Fee Foes' Five Thumbs

[steepholm]

It's welcome (and embarrassing for the Westminster government) that the Welsh Assembly has announced that it will hold fees for Welsh students to their current levels, subsidising them if they choose to go to a more expensive university elsewhere in the UK. For one thing, it rather gives the lie to Clegg 'n' Cable's bleating about how the country can't afford not to raise fees. I'd be all in favour of the English Assembly making a similar declaration, except - oh yes, I forgot, England isn't big enough to warrant an Assembly. Or it's too big. Or something.

One strange side effect is that while English, Scottish and Northern Irish students studying at Welsh universities will have to pay the full £6-9,000pa, EU students from outside the United Kingdom will only be charged the £3,000 or so currently being levied on Welsh students. This is because EU law forbids discrimination in fees between states - but not within states. Thus, the Welsh taxpayer will be subsidising not only Welsh students at English universities, but French and German students at Welsh universities. I wonder how that will go down in Llanelli?

When the lunacy of our constitutional arrangements intersects with the hypocrisy of our higher education funding system and the bureaucracy of the European Union, you know that rational government remains some little distance off.

Comments

[calimac.livejournal.com]

That's very funny, and in political format reminds me of the attempts by the California state government to rationalize marijuana control in the teeth of the federal government's insistence that it's evil-evil.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

Actually, on average it will be the south-east-English taxpayer doing the subsidising of the Welsh students, as the budget comes from general UK taxation, not some hypothecated Welsh-only tax; the Welsh budget is about £8-9bn more than Welsh taxation, IIRC.

I suppose you could claw that back and subsidise the future earnings of salary-earning graduates (given that the whole point is that students don't pay anything when they are students), but that doesn't seem fair on the poor, or the sick or whatever else the Welsh assembly is spending that money on.

[sheenaghpugh]

It's not so much French and German students that matter; it's Chinese students on business studies courses; they give unis an awful lot of revenue (not to mention hassle, because they think plagiarism = deference to written authority and are quite hurt and annoyed when told they can't do it). I suspect Glamorgan in particular will be happy if they get more of them who would otherwise have gone to England.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think in Llanelli they won't mind subsidising European students as long as they're doing one in the eye of the English.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

That's completely nuts!!

STUDENTS AS THE TOUCHSTONE OF CIVILIZATION’S DEVELOPMENT

[win-ru.livejournal.com]

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