This debate is now closed.
Should the government freeze student cash?
Student maintenance grants and loans in England will be frozen next year, the government says. Will this put students off higher education?
Grants available for trainee teachers will also be cut to bring them into line with amounts available to other students.
However, loans to cover tuition fees will be raised in line with the increase in the fees themselves.
Higher education minister David Lammy says that "difficult decisions" have to be made but student campaigners accuse the government of failing to ensure higher education is not a victim of the recession.
Do you agree with the government’s decision to freeze maintenance cash for students in England? Are you a student? Should there be a uniform system of higher education funding across the UK?
Read the main story
Send us your story ideas
Published:
Thursday, 2 July, 2009, 11:41 GMT
12:41 UK
All comments as they come in
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 11:19 GMT
12:19 UK
Totally agree with all the comments about 'Mickey Mouse' degrees putting a strain on the system.
Even though I have a 'proper' degree (Aerospace Systems Engineering) my career has taken me away from engineering and I really don't need a degree to do my job.
Freezing student cash is just proof that government higher education policy is unsustainable and dosen't benefit the students from pooer families it was supposed to help.
[WillStory]
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 11:04 GMT
12:04 UK
Let's face it, Blair's target of 50% of children going to Uni simply prolonged staying in 'education' and reducing unemployment statistics and benefits costs.
The much toutted statistics about higher earnings as a graduate were based on a period when few took degrees not on projections for when many had.
Labour's education policies amount to a huge confidence trick and will leave a generation with significant debt, difficult for many to repay.
[Darrum], Eastbourne, United Kingdom
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:54 GMT
11:54 UK
As both the education system and the economy have been destroyed, it is fraud to continue conning students into thinking that there is any point in endebting themselves to train for jobs that don't exist. If massive public investment is made to recreate free and universal liberal education, then students should be paid the National Minimum Wage (including in vacations) to study.
Gerard Mulholland, Paris, France
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:52 GMT
11:52 UK
For everyone who is calling Media Studies a worthless degree I would like to point out the obvious. Without Media Studies students the BBC would no longer run properly, this would mean no BBC website and as such no Have Your Say. As the media is such a huge part of the lives of the majority of Western civilisation (TV, film, magazines, newspapers, websites, video games, computer programmes etc.) maybe you should give credit where credit it due and let go of the stereotypes of the past.
Rae Charles, Cambridge
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:50 GMT
11:50 UK
Yes. Then they should give full grants not loans to students with A and B results in A- levels at the moment people are getting in with results that would not have got them into the sixth form in the 70s.
[frankiecrisp]
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:42 GMT
11:42 UK
The govt is planning to freeze grants as well as loans. How do they expect students, who aren't blessed with inheritance money and wealthy parents, to pay for travel and other expenses? Oh yes, the government will still pay for tuition fees, but i'll just walk to my university everyday, it's only 20 miles away. I'll forget about getting a job to pay for my expenses, i'm more likely to get a job in a thirdworld country! Thank you government, you wonderful thing! The future is very bright!
Anon
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:34 GMT
11:34 UK
Firstly we need to acknowledge that there is great value in non-academic acheivement and should spend more money on providing on the job training. Secondly we should acknowledge that creating watered down degrees from third rate "universities" just to meet the targets fools nobody. Finally we should fully pay for a much smaller number of students to attend, on merit alone , degree courses the nation needs and let the rest pay full price to satisfy their personal desires for a 'higher' education.
Mike Dickson, Birmingham
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:25 GMT
11:25 UK
In the current climate the government has no choice. But it reveals ridiculous claim by Gordon Brown there will be no cuts. Grants frozen but fees rise; a cut by any other name. This man and his accomplice Ed Balls have no shame, and no abillity.
Furthermore this whole shambles has been brought about by the ridiculous policy target introduced by this government of 50% of school leavers going to university. Totally unnecessary, and unsustainable.
steve willis, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:24 GMT
11:24 UK
A freeze is better than a REDUCTION.
Andrew Lye, Johnston, Pembrokeshire, United Kingdom
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:17 GMT
11:17 UK
University is not the only way - I believe it is important, but only for some. Don't assume other routes are not as valid.
Keith Waters, Ely, United Kingdom
I agree with this. I have just graduated and searching for work is a nightmare! I probably shouldn't have gone to university, I am certainly not in the top 10-15% of people. I went to university because a "careers advisor" told me it was the best option. He was wrong, he was onlt interested in "bums on seats". I was conned.
Captain Conservative, Dudley/Portsmouth, United Kingdom
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:10 GMT
11:10 UK
I graduated this year, so it won't affect my current loan I don't think (correct me if I am wrong!). I just picked the perfect year to be born didn't I, the first year group to have to pay £3,000 p/a for tuition fees and now my loan won't be frozen!
Captain Conservative, Dudley/Portsmouth, United Kingdom
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:09 GMT
11:09 UK
As an ordinary student, who did not receive any grants I don't see the problem about freezing the grants. It does make it unfair to those who can't afford to go to Uni without the maintenance grants, but if you really want to go, surely there will be a way to do so. I suppose it's a step back to the "old days" when university was for the rich and the gifted who could get scholarships, I guess it would reinstate the gravitas of the degree.
Stephanie Norris, Belfast
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 10:06 GMT
11:06 UK
Labour is moving right so fast that it will meet the Tories coming the other way. They can then merge under the name Obscurity.
Chris Downing, Rothwell, United Kingdom
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 09:46 GMT
10:46 UK
Getting rid of mandatory grants, and encouraging any idiot to go to university, has had a disastrous effect on the universities and the country. In spite of government assurances, poorer people now tend not to go to university and hundreds of thousands of students are leaving university with tons of debt and a useless degree with no value in the jobs market. We need to get back to where we were before those halfwits, Major and then Blair, wrecked a fantastic system of tertiary education.
Tom, Exeter
|
Added:
Friday, 3 July, 2009, 09:45 GMT
10:45 UK
Even in the 'boom' times, there were never enough graduate jobs to go round (6 months after graduation, a third were in non- graduate jobs) and even if there had been, this wouldn't have altered the normal distribution of academic ability.
The whole expansion was a con to get young people off the unemployment figures at their own expense. Socialists just don’t understand that we can’t all be ‘equal’ in every regard.
Dan Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
|
|
This Have Your Say is
CLOSED
DEBATE STATUS
Total comments: 354
Published comments: 331
Rejected comments: 23
From Have Your Say
|
News and analysis
