UK university tuition fees may double
(The Guardian): The business secretary, Vince Cable, is struggling to stem the first serious revolt within the Liberal Democrat party since the formation of the coalition after he backed a doubling of university tuition fees. Cable told the Commons that he endorsed the "main thrust" of Lord Browne’s review of tuition fees, published earlier in the day. In doing so, Cable reneged on an election promise to abolish tuition fees – a promise made by all Liberal Democrat MPs. Browne’s recommendations mean that tuition fees could double from the autumn of 2012, and even go higher to as much as £12,000. Browne said there should be no formal cap, but he expected the average cost of fees to be £6,000 a year.
Category: World News
Seems to me that all (at least tax paying countries) should be striving to make all education cheaper or even free (an entitled human right).
It’s certainly more cost effective than what we all spend on housing prisoners and paying out other social services that are either directly or indirectly connected to a lack of education or hope to ever afford one!
The Cayman Government is under an absolute legal obligation to provide free primary and secondary obligation to all children. It is in breach of that.
Wrong. The Bill of Rights hasn’t come into effect yet, but even when it does in 2012 the right to education is an ASPIRATIONAL right.
From section 20 of the Constitutional Order 2009:
(2) Government shall seek reasonably to achieve the progressive realisation, within available resources, of providing every child with primary and secondary education which shall, subject to subsection (3), be free.
(3) Every person who is the parent or legal guardian of a child shall be entitled to have his or her child (of whatever age) educated, at his or her own expense unless a law otherwise provides, in a private school (that is to say, a school other than one established by a public authority) and, in such a school, to ensure the religious and moral education of his or her child in accordance with his or her own convictions.
The writer was probably referring to the obligations of the CIG under the ECHR. The Constitution is an irrelevance. The Constitution as a piece of UK secondary legislation, cannot provide less rights than those guaranteed by the ECHR, it can only "gold-plate" ie provide greater rights.
The obligations in Cayman are the same as the obligations set out in the Lord Grey case.
All that hot air about a "Caymanised Bill of Rights"? All puff and no substance.
Lord Browne seems to be as resilient as some of our own politicians.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/downfall-bp-boss-quits-after-lying-to-protect-his-privacy-447085.html
And people wonder why we keep sending the same crooks back to the LA. I can hardly wait until we get to erect another statue in Heroes Square to Lord XXX of Turtle Bogue.
Cambridge $9,000 per year (3 year honours degree)
University of Tampa (apparently there is one) $22,000 per year (4 year honours degree).
Where is the value for money for Cayman Government spending? Even with the new charges you would still get a Cambridge degree for $5000 more than one year in Tampa.
Americans don’t really care that Brits haven’t heard of the University of Tampa, but you really ought to make your comparison to Berkeley or Columbia, to name a few.
No, you missed the point. The Cayman government is wasting money funding students to go to institutions which are very low in the US rankings when it would be far cheaper for students to undertake better tertiary eduction in the UK.
Born with silver spoon up their a$$
Really? Lord Browne was born to a Hungarian Auschwitz survivor and a Britosh Army officer.
Lots of silver spoon stuff there, are you for real? You think Auschwitz camp was the place to be seen for the rich and famous in the 1940’s?
If those are the true facts, I apologize for my comment about Mr. Browne. Not withstanding the fact that there is no place in modern society to have designations such as these. They are a throw-back.
That silver spoon has had a lot of company over the years.
Yikes!
My UK university fees were £7,300 per year – some of my UK friends’ "fees" (book costs) were as little as £72.00 … per year!!
I am not wishing extra expense on anyone – but the great protests and near riots in the UK a few years ago in regards to university top up fees was a bit uncalled for in my opinion.
Try your luck at securing a tertiary education for $1,200 per year anywhere this side of the Atlantic.
However, this is nothing but the usual progression of newly introduced changes – the grand plan slowly but surely makes it way down the pipeline.
Regardless – the UK has enjoyed decades of next to FREE tertiary education where other advanced societies (USA) were / are averaging between $25,000 – $50,000 in annual costs.
The costs to the British government for education must be astronomical – surely the British public will be wiling to give a little in this regard.
"…surely the British public will be wiling to give a little in this regard."
We already do – that’s why we pay both direct taxes on our income, and indirect taxes in everything else we do. The taxes pay for our education (amongst other things). It is by no means the free ride that you are suggesting, otherwise my parents would have been able to afford to send me to University – and many of us couldn’t/can’t afford this luxury.
I understand your point however there still remains a substantial difference between (circa) "free" vs. "£7,300".
Granted those are / were the rates for overseas students but in regards to your argument relating to taxation – what about the USA?
The average university costs for a tax paying American student / family in America is $27,000.
I’m sorry but I never quite saw eye to eye with the British public (those that opposed the changes) on this issue.
Regardless, I guess he who feels it knows it.
Being a Caymanian I had no choice but to feel it no matter the choice.
Actually most British tax payers wonder why they are subsidising Caymanian children attending British universities, when their parents have never paid anything in taxes to GB. Yep Caymanians get a nice overseas cheaper rate.
Now an British expat who could have been paying British taxes for years and now lives in Cayman has to pay the full rate to send his kids to a British university.
And still you hate the British now matter how many perks they give you.
But I suppose you feel entitled to it after all compared to most British you are born with a silver spoon at your beg and call
Not in a fighting mood today so I will ignore the snide remarks.
All I am saying is that the British really should begin to accept that the notion of a government sponsored tertiary education (especially when considering the potential improvement in quality of life thereafter) is a thing of yesteryear.
Even if these proposals do come to pass Brits are still privy to a very good education for a lower than average price.
When viewed in the grander scheme of things … it is not that bad a deal.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Hey the UK is the "mother" country. The Cayman Islands are her "children". A mother is responsible to take care of her children – even when they are rude and ungrateful.
All these US numbers being quoted are way off. In-state tuition is much, much less at most state universities. Private universities are admittedly higher. Wonder why so many go there instead of Cambridge. Possibly for the same reason most people don’t go to harvard.
Lord. Baron. No offence to my British friends, but every time I see these words I want to be sick. What on earth are we doing with Lords and Barons in the 21st century?
Where were these people, so concerned with the state of finance, when banks were being given millions of Pounds of the PUBLIC’S funds… in order to bail them out of their own mess???? But the spin was it was for the country’s own good. You can now bet that bankers’ sons and daughters will afford higher education.
And now this latest insult. "Lord" Browne’s proposal is to make university and college education obtainable to only the wealthy? The "aristocracy"?? These high falutin’ poofs are obviously completely out of touch with what makes a country democratic, and where progress and innovation comes from. Born with silver spoon up their a$$. When people have to undergo crushing debt in order to further their educational goals the bar and indeed the social bar is lowered. To the degree where a caste system is created and the same absurd idea of an elite and the "working class" are perpetrated. But maybe that’s the whole point. Keep people in their place.
Born with silver spoon up their a$$
Really? Lord Browne was born to a Hungarian Auschwitz survivor and a Britosh Army officer.
Lots of silver spoon stuff there, are you for real? You think Auschwitz camp was the place to be seen for the rich and famous in the 1940’s?
Lord Browne was given the peerage in 2004
you against people trying to impove their lives?