Third-level fees have to come back

Four billion to be spent on buildings? Seriously? :rolleyes:

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Third level fees do not have to come back. I've benefited from free fees, I'd never be able to afford a university education without free fees. There is a desperate lack of funding in the third level sector. Re-introducing fees and forcing people from poor backgrounds away from University is not the way to go.

Third level fees should be brought back in some form or another. Though a government sponsored loans system would be a step in the right direction, I would also favour a situation where those who can pay up front should have to do so. Remember that those from the poorest backgrounds won't pay anyway: they are covered by council grants.


As it stands, Irish universities are chronically underfunded. My own, UCC, has a deficit of €13 million. Most of this was incurred in building the new IT centre, which has vastly improved the Departments of Mathematics and Computing, and, as such, the university as a whole.

Without more funding Irish universities will not be able to improve. At the moment UCC is placed in the high 200's in the Times international university rankings. As a future graduate, this worries me. When I move abroad for a job or for a postgrad, interviewers will have no idea what or where UCC is because Irish people are making no attempt to put it on the international stage, instead preferring to be tight-fisted.

The choice we have is clear: continue to spuriously demand we get our third level degrees for free or chip in for our own benefit and receive an education that has the potential to be vastly superior.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have fees. But this isn't a perfect world, and Irish universities are chronically underfunded compared to their international counterparts.

We have a few options:

• Raise taxes for everyone to pay for improvements and keep free fees. (like that'll happen)
• Bring back fees upfront for all.
• Bring back fees upfront, poorer students get grants,etc.
• Student contribution after graduation via a loan system.
• Student contribution after graduation via PRSI.
• Status-quo.

The last option there is the least preferable, and we'll pay for it for years if we don't do anything. My own preferred option (and I say this as a first year student) would be a contribution after graduation via PRSI (as FG proposed last year - policy document), rather than loans since I don't like the idea of being saddled with "debt" (yes, I know that paying it back via tax or a loan is basically the same, but I'd rather pay tax than pay off a debt - it's psychological).

Such a system also removes pressure from the families of students (unless, of course, they want to pay them upfront) and should instil a bit of appreciation among students as to what they're getting.

I also find it a bit of a joke that with "free fees" we still have the €1,500 "registration fee", which is higher than the fees that students have to pay in some German provinces!

Simply taxing the population more, as Pride Fighter has suggested, is only shooting one's self in the foot as investment in the economy will probably go down and there will be less jobs for graduates.

There are pictures, for example, of the current SU President, Keith O'Brien, protesting outside UCC at the lack of jobs available to graduates. As well as being a prime example of unhealthy government dependency, it was also highly ironic: Mr O'Brien has been instrumental in campaigning for the continuation of the free-fees system, which has resulted in higher taxes for everyone, thus impeding job creation, as I said. You can't have your cake and eat it to, eh?


Sulmac: there are some problems with loans' systems. Firstly, they will deliver little in the way of investment to universities now, although universities can borrow if they are guaranteed future income. Secondly, I have yet to think of a good way to police the system. What happens to those graduates who leave Ireland, for example?

Fees that address cost; not profit.

Thats where the US has gone wrong, and to be frank, has retarded the population to a woeful shambles.

I'm currently working at one of the top rated schools in the US and the tuition fees are in the region of $40,000 a year. For a four year degree that's a $160,000 bill. I know for a fact that there's no way I would have gone to University if I had to pay that much, I simply don't place that much value on the education I've received.

While I acknowledge that fees would more than likely sort the grain from the chaff as regards people who appreciate their education, the question remains (to continue the metaphor) how much of the grain can we afford to lose and at what cost. In my opinion education should be provided by the state and should be free, I like the Irish system where the government will only pay for your education the first time around. This in turn should provide for a greater return to the state as an educated workforce will generally have more stable employment and higher income thus paying more in tax and indirectly paying for their own education.

That being said as it stands, unfortunately Ireland can no longer provide employment for many of the graduates and so we have huge emmigration and a major brain-drain. Of my engineering class that graduated last year I think only 30% are working in Ireland while 30% are working overseas. The remainder have either returned to education or gone travelling (due to circumstance rather than desire). So where is the point in subsidising education for foreign countries? Unless we can get our act together and provide employment for the educated people we do have, why spend our money educating more with no return for it.

I don't agree with paying a tax to repay your loans as I think one should only have to pay for exactly what they've spent. Interest free loans for graduates is the way to go and if I take out a loan from a bank and then leave the country they're still going to want it back and I'll probably receive a summons upon my return, so saying people could easily run away from their loans is plain foolish.

Another thing we don't have in Ireland that could be a huge benefit if fees return is scholarships, there is little or no recognition for those who put in a lot of work and achieve highly, yet these are the ones who will more than likely create a good name for the University both here and abroad. I think if fees return (which they should as things stand) then this achievement should be rewarded and those students acknowledged.

PeakOutput wrote: »

fees(and very high ones) also allow you to have some of the best universities in the world. ireland dosnt have one in the top 100 and there is no reason it cant have one in the top 50 that is pumping out some seriously talented graduates

wrong. trinity is in the top 50 in the world.

I believe the goverment has upped to reg fee anyways which should be enough. I think free college education has been a basis of bring companies into ireland as we have a very educated workforce.

The US is so bad for their third level system so lets just rule their system out. Austalia's system is decent.

PeakOutput wrote: »

also students loans are easy to get

students use loans all over the world to fund their studies

Flamed Diving wrote: »

http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp

And we also have some of the greatest athletes on the planet and are one of the world leaders in the olympic medals; that doesnt mean we aren't ridiculously obese as a nation.

Elitism is important to some successes but success on a national scale requires a different approach.

Overheal wrote: »

And we also have some of the greatest athletes on the planet and are one of the world leaders in the olympic medals; that doesnt mean we aren't ridiculously obese as a nation.

Elitism is important to some successes but success on a national scale requires a different approach.

but you know what it takes to create the best colleges in the world

money


im not saying copy you guys exactly but there should be at least one university in ireland that can compete with top 50 schools and that is going to require money and certain people paying full fees in every college

there is an interesting report here on some of the problems in the US system. The important qualities of any university system should be affordability and quality. A common complaint in the US system is that there has been an "arms race" approach which has led to a lot of waste


http://www.centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/Financial_Aid_in_Theory_and_Practice.pdf


examples of waste

•

The University of Illinois spent $6 million on the Irwin Academic Services Center which “helps

only about 550 of the school's 37,000 students” because it is restricted to athletes. But, “at
least four other schools have multimillion-dollar tutoring centers just for their athletes” in-

cluding the $12 million facility at the University of Michigan.

54

•

Princeton built a $136 million, 500-bed dorm ($272,000 per bed, much more than the median

home costs).

55 MIT’s Simmons Hall cost $194,000 per bed.56

•

“Framingham State College will spend more than $191,000 building a two-car garage and

stone patio for its state-owned president's house …even as the college's budget faces a poten-

tial $2 million cut”

57

•

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey “spent more than $80,000 in 2005

to shuttle the head of a volunteer advisory board from her home in Pennsylvania’s Po-

conos to the school’s Newark campus.”

58

•

“Students now get massages, pedicures and manicures at the University of Wisconsin in Osh-

kosh” and students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania can play “one of 52 golf courses

from around the world on the room-sized golf simulators”

59

•

Ohio State University spent $140 million60 “to build what its peers enviously refer to as the

Taj Mahal, a 657,000-square-foot complex featuring kayaks and canoes, indoor batting cages

and ropes courses, massages and a climbing wall big enough for 50 students to scale simulta-
neously”

61

•

The University of California gave 16 employees severance checks, and then rehired them. In

the most egregious example, one person “left her old job on April 30 and began her new one

on May 1.” She was given the same salary, but managed to collect a $100,202 severance pay-
ment anyway. And prior to this she was given “a $44,000 relocation allowance and a low-
interest $832,500 home loan, for which she was not otherwise entitled.”

62

•

In 2006-2007, 293 employees at private schools made more than $500,000. “[T]he highest-

paid college employee in the country was Pete Carroll, head football coach at the University of
Southern California, with $4.4-million in total compensation (pay plus benefits).”63

Conclusion

Several key parts of current financial aid practice are ineffective in achieving their primary goals

(promoting college affordability, access, and equality of opportunity) because aid is often structured
in such a way that it reinforces undesirable traits within the higher education sector. Specifically,
financial aid programs fuel an arms race in spending among schools. Programs are structured in
such a way that governments are essentially subsidizing the inflation of college costs.
Schools generally cannot compete with each other by demonstrating that they provide a better educa-
tion than others, because the outputs of school (learning and its consequences in a value added
sense) are not measured. Since there are not generally accepted measures of outputs, and it is rea-
sonable to think that high quality inputs will lead to high quality outputs, schools compete on inputs
instead. Any input that is plausibly thought to affect learning (superstar faculty, world class labora-
tories, fancy dorms, etc.) becomes the focus of competition, and each school tries to have the best
inputs. The result has variously been described as the Bowen Rule, the Ehrenberg Cookie Monster,
or more generally the academic arms race, and it inevitably leads to an explosion in costs. Is it any
wonder that when we measure schools based on inputs, which are costly, that costs continually rise?
Perhaps the most important consequence of the resulting explosion in costs has been a reduction in
college affordability and access. As costs have been ratcheted up, governments have been forced to
cut back on funding (as a percent of total costs), which is increasingly leaving the financial burden on
students and their families. In other words, policy makers have designed a convoluted financial aid
system that inadvertently leads to higher tuition. However, if ineffective practices are terminated or
altered, and effective practices are expanded, then the system will be able to achieve its goal of mak-
ing college less of a financial burden.
Ultimately, the dilemma is how to ensure equality of opportunity (that qualified low-income students
have the financial aid they need to allow them to attend college), without contributing to the aca-

demic arms race. The recommendations above are a step in that direction.

Overheal wrote: »

Elitism is important to some successes but success on a national scale requires a different approach.

With respect Overheal, those kind of throwaway remarks don't help in finding the best solution. It's not about elitism, it's about creating the best universities we possibly can. The Irish system has proven to be unsuccessful in this regard, as illustrated by the various sources Flamed Diving linked to.

I'm with Pride Fight and John Lynch Ph. D on this one. There's no reason why universities can't or shouldn't go to private companies and say 'if you give us funding, we will tailor our courses to suit your industries'. This is why American universities have such huge research departments.

I am also against students having to work during college in order to have enough money to live. I am now in college for the third time and the primary cause of dropping out that I have seen is having a job along side studying. A lot of employers, certainly in the types of jobs students tend to have; shops, bars etc, couldn't care less about college and will try to increase the number of hours worked by the student. The student will usually have to make a choice eventually and many go with the job.

Also, another thing I noticed during my time in colleges is some of the people getting grants are the ones with the rich parents. This is a typical 'Fianna Failian' culture, where the ones who give financial support are also the ones who get the benefits, whether they need them or not.

Finally, if I had not been getting the 'back to education allowance' I simply would not have been able to go back to college.

I would assume that any fees taken from the college would go straight to exchequer and show up as revenue in the books etc. So from this you could argue that any fees gathered are just as likely to go towards funding the budget deficit rather than improving facilities.

I haven’t seen much effort on part of the colleges to curb their spending either, many of the top people in third level institutions are grossly overpaid IMO.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

With respect Overheal, those kind of throwaway remarks don't help in finding the best solution. It's not about elitism, it's about creating the best universities we possibly can. The Irish system has proven to be unsuccessful in this regard, as illustrated by the various sources Flamed Diving linked to.

Elitism is not a slur. Its just used as a slur quite often. Nor is it a throwaway remark how else do you intend to describe it. Academic Excellence afforded to maybe the top 99.99th percentile through scholarships? And those with the deepest pockets. Thats the American system and with respect, you can't say it isn't Elitist.

The Irish system fails at the point of cost but in making Third Level Degrees available to the widest platform of students possible while still ensuring nobody gets a free ride (the best courses demand the best grades) it certainly excels.

All I'm saying is when Fees are re-introduced they should be a reflection of Costs not potential Profits. Frankly, I don't think education works particularly well in the Capitalist mindset.