A graduate tax will prevent student debt

The call for free tertiary education can only be resolved by government. No university principal has the power or the wherewithal to do so (“Inequalities increase as fees rise”, October 21).

Providing more student loans does not seem to be a viable solution. Being in debt is not a propitious start to anyone’s career, and we know that there are graduates all over the country unable to find employment, yet still encumbered by debt.

Every person who has attended or graduated from a South African university, no matter how long ago, has benefited from government subsidy.

It seems to me that the most practical and just way to move on this issue is the imposition of a graduate’s tax: a small percentage addition to the assessed income tax of every graduate will enable the state to raise revenue for “free” education, and at the same time ensure that those graduates who are unemployed or earning too little to incur income tax at all are not put under pressure.

Perhaps the amount recovered could be calculated according to the number of years the graduates spent at South African universities. Having benefited from government subsidies ourselves, we should not be averse to extending such benefits to younger generations.

The chief difficulty would be ensuring that government uses the revenue so raised for this purpose and no other, but it is surely not an insuperable one. —