Should third level education be entirely free? - NO

Blissett
Ógra Shinn Féin

The first thing that must be stated on this issue is why it has arisen. The reason is that it has become perfectly clear that Irish Universities need more funding. With Irish funding levels amongst the lowest in the OECD, all sides are agreed that there is a problem that needs dealing with.

There is clearly an enormous funding hole here. So what’s to be done? The typical SF kneejerk reaction was ‘pay for it all through a progressive taxation system’. Which is very nice. But not living in the real world.

The reality is that at this moment in time we are having enough trouble paying for our ordinary public services at this moment in time, without having to think of such an exceptionally dear one as this.



Why is this different from other public services, such as secondary schools, or hospitals? Because no other public service can confer on the beneficiary such a financial advantage that university education does.

University graduates tend to earn significantly more than those who do not attend, possibly as much as 60%.

But indeed, we may as well have a look at this almost prohibitively expensive status quo. We seem to be willing to make great efforts to preserve this status quo, without ever questioning what the status quo has brought us. So what has it brought us?

I put it to you, that the abolition of third level fees has achieved nothing, save a boom in private education, and the entrenchment of educational privilege. With no fees to pay the middle classes have used that money to send their little darlings to grind schools and private schools with little educational ethos.

There only concern is points and profit, and a full rounded education is the least of their worries. Yet these schools have boomed like never before. Is this really what we want?

Then what is the alternative?

Batt O’Keeffe’s proposals? Lump sum tuition fees are always undesirable, as evidenced by the American model. Even the possibility of debt is toxic for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and this is exacerbated by trying to survive on a tight budget.

So if not tuition fees, then how do we pay for third level education.

Perhaps we ought to look at a graduate tax model. A similar model already exists in Australia, which has one of the highest standards of third level education in the world.
There are a number of ways to do this.

Fine Gael last weekend proposed an increase in PRSI (26 county national insurance tax, basically) after exceeding a certain level of income.

Although I welcome this unusually wealth distributive attitude from Fine Gael (after all, the wealthy have benefitted most from the abolition), I disagree with this model as there is no guarantee that this money would be ring fenced for third level education, which is essential.

In my opinion the best way to finance third level education would be an entirely new tax, of which the third level institutes would be the sole beneficiaries, which university graduates would pay once their income exceeds, roughly, 32,000 at a low rate over twenty years.

At no point is this likely to create hardship for the graduate.

Based on the basic premise that those who benefit from a service ought to pay for it, how can anyone honestly object to a graduate tax? The advantages are enormous for graduates, and the idea that the huge cost of this should be inflicted on the ordinary taxpayer who doesn’t benefit, is daft.

Why should a plasterer pay for the education of millionaire’s children?

With this model the strain would be removed from parents entirely, and those who benefit would pay, and anyone could attend university without fear or debt, and without the same cost to the exchequer.

Or if you like we can keep subsidising privilege. The choice is yours.