Students

[xoggoth]

We keep hearing about the problems of an ageing population but is there a problem at the other end of working life too? Far too many are delaying any payment to the pension pot because they are in adult education when there is of no benefit to the UK and not even any benefit to themselves.

BBC News - Students could be paying loans into their 50s - report

Is it time to ditch the lefty idea that further education is a right and instead fully subsidise the able who pursue courses in skills that the UK needs?


PS Yeh, I know the government would probably be crap at defining what we needed.

 

[VectraMan]

I thought we had ditched the lefty idea of further education being a right. Hence the having to pay for it?

 

[The Spartan]

I thought we had ditched the lefty idea of further education being a right. Hence the having to pay for it?

I'm not sure how it works but wasn't there an article a week or two back about how they're failing to recover student loans?

 

[Mich the Tester]

We keep hearing about the problems of an ageing population but is there a problem at the other end of working life too? Far too many are delaying any payment to the pension pot because they are in adult education when there is of no benefit to the UK and not even any benefit to themselves.

BBC News - Students could be paying loans into their 50s - report

Is it time to ditch the lefty idea that further education is a right and instead fully subsidise the able who pursue courses in skills that the UK needs?


PS Yeh, I know the government would probably be crap at defining what we needed.

This is an important point that seems to be missing in all discussions of how to pay for rising pension costs and the like. People are starting work later and later, perhaps because they feel that they don't stand a chance without higher/further education, and thereby contributing for a shorter time. Now the theory would go that a more educated workforce is mroe productive, and the productivity gains will offset the few years before working, but I wonder if it really works that way. There are ways to educate and train most people without them being in full time education until their early 20s and so part time education might be part of the solution. Speaking personally, I went to Poly and studied something I found, and still find interesting, but the applicability in the workplace is not all that great and I actually did half the course part time and worked. Not to say that what worked for me will work for everyone, but perhaps it's time to ditch the standard idea of full time schoolroom education in favour of more flexible options for most people. What's wrong with getting qualified at 25 instead of 21? I'd make an exception for the sciences or serious arts studies where the ' intellectual hothouse' can lead to greater academic achievement, but for most studies or vocational courses that doesn't seem to me to be necessary.

It would need a change in mindset from parents AND employers though, and that isn't easily achieved, but perhaps necessity will be the parent of innovation.

 

[ZARDOZ]

We keep hearing about the problems of an ageing population but is there a problem at the other end of working life too? Far too many are delaying any payment to the pension pot because they are in adult education when there is of no benefit to the UK and not even any benefit to themselves.

BBC News - Students could be paying loans into their 50s - report

Is it time to ditch the lefty idea that further education is a right and instead fully subsidise the able who pursue courses in skills that the UK needs?


PS Yeh, I know the government would probably be crap at defining what we needed.

You have to wonder when many families are paid several hundred pounds per week to effectively sit on their arse we can't pay to put young people through sensible uni or technical courses. Especially when we can afford to pay for the overseas families of recent arrivals on demand.

 

[darmstadt]

I'm not sure how it works but wasn't there an article a week or two back about how they're failing to recover student loans?

I do know that the government have plans to sell the debt off to private investors though...

 

[mudskipper]

It seems to me that:

Keeping youngsters in education for an extra 3-5 years reduces unemployment.
But keeping oldies working beyond their best before date increases unemployment.

Assuming there's a finite number of jobs, how is it cost effective to have people retiring later?

Surely it's cheaper to keep a pensioner, who is likely to have no mortgage and no dependants on benefits, than a young family?

 

[eek]

1 problem is that all the universities that expanded rapidly in the 1990s are not run directly by Government. Hence its up supply and demand to eventually push tulip universities into bankruptcy....

 

[The Spartan]

Surely it's cheaper to keep a pensioner, who is likely to have no mortgage and no dependants on benefits, than a young family?

Now that makes far too much sense

 

[MicrosoftBob]

It seems to me that:

Keeping youngsters in education for an extra 3-5 years reduces unemployment.
But keeping oldies working beyond their best before date increases unemployment.

Assuming there's a finite number of jobs, how is it cost effective to have people retiring later?

Surely it's cheaper to keep a pensioner, who is likely to have no mortgage and no dependants on benefits, than a young family?

Whoever thought it up probably didn't realise about the implications of the next generation retiring with smaller pensions or relying on the state pension entirely. Once the BTL generation has gone, older people are going to be a bigger drain on the state