College fees?

[Gary]

I, personally think that they should be re-introduced. I think that there are far too many wasters going to 3rd level in recent years because it is free. I lived with a few of them when in LIT, they never went in and said that College is jsut another way of skiving off work for a few years. They had no interest in education whatsoever.

I have the same problems with the grant. It sickens me to see those osshale students protesdting that the Givt doesnt give them enough beer money. Its ridiculous. Back when i were a lad the grant would come in and they be all off into town to buy new clothes/cds etc. then go on the ran tan later on. Its crazy. If the grant is to be given out, well then it should be done in a voucher fashion ie €xxx per month for food, €xxx for accomadation etc. That way the govt is not being ripped off, as they know the monies are being used correctly.


Now going back to the fees issue, those of you who know me will say Pot, Kettle and Black. But it is for that reason that i think it should be done this way. Perhaps if parents of 3rd level goers were given tax relief or something would help.


its not often i agree with a Fianna fail issue, but thsi time they have it bang on.

[SÓC]

..if fees are to be re-introduced then the government must try to ensure that the money they recoup is reinvested into education, only 2/10 working class leaving cert student go on to college where as 9/10 middleclass do so. That imbalance should be readdress.

The best way to go about it would be a loan system that you repay when you start earning.

Agree 100% about the grant, feicin throwing away money. While they're at it why not abolish the students union another waste of funds.

[Gary]

Originally posted by SÓCcfc
[B
Agree 100% about the grant, feicin throwing away money. While they're at it why not abolish the students union another waste of funds. [/B]

Dont get me started on those wunkers. Su's all over the countray are cliques. I should know, i was kinda part of the LIT one. It was a farce.

[patsh]

Well I know of 15 people who have gained, or are pursuing, degrees purely because there were no fees to be paid.
If there were fees, they would never have gone to college.
9 of them paid taxes for a few years, keeping the sons and daughters of all those poor householders in Douglas, Blackrock and Rochestown, and those impecunious farmers offspring in UCC.
Those 9 people are now contributing even more tax now, can afford cars, spend a lot more money than they could have before and all from the better jobs they have obtained because of their degree.
It's not a perfect system, but it has helped a fair few people enormously.

[A face]

Originally posted by oddboy
Well I know of 15 people who have gained, or are pursuing, degrees purely because there were no fees to be paid.
If there were fees, they would never have gone to college.
9 of them paid taxes for a few years, keeping the sons and daughters of all those poor householders in Douglas, Blackrock and Rochestown, and those impecunious farmers offspring in UCC.
Those 9 people are now contributing even more tax now, can afford cars, spend a lot more money than they could have before and all from the better jobs they have obtained because of their degree.
It's not a perfect system, but it has helped a fair few people enormously.

I would agree with that oddboy. You cant generalise like that GWA, that is mad. You go to college to better yourself and to get a better job. By and large that is what happens ... you cant call all students spongers. Just because someone goes to college that doesn't mean that you end up on the p!ss every night, washed up in a tide of empty beers cans every night, skip college the next day only to do it all again. Be fair before critising.

Anyway ... what do you say to someone who have started college in the knowledge that there are no fees, and are now faced with them a few years down the line. they have kids and morgage and other bills and didn't budjet for fees. Will the "ah sure thats tough shít, we dont care" card do for them now aswell.

And as few people have said .... what about the people who have had a chance to go to college because there were no fees where if there had been fees they wouldn't have. No fees were introduced to combat the two terre society that was evolving in Ireland as regards college courses etc.

Maybe if the colleges tighten up a bit themselves !! Infact most of the people employed by the state get away with murder and dont risk losing their jobs as a result of it. Maybe that is where the problem is. I see that first hand myself everyday and have a few stories on the same note aswell. "Students getting away with murder" .... you should look at the whole picture before judging.

[sadloserkid]

No, no, no a million times over. Deliberately trying to price college out reach of both working and lower middle class to keep the services industry afloat is just bloody sick and can't be tolerated.

Though I see that Noel Dempsey himself has voted for the middle option here!

[sadloserkid]

Originally posted by GWA
Dont get me started on those wunkers. Su's all over the countray are cliques. I should know, i was kinda part of the LIT one. It was a farce.

As somebody who was involved in an SU on a full-time basis for a year in Limerick allow me to add to the esteemed GWA's comments. Not all SU's are cliques. Off the top of my head NUIG comes to mind as having a good open SU. UCC seems to be ok as does DCU and our own here in Mary I. It's easier for us in a small college but in places like NUIG and UCC the student body is too big for every student to be on a first name basis and accordingly SU's tend to be run by the few who take an interest. When I was involved our big thing was just to get people to come into our office any time they had a problem. By and large they did and I had to deal with everything from pregnancy scares to students under threat of eviction for having a portable heater and just about everything in between...

On the other hand, anybody who was in LIT will justifiably have a negative perception of SU's because they tend to be the most corrupt in the country. Who can forget LITSU going bust and one of the then officers suddenly opening a webcafe? Or the current incumbent president who's no longer allowed to set foot on campus for reasons that I'm not 100% clear on though the rumour mill suggests gross fiddling on money and brandishing chairs as weapons towards faculty members. And they still elected this idiot for a second year running.

So anyway in conclusion, I hate SU wannabes and posers as much as any sane student but they're easily weeded out. Just do what we did a couple of years ago and run people against them for all the full-time postions!

[Xlex]

I have seen people sponge a grant for a (few) year(s) and then leave college with no qualification, if you don't finish the intended course then you should have to pay your grant beck in full...

[Macy]

This is total bull sh!t.... having come from a country that introduced loans and fees and reduced grants over many many years I can't object strongly enough about the introduction of fees....
You only have to look across the water and see how it has effected the numbers going to college from the working classes - it basically means that only the rich can afford to send their children to college......
Speaking from a personal point of view, I've come out of college with significant debts hanging over me, and in the current economic climate it's not like we're earning vast amounts of money to pay it back...
All the people saying that they now people that wasted their grant money and did fook all work - well there's plenty of people doing that in paid employment around the country - should they be docked wages/ have to pay them back????

FFS even the PD's are opposed to this....

[James]

i say reintroduce them
i'm out of college and wont have to pay them so drive on i reckon

[eoinh]

Originally posted by GWA
I, personally think that they should be re-introduced. I think that there are far too many wasters going to 3rd level in recent years because it is free. I lived with a few of them when in LIT, they never went in and said that College is jsut another way of skiving off work for a few years. They had no interest in education whatsoever.

When i went to College, it wasnt free, but you still got those type of people going anyway. Making parents pay (as usually happens) BTW wont make a difference. i have two brothers we're all one year older then the next one. At one stage all three of us were in UCC. That was some financial strain for my parents.
Education should be free, its a basic right.

What the govt is proposing now is daft. i read during the week that if they make only the very rich pay as they are suggesting at the moment it will nearly cost as much to administer a fee collecting scheme as the revenue they will get in. The only way they will get it to work is by taxing the very rich. The super-rich in this country usually pay their taxes abroad.
im not in favour of anyone paying for education on principle or health care for that matter.

[Macy]

Thin end of the wedge........ Once the principle of free 3rd level education is taken away, then it will slowly filter down the salary scale... In the UK there was a spell from 1987 - 1998 (I think) when Grants weren't nominally cut at all, but they weren't increased either so taking into account inflation they were effectivly being cut by the inflation rate each year (pretty much the ploy that is being used now in Government spending - staying at the same level is really a 5% cut!)....

Also, Conor, as you well know the socialist arguement would be to increase the income tax rather than (re)introduce another indirect tax.... Shocker that, FF introducing/ raising yet another indirect tax revenue stream

[shedite]

Originally posted by Xlex
if you don't finish the intended course then you should have to pay your grant beck in full...

Sound like a good idea.

I'm a first-year in college and am undecided still. I know people who will have to drop out of education and won't be able to get the jobs they want because of the fees being introduced.

Also know of one guy, who is living in a house that his deceased grandmother left him in the will (ie. no rent). He still gets the same grant as someone who was paying rent so when the grant came in, he went on the **** and booked a holiday. I had to work to get the money for the holiday. Sucked!

[patsh]

Originally posted by Conor74
All I'm saying is that it surely wouldn't harm if the upper classes had to pay.

Since when did the upper classes ever really pay for anything in this country?
McCreevy and Ahern certainly are not the people to break the habit of a lifetime and make them start paying now.....

As for mature students paying, 12 of the people I referred to already are mature students.
2 of those guys, even though they got fantastic points in their leaving, had given up on the idea of college, but the abolishment of fees gave them the chance they deserved, 5 and 6 years afterwards.

I am completely in favour of the rich paying all the time, but taxation is the method by which they should pay their share.
That is the issue that really needs addressing.

[pete]

Charlie McGreedy will probably slot in a loophole for company Directors, Horse Breeders & Bookies so that sort of rich folk are exempt from paying.

Free fees encourage wasters into college as witnessed by huge 1st year drop out numbers. If only the genuine rich were to pay be fine but me thinks they wouldn't set the threshold too high cos so few people included then not be worth their while.

One things for certain Bertie won't express any opinion on the issue & will his Minister (another potential leadership candidate with Mickey Martin who also in spot of bother) hang himself.

[sadloserkid]

Originally posted by pete
One things for certain Bertie won't express any opinion on the issue & will his Minister (another potential leadership candidate with Mickey Martin who also in spot of bother) hang himself.

Noel Dempsey? Has managed to alienate every third level student in the country and I can't see him taking over the reins of power any time soon to be honest... He is a particularly despisable variant on the 'FF Tosser species'.

[sadloserkid]

Originally posted by Conor74
Nonsense, Noel is a gentleman and a scholar...

On the whole, I may not like them, but GAA Boards are less anti-FF

That's because GAA fans are the kind of arch-conservative boors that the current FF 'leadership' appeals to.

And having met Noel I stand by my comments, he's a smarmy, dishonest crook with a moral code so loose and self-involved that even Charlie McC probably gasps in horror at times. When little slk started partaking in the democratic process just four odd short years ago he's now ashamed to say that he voted FF. Never again though. Never again.

[patsh]

Originally posted by sadloserkid
Noel Dempsey? ........... He is a particularly despisable variant on the 'FF Tosser species'.

He is a strange one, all right.
At times, he does seem to have convictions and a desire to get things done and it seems his natural "fit" would be in the Labour party, but the fact that he has put up with being shafted by Ahern, has a "country & western" support group and readily agreed to implement so many PD policies makes me think that he is someone to be very wary of.

I found his speech the other night laughable in the extreme, especially when he started on about disadvantage in education.
I did not hear a peep from Dempsey when the cabinet he sits in, fought tooth and nail through the courts to prevent autistic children from getting a proper education.

[sadloserkid]

He's a floater, it's all about Noel with him, he's pushing his own agenda and he has just enough charisma to get away with being fundamentally useless. I'm not gonna say that the whole cabinet are crap, thre's a couple of minor lackeys in less important jobs with names I can't remember but Noel would be one of the first for the chop if I was mysteriously and suddenly granted supreme power.

[sadloserkid]

Originally posted by Conor74
Generalisations about the GAA and FF. That's about 95% of the population covered there, SLK!!

I met Noel too, and one or two of his brothers, and while I respect your opinion on fee paying etc. I must point out that I found him to be good craic and easy going. You should hang out at an Ard Fheis or two...

The generalisation was hardly meant to be taken at face value Conor though with hindsight it probably could be!

As for Noel... you'd brake if he was lying face down in front of you on the road and I wouldn't. So be it. I think we can agree to disagree!

There's even a chance we might be able to continue our discussion tonight because I may be be heading down for the Cork-Shels match if my lift holds up.