despite my lack of experience and desire to start from the bottom’ brigade, of which Mr Fisher appears to be an card carrying member.
The Coalition Government’s declaration of war on young people will almost certainly reduce the number of graduates in the UK. In a global economy increasingly moving towards technological and finance industries this would leave us falling behind the Asian and American powerhouses.
Mr Fisher should think about this wider situation before he goes around pointing the finger at those doing a great deal to fight for hard working people at a time of unprecedented Government cuts. This is a tough time for graduates at the moment, but that is true for all members of society (aside from millionaires, of course.) The bottom line is for those people who prove themselves and have the skill base, whether they have a degree or not, opportunities will still arise over time.