ConDem Regime Prefers War over Education
The ConDem regime has put aside more money for the Afghanistan war than for university education for British kids, and the new increase in tuition fees means that our youth face the highest cost of education in the world.
According to an analysis of the cost of the Afghanistan war published last year, the direct military cost of that conflict was in excess of £12 billion.In the spending review cuts announced by Chancellor George Osborne, the higher education budget was cut from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion.
The practical effect of this cut has now come home to roost. Universities have been granted the right to unilaterally increase tuition fees up to £9,000 per year. Fees are currently £3,290 a year.
This means that 75 percent of students will see the cost of a university education rocket. The hardest hit will be the middle classes, who will pay up to six times more for a degree than before.
The increase in fees means that British kids will now be saddled with a personal liability which is the highest individual education debt in the world.
Furthermore, the total bill, plus interest, will dog young people for most of their working lives, with many paying off the fees well into their 50s, an analysis has shown.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), universities would be free to charge less than £6,000 a year, but are extremely unlikely to do so as on average, they would need to charge £7,000 a year just to replace the lost income from teaching grants.
“Overall, the total amount of upfront support is more generous than the Browne recommendations for student with household incomes below £37,500, and less generous for students with household incomes above this,” the IFS report said.
In addition, changes to the way in which loan repayments are calculated will “significantly increase the administrative burden of applying for and administering loans,” the IFS continued.
“In particular, it is hard to justify why students from households with incomes of £42,600 should face larger debts than all other students doing similar priced courses,” that body concluded.
In real terms, the ConDem budget cuts will mean that undergraduates will be saddled with debts of up to £43,500 each, which will rise far higher with interest charges over the years.
For example, a graduate with a debt of £30,000 who goes on to earn in excess of £45,000 will have to pay back more than £2,000 every year for 30 years, while a sliding scale based on income will apply to graduates earning less.
This means that most will be repaying debt well into their well into their 50s.
Meanwhile, other figures show the £12 billion spent on the war in Afghanistan does not include the nearly £1 billion spent in foreign aid given to Afghanistan to “rebuild” that nation after it was destroyed by the Labour-Tory warmongers in the first place.
Other hidden costs of the war include support for injured troops, veterans and the families of soldiers killed in action. Figures from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) show an increase in claims from £1.27 million in 2001 to £30.2 million in 2008.
The awards come with further "guaranteed income payments" which will cost a further £100 million.
