Higher Education Funding And Debt

EDM number 436 in 2003-04, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 15/01/2004.

That this House expresses concern that so many of those that occupy the front benches of this House would not necessarily be there had their entry to the elite universities which trained them been inhibited by a need to start their careers carrying debt burdens of up to ú30,000 at todays prices, to cover the costs of their education; believes that, even if they had been able to bear such a burden, it would have committed them to a miserable treadmill of debt rather than the enjoyment and excitement of politics; suggests therefore, that Ministers should not only bear this in mind but assess the advantages they had in coming from comfortable backgrounds and elite universities, compared to the burdens they are proposing to impose on successor generations; adds the philosophical insight that anyone who imposes a whole new system of fees on that successor generation with no Plan B, and no reverse gear, while continuously patching their plans up as they go along, has hardly benefited from whatever wisdom their university education was intended to inculcate; and suggests that such wisdom might have encouraged them to contemplate making their own contribution to the education of this successor generation by paying a graduate tax, thus enabling the universities to get more money more quickly as well as giving young graduates a happier and better start in life.

This motion has been signed by a total of 13 MPs.