The UK is a wealthy country that is innovative and punches above its weight in so many ways; we can afford a socially fair society, we are choosing not to.
Our guest writer is Ranjit Sidhu, founder of Statistics into Decisions
The United Kingdom has the 6th biggest economy of the 195 countries of the world. With about 5 per cent of the population of China it has an economy more than half its size. Although investing far less as a percentage of its GDP on research than comparable countries in Europe it is only behind the USA in the number of world class universities and number of Nobel prize winners.
With the national depression growing with every new day it is important to step back and gain some prospective before we sacrifice all and sundry to the bonfire of public services that is proposed by the coalition government:
• Shouldn’t we rather be asking whether the sixth biggest economy in the world needs to have in place measures to help those at the bottom of its social structure rather than castigate the poor for having chidren they can’t afford?
• Or, that a country that is second in the world for producing original thinkers and world-class academics has an affordable education for all its citizens and well funded universities?
• Or perhaps that a country whose individual citizens’ wealth is measured as 14th highest in the world, above Germany, France and Japan, by the World Bank, has the ability to make sure everyone upon retirement has enough allowance to stay warm and is entitled to a respectable pension?
So let’s remember the UK is a wealthy country that is innovative and punches above its weight in so many ways and look at the bigger picture than the parochial bias of the current short term spending reviews; this morning’s release of the Browne review on higher education was a clear example.
The issues of graduate tax or a tuition fees raise simply a short term smoke screen. As a country we can afford an extra £1 billion for university funding if we look at the bigger picture, that this investment will bring $2.5 billion back into the economy, coupled with the fact that this country is spending far lower than any other OECD country and actually half that of the USA on education.
Let’s get some prospective back – we can afford a socially fair society, we are choosing not to.
53 Responses to “We can afford to fund our universities, the fact is we choose not to”
Christian Wilcox ( ctg )
The only way out is through skills. And that’s it really. And if 1 Billion in gives 2.5 Billion out then…
That’ll be a profit then ( assuming your figures are correct ). So much of this is simply the rich protecting themselves it’s a joke. You could even find that 1 Billionb by taxing the rich more. Like Ali Darling’s NI tax, or income tax going up for high earners.
If there are no designers we’ll have no products. And not everyone is rich, so doing this will leave us losing talent due to poverty. And once again all I’m seeing of the Lib Dems is a few good points and then the wrong decision as they simply follow the Tory Agenda.
As in keep the rich rich, and the poor will just have to make do with what scraps we throw them.
Simon Landau
There are two graphs in the Browne Report which are interesting to compare. First on the components of net present value of graduate education in different OECD countries. Second, on the rates of participation in tertiary education in different OECD countries. On first sight there appears to be increasing participation in those countries with lower NPV (e.g. Netherlands). The problem that Mouse and Guido Fawkes point out is to do with the success we have had in increasing participation from the paltry rates of 5% in my youth to the 50% today. My objection to Browne is that his prescription is likely to reduce participation – our policy goal should be to get to 100%. A solution or graduate tax that reduces the NPV of tertiary education to the rich should be our goal.
COL
MOUSE – “So the postman and the council bin workers have to pay taxes to allow medical students to become GP’s on £113k a year and you think it’s fair that they don’t pay for that advantage?”
As long as the GP spends the time here in the UK fixing your ill child- I dont think there is a problem with that? I think it is in our best interests to train these people to fix us all and make us healthy- for free!
No?
Anthony
Ranjit – nice that you do not comment on the fact that your claim is wrong. British taxpayers pay more for higher education than American ones. Your comparison fails.
But yes, we both agree that as a country we can afford to spend more. The difference is that you appear to want to force people to contribute whereas I think that it should be up to each individual to choose whether to contribute towards another person’s education.
I think those who oppose removing or raising caps on tuition fees are being a little dishonest:
http://libertarianbulldog.blogspot.com/2010/10/dishonesty-in-university-funding-debate.html
Ian Pannell
RT @leftfootfwd: We can afford to fund our universities, the fact is we choose not to http://bit.ly/cOtj3M