Simon Jenkins recent article in Timesonline http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3223-2320577.html argues that there is no good reason for universities not to be charging the full fees to all students. Jenkins highlights the numerous virtues of this, namely weeding out the time wasters, increasing the funding to halt university decline, and ending what is in effect a middle class subsidy.

Whilst all this has its merits and indeed imposing full fees may alert the less studious to value their education more than hitherto, there are other down-sides, namely, accelerating the commodification of university education. Anyone faced with repaying between £27,000 - £45,000 on graduation will perhaps be forgiven for single mindedly pursuing those subject areas which provide the greatest advantage and renumeration in the labour market at the expense (and perhaps decline) of other worthy subjects.
Anyone who has spent any time in Aisa for instance can not help but notice that there are few philosophy graduates, or literature, history or arts graduates, rather there are inordinate numbers of buisness and management schools along with the expected focus on hard sciences. Do not the arts, literature and philosophical thinking also benefit society, no more when we leave the office and working routine behind, and allow ourselves to contemplate, think and imagine beyond the constraints of narrow instrumental reason and economic rationality?

I think that universities charging full fees would discourage the malingerers and party people surviving on the bare minimum educational effort, but there would also be some hefty downsides and ultimately one which risked impoverishing not only the HE sector but wider society.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 15th, 2006 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Money, Fees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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