Some time ago, the British government decided that students should not only be able to attend college free of charge, but they should be paid to do so by taxpayers. That was the fabled “student grant.” Just before I went to University, the Thatcher government decided the grant was a luxury Britain could no long afford and cut the grant for most middle class families. I got one year of a very reduced grant and then nothing thereafter. I left university with a bank overdraft of around GBP 1,000. That was around standard at the time. There were no riots when this happened.
The Labour government of 1997 to 2010 realized that the continued taxpayer-only funding of higher education was harming Britain and British students. It therefore rejigged funding arrangements so that students would start to pay for part of their education, up to GBP 3,000 a year. Students grumbled but a high-level review found that this investment had not deterred people from going to college. There were no riots.
Now, the British government has decided that, in order to ensure adequate funding for higher education, college students should make a higher contribution to their own education of up to GBP 9,000 a year. This time, there are riots. Organized student protests have repeatedly turned violent.
The fees will continue to be subsidized by the British taxpayer. Loans would come from the government and be paid back on extraordinarily generous terms. The interest rate is just 3% plus inflation for the highest earners after graduation. Low earners will have no interest charge and have to pay back a much lower proportion of their loan each month than higher earners.
The riots are happening right outside Parliament in a clear attempt to intimidate – not influence – the voting process on the proposal. What makes the vote interesting is that Liberal Democrat members of the Coalition government had previously opposed tuition fee rises, despite their supposed belief in the free market. This has placed Liberal Democrat ministers in a highly embarrassing position.
The protesters are as unafraid of using hyperbole as they are of using violence. Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal tweeted that one leader said that there would be no arts or humanities students left in Britain as a result of these changes (Martin added the hashtag #undergraduatenonsense).
It is unfortunate that no-one in the British government seems to have the courage to stand up and say what is really happening. These students are rioting in order to force British taxpayers to pay for their education. One policeman has just been taken to the hospital with a serious neck injury. The rioters want him to pay for their education too.
The vote on tuition fees is a clear test of the strength of liberty in the UK. If Parliament passes the bill, a degree of freedom and responsibility will be added to the lives of millions. If, however, the Liberal Democrats give in to the violence and rebel on the vote, it will be a signal that Britain still believes that taxing middle-income people now to subsidize the process of making other people wealthy in the future is a good idea. Because at the moment, British education is a steal, in every sense of the word.
