In response to letters published on 6 November (Let’s have perspective in tuition fees debate), if Michael Meadowcroft believes the only thing that is onerous about tuition fees is the psychological burden, maybe he would like to donate 9% of his salary above £25,000 to the Student Loans Company in lieu of any degree he might have benefited from? And continue to do this for 30 years. All those who think it is good value might contemplate how they’d feel about paying that additional 9%.
Likewise, Peter Howard – who says it is right and fair that those who benefit from having a degree should pay the costs of providing that benefit – might consider chipping in an extra 9% to the public purse if he, too, is a past beneficiary? But why stop there? If he thinks those who benefit should pay, does he think people who have children should pay more tax for the schools, benefits and healthcare their children need? Why should childless people pay if they don’t benefit? Should the elderly, being the beneficiaries, pay for all their care?
As a parent of two recent graduates, I am grateful to Danny Dorling for his consistently thoughtful and sympathetic contributions to the tuition fees debate.
Catherine Davies
Wolverhampton
• Peter Howard trotted out the usual non sequitur about tuition fees. He stated that “it is fair … that those who benefit [from higher education] should pay the costs”. But if they earn more, they will pay more – in taxes. And we all benefit from the services of qualified professionals. He doesn’t explain how it can be fair for an inner-city teacher or social worker to pay what is, in effect, an income tax surcharge when, say, an electrician or plumber who may be earning more has no such burden.
David W Golding
Associate, Institute for Sustainability, Newcastle University
• Your report (Bring back student maintenance grants, MPs’ report urges, 5 November) has a particular resonance for me. In 1925, my mother was a “dux girl” at her Ayrshire school; her headmaster pleaded with her widowed mother to allow her to go to Glasgow University, but she was needed to generate an income to support her two younger sisters.
At around the same time in Kent, my father had to abandon his job and his part-time engineering degree course due to severe early-onset macular degeneration. Their marriage in 1933 required my mother to retire from her civil service job (with a dowry!). Because of their difficult financial circumstances I received a full government grant in 1961, without which I would not have been able to go to university and subsequently pursue a fulfilling academic career.
By the time student loans replaced grants, I was, like my grandmother, a widowed mother, but financially able to support my son at university. Since he graduated in 2004, I have been aware of the financial burden many members of his generation are carrying into middle age and I realise how fortunate my generation was. The loan scheme and the burden it generates must discourage some from taking up places, taking us back to my mother’s situation almost a century ago. I would be happy for my pension to be taxed a little more to support the return of maintenance grants for the poorest students.
Emeritus Professor Gillian Morriss-Kay
Oxford
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