Why we compromised on tuition fees

Published: 19 November, 2010

• AS the father of two teenagers and of a younger child, all hoping to go to university or college, I’ve been following the debate over tuition fees closely. 

When I was a student, higher education was funded from general taxation but costs and student numbers have rocketed along with the general budget deficit so, sadly, those days are long gone. What we need to do now is to strike a balance between funding university education out of the taxes everyone pays and asking the people who benefit the most, university graduates themselves, to pay part of the cost.

Lib Dem policy going into the General Election, which I supported and campaigned for, was to strike that balance by phasing out tuition fees over six years. Unfortunately, because of the size of the government deficit one of the compromises Lib Dems have had to make has been to concede on this.

However, in return, we have ensured a fairer system of student loans that only requires graduates to contribute towards the cost of their education when they are earning more than £21,000 (compared to £15,000 now) and, even then, that tailors their payments according to their income. 

This means graduates who are in lower-paid jobs do not need to set aside as much as those with higher-paid jobs. 

This also means that higher education remains available to everyone, no matter how rich or poor their families are when they start their studies.

CLLR JOHN GILBERT 
Lib Dem, Highbury East