Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Why don't the Government treat Undergraduates like the adults they are?

Errr has the Institute for Public Policy Research gone insane? Apparently they are recommending student loans be means-tested and not given to someone with rich parents. Instinctive reaction? Errr it's a loan not a grant. It is not free money and the student/graduate is the named responsible person for paying it back, why should the amount of money their parents earn or have have anything to do with it?

Just because someone has rich parents it doesn't follow that they're good parents willing to shell out the cost of University. What's more, the undergraduates are 18 year olds. They are adults. They can drink, smoke, vote, shag and die for their country. Yet for IPPR they wouldn't be able to take out a loan if they had rich parents?

Of course, if they wait until they're 26 they'll be mature students and the amount of money their parents have won't matter. So how does that one work? Why is it that if you're an adult and still young, but not quite young enough, the amount of money your parents have will define whether you can get a loan to pay for a degree?

In fairness to IPPR, they have also suggested another way. Multiple interest rates depending on what your parents have. So you'll stil get a loan, but you as an adult would be punitively punished based on things you have never had a control over and are not responsible for. Talk about stifling aspiration.

One would hope that the Government will treat such an idea with the absolute disdain it deserves, but their statement about the fees review doesn't comment on the idea at all, so I would expect some sort of punishment for young adult voters parent's wealth to be included.

No comments: