5 ms·

All of those things act like any other tax. That's all it is, a tax you may one day stop paying. A mortgage is dependent on your ability to repay, i.e. your net

by cmdkeen 12y ago

All of those things act like any other tax. That's all it is, a tax you may one day stop paying. A mortgage is dependent on your ability to repay, i.e. your net income, if the income tax rate went up then mortgage companies would also reduce the amount they would lend you. The alternatives are either a graduate tax - which has all of the issues you mention, except you never stop paying it, so potentially pay far more than the cost of your education - or general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree.

toyg 12y ago
> general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree. That's a nice story, but it doesn't tally with the other story about UK tax revenues being overwhelmingly provided by well-off people. So which is which? General taxation is not a bogeyman, if done fairly. If a poor person had to pay 1p per year to send a poor kid to university, with the other £8,999.99 being paid by a well-off person, I don't think the poor would have a problem with it... would you?
- lucio 12y ago
  Counter example: There are 8000 poor persons paying 1p and 10 well-of paying 100 for his kids to go to university. None of the 8000 poor people has kids in univ.
  - jahewson 12y ago
    Sorry, but no. We know that there is 40% attendance at university, so 3,194 of the less well-off people would have kids who attend.
    - sanderjd 12y ago
      Ignoring the made-up numbers, that means that 60% of people are contributing to the education of that 40%, unless those 60% of people are exempted from a certain kind of tax that the 40% have to pay, which is exactly what the thread starter was calling a "graduate tax".
      - toyg 12y ago
        > that means that 60% of people are contributing to the education of that 40% ... and? These are the future business and political leaders of their country. Don't they have an interest in educating them properly, so that they'll be ruled by competent people? Besides, some of them will have been "poor people" who managed to squeeze into that 40%. We are not talking about hypotheticals here: it happened in Britain for a while, just go check the life stories of droves of modern civil servant and politicians and you'll find people who made effective usage of their free education to better themselves and their country. This will inevitably happen less and less, now that poor families with smart kids are forced to take on 27k of debt - a deferred graduate tax which, being regressive (as all flat taxes are), is disproportionately affecting people from poorer backgrounds rather than well-off families (who, in the UK, are used to pay even more for pre-university education anyway -- for them it's just another drop in the water).
        sanderjd 12y ago
        I don't necessarily disagree with you, just pointing out that if only 40% of the tax base uses a service, then 60% of the tax base is helping pay for it without directly using it. The indirect effects of those contributions are definitely more interesting!
    - mhaymo 12y ago
      That's assuming that poor people attend university at the same rate as wealthy people, which is not and will never be true, even if fees are abolished, as poor people can't afford to postpone full-time work for 4 years.

by cmdkeen 12y ago

toyg 12y ago

> general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree. That's a nice story, but it doesn't tally with the other story about UK tax revenues being overwhelmingly provided by well-off people. So which is which? General taxation is not a bogeyman, if done fairly. If a poor person had to pay 1p per year to send a poor kid to university, with the other £8,999.99 being paid by a well-off person, I don't think the poor would have a problem with it... would you?

lucio 12y ago
Counter example: There are 8000 poor persons paying 1p and 10 well-of paying 100 for his kids to go to university. None of the 8000 poor people has kids in univ.
- jahewson 12y ago
  Sorry, but no. We know that there is 40% attendance at university, so 3,194 of the less well-off people would have kids who attend.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    Ignoring the made-up numbers, that means that 60% of people are contributing to the education of that 40%, unless those 60% of people are exempted from a certain kind of tax that the 40% have to pay, which is exactly what the thread starter was calling a "graduate tax".
    - toyg 12y ago
      > that means that 60% of people are contributing to the education of that 40% ... and? These are the future business and political leaders of their country. Don't they have an interest in educating them properly, so that they'll be ruled by competent people? Besides, some of them will have been "poor people" who managed to squeeze into that 40%. We are not talking about hypotheticals here: it happened in Britain for a while, just go check the life stories of droves of modern civil servant and politicians and you'll find people who made effective usage of their free education to better themselves and their country. This will inevitably happen less and less, now that poor families with smart kids are forced to take on 27k of debt - a deferred graduate tax which, being regressive (as all flat taxes are), is disproportionately affecting people from poorer backgrounds rather than well-off families (who, in the UK, are used to pay even more for pre-university education anyway -- for them it's just another drop in the water).
      - sanderjd 12y ago
        I don't necessarily disagree with you, just pointing out that if only 40% of the tax base uses a service, then 60% of the tax base is helping pay for it without directly using it. The indirect effects of those contributions are definitely more interesting!
  - mhaymo 12y ago
    That's assuming that poor people attend university at the same rate as wealthy people, which is not and will never be true, even if fees are abolished, as poor people can't afford to postpone full-time work for 4 years.