This is a particularly important topic for Cambridge with its world famous university. The four parliamentary candidates on the panel, Daniel Zeichner for Labour, Julian Huppert for Lib Dems, Nick Hillman for Conservatives, and Tony Juniper, for the Green Party. were asked their views about the future of tuition fees, and their replies can be heard on this video.
Of course, I wish like Lib Dems and the Green Party that we could scrap these fees as I have one student son up to his neck in debt and another who can’t decide if he wants this kind of financial worry. However, we have to be realistic and ask ourselves how our universities can survive without them. We surely need to have more creative ways of funding universities to ensure their successful future, and be confident that our bright young people are not denied a place because of shortages.
Hear, hear!
I think treating higher education like a business where institutions advertise and go for the money was a mistake from the start… Rather than investing in the future of our own country these institutions are more interested in bringing in foreigners because they pay higher tuition fees and are thus better business ~ ridiculous!
I was trawling online when I found a course where I can study BA German actually IN Germany, at the Gutenberg University in Mainz from beginning to end… looking more closely, I was heartened to read that this university doesn’t charge any tuition AT ALL (when they could do, if they so wished)… How amazing is that! ;->…