|!| Third Level Fees

I campaigned for free fee's and used to be a very active member of USI (quite a while ago) and I say free fee's dont work..

countries around the world all are moving to a system where the student has to pay something significant to costs, as free fee's dont do the job they were supposed to - being to bring non traditional students to 3rd level education..

Free fee's are for the poor - but why should a millionares son or daughter get free fee's too?

We should have something like the old grant, but with a higher means tested ceiling, say (to pick a figure out of the sky) €50,000 per annium. If parental income is below that it should be totally free, and above that it costs whatever it costs, and put a government intrest free loans paid back over a number of years of your working life, post college.

So what your saying is YPD is a different organisation to the PD's. Like "Diet" PD's or "Lite" PD's

I did have a good reason to delete your spam BECAUSE YOU BROKE THE RULES. If I decide to add a comment to add some humour, so what! (it wasn't personally aimed at you!)

Man if your going to get involved in politics you need to grow a thicker skin !!!

If you edit your post with some words explaining your campaign and your position then I have no problems leaving your post intact.

Gandalf.

Why, exactly, should rich people have to pay for education but poor people get it for free? That is simply not fair to the rich people.

If thats your argument, then why give poor people social welfare payments?

Originally posted by swiss
no2fees, please read the forum guidelines

You've had the same message from two mods, and yet insist that you're being censored.

Well, lets go for unanimity in the politics moderator triumverate.

No2Fees - any post which starts a thread without personal commentary will be summarily edited/deleted by one of the mods, unless we deem it is by a long-term poster we happen to know will take part in the discussion.

If you dont have the common decency to read our rules before posting, or lack the intelligence to understand that they apply equally to you as to others....this is not our concern.

You were not censored. You were not oppressed. You were moderated for not doing what the rules tell you to. Arguing your case, to be honest, does not strengthen your position - it simply confirms my belief that you still have not read the rules, or that you have read them and still cannot understand that they apply to you.

Getting back to the point....

Free fee's are for the poor - but why should a millionares son or daughter get free fee's too?

Exactly where do you think the money for fees comes from? Ultimately, the tax-payers. Given that the millionaires contribute so much more to the govts tax income "per capita" than anyone else, I think its only reasonable that they should get equal benefit from it.

I suppose next we'll have someone arguing that their fees should be higher than everyone else's too, cause they can afford to pay.

jc

I dont understand are the PD's not a Right wing political party.

I confusses me that they should not want fees.

Are the PD's turning Left wing and could this start a wonderful relationship between them and Labour, what a force.

I don't respect the government when they wish to get rid of Fee's but I cann't see students doing and thing to stop them. The student strikes were useless and unorganised. They should all strike on the one day not just take days every now and then. One week it Galway the next its Waterford and then its Limerick.

Go on disrupt the roads on a national day of Striking.

After all most of the student unions around the country are part of the USI. Where is the USI when you need them?????

Originally posted by PHB
Does nobody else think that the introduction of 3rd level fees would be political suicide.

Depends on the timing and how you went about it, really.

I think it would, like any other controversial move, generate miles of column-inches, and maybe cause a few people to go hoarse from incoherent shouting and ranting, after which it would die down and become just another fact of life.

I think this is basically forming an entire generation of people who won't vote for FF, because they made them have to work their asses off in college instead of enjoying it.

Its taken me a while to figure out what irks me about this suggestion....and its just come to me....

When I went through uni, you still had to pay fees.

It wasnt all that long ago, either, so its not like I'm a doddering old grandad fondly remembering through rose-tinted glasses.

I still enjoyed my four years there. In fact, anyone I know who was in Uni at the time pretty much enjoyed it...as much as you enjoy anything in life. Some of them needed jobs, some of them didnt.

My girlfriend over here in Switzerland is putting herself through Uni. She will have debts in excess of €20K at the end of it. She still enjoys it.

In other words, I dont see working your ass off as being incompatible with the idea of enjoyment. There's room for both in your life. Well - there should be - because otherwise your days until retirement are gonna be pretty un-good

To be quite honest, the more I think about it, the more I favour the re-introduction of fees. I would like to see it happening in conjunction with some system allowing those who cannot afford to pay them to borrow the money from the government, interest free, with some intelligent means-tested repayment system.

While not perfect (you can still get a degree then waste your life away and never be in a position to repay the cash), I do think its a better solution than any other I've heard proposed to date. It would need fine-tuning, to avoid government sponsorship of eternal students etc., but at its core I think its a feasible system.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I've offended many of you who are, or will be students. Tough. I fully support your right to go to university, but I do not believe that it should be at the taxpayers' expense. If you cant afford to pay your way, then the government should loan you the money to pay your way, and you should repay it.

Of course, this probably isnt what will happen....which then leaves the issue of which of the available solutions is preferable. Here, Im not sure yet....

jc

What's wrong with that statement is the typical student "why should I have to work" mentality, which seems to apply as much to their studies as to actually working their way through college

A good friend of mine works for a very big investment bank over here in London. They have always taken graduates from Ireland (he is one!) - taken the 6 or 7 they consider to be the cream of the crop..

This is the first year in the last 20 that they will not do it, as the people from the last few years, and the people they interviewed have been or come accross as lazy and not been that great at all..

Could this be that students are getting things handed to them on a plate, told the chapters to study and what chapters not to study and not have to worry about fee's and having to make a real effort?

Rob: You know your the exception rather than the rule in the case of students who are directly or indirectly dependent on their parents. I would say high 80's to early 90's percent of students are dependant on their parents.

Now if we can come up with a better way of ensuring that the childern of people who can afford to pay, pay and the children of people who cannot afford to pay dont then Im all ears

In my student union days we thought about maybe anyone who is on any form of social welfare (be that unemployment or widows pension type thing or whatever) should be free - but that discriminates against farmers, fishermen and people who get off their arse and do low paid work?

What's wrong with that statement is the typical student "why should I have to work" mentality, which seems to apply as much to their studies as to actually working their way through college. It's the childish, petulant attitude which treats university as a bit of a laugh and a holiday at the expense of the state and their parents. It's the kind of sickening bullsh1t which ensures that nobody gives a tuppenny damn about the students whinging about fees or whatever, because we know that this is the sort of rubbish they'll throw back at us.

I wont be treating university as a laugh, perhaps some will but thats the same with any system.
I wouldnt have to work through college anyway since my parents would pay for it, since they value education over other things, since i'm a lucky ****.
However this wouldnt apply to all people, and if we re introduced college fees less people would go to college, simply because they can't afford it.
Yes if the government can introduce college loans, but that will mean you will have a huge debt hanging over you for the first 10 or so years of being in the workforce.
If it ended up like the system in the UK, where the fee is the same for all colleges, then I think the system could work, but it would still mean some people wouldn't have the choices they could have with education.
I think we can all agree we don't want a system like they have in the US.

You're not kids any more. You're allegedly adults. So you have to work. This isn't school; this is university, which is optional, and if you're not prepared to put in the effort required there - and I do mean WHATEVER IT TAKES - then there are plenty of jobs in McDonalds for you.

The point is that people should be putting their efforts into university, not into work. If fess are introduced it will result in people spending a majority of their time working, which will have a negative result on their studies.

Not "enjoying" university indeed. The state isn't there to fund your entertainment.

No the state isn't there to fund your entertainment, it doesn't mean that it can't be a side effect of state funding.
It increase the skill of the workforce, meaning more companies will continue to come into this country, supporting the economy.
Free 3rd level education is good for the state.