Cut fees to give Generation Debt a brighter future

Your report last week about Commons Treasury Committee chair Nicky Morgan questioning how much students pay in fees and Education Secretary Damian Hinds hinting that some could be cut prefaced a week in which the whole further education system came under scrutiny.

It’s only right that this happens. For all the criticism of the ‘snowflake’ generation, our youngsters have drawn a short straw, purely by the accident of being born at the end of the last century or the beginning of this. Never in living memory has a generation faced such cost to gain a tertiary education.

So, yes, of course we can’t see the majority of students beginning their working life saddled with tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of debt for ever more. Fees will have to come down. But at the same time the courses – and what purposes they fulfil – have to be examined.

We have to decide what we want our young to be educated in and how the system should be funded.

J. Benn, London

Only 58 per cent of people who graduated after 2010 feel their degree was good value for money, our research has shown. If we are to meet the skills needs of the digital economy and the aspirations of young people, our education system needs a radical shake-up. Better careers advice in schools should help young people make a balanced and realistic judgment between a range of high-quality options – not just traditional degrees but higher education delivered in FE colleges, accelerated, part-time and sandwich courses, as well as degree apprenticeships.

Olly Newton, Director of Policy and Research, Edge Foundation

Damian Hinds has ‘trailered’ a possible change to student fees, which would see so-called ‘lesser’ degrees, such as in the humanities and media studies, costing less than that of the much more demanding disciplines of science, medicine and engineering.

This is another case of muddled governmental logic, as the country is already short of doctors, engineers and scientists.

Gerry Doyle, Liverpool What is the purpose of university? It was meant to be an institution where a student would choose a subject for its interest and intrinsic value. They would pursue the study of that discipline, not only deepening and widening their knowledge but sharpening their critical skills through discussion and textual analysis, and widening their social horizons through contact with the wide variety of students on the campus and in the attached clubs.

Students once flocked to universities for learning for learning’s sake, but that attitude has been replaced by converting universities into factories to produce the workforce needed at the higher end of the jobs market.

Learning for the love of learning has been replaced by learning for the love of money. Denis Bruce, Glasgow