Tag Archives: student debt

David Thorpe

The economic consequences of tuition fees 

By David Thorpe | Mon 27th July 2015 - 2:36 pm

 

Volumes have been written on this site and elsewhere about the political, moral and social impacts of the coalition government increasing tuition fees in the last parliament.

I do not propose to rekindle that debate, but rather to examine the emerging, and potentially very long-term economic consequences of tuition fees.

Whilst the UK economic recovery started to gain a genuine depth, public policy makers and private sector market participants alike commented on both the narrowness of the recovery (the rate of growth being pedestrian for an economy exiting recession), the lack of wage growth, the subdued level of capital investment and lack of productivity growth.

Some of those metrics, notably wages, have shown improvement more recently, whilst demographic changes and the impact of quantitative easing on asset prices carry much of the blame for some of the other structural ills that have haunted this economic recovery.

But it is the contention of this article that the tuition fee rise has had a direct impact on the progress of the UK economy in recent years and will continue to do so in two distinct ways.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 89 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Mohammed Amin
    I agree with David Vigar. While parts of the media have always had poor editorial standards. Conversely the BBC used to be quite good, but has declined signi...
  • James Lloyd
    The current set up of counties isn't going to work for large scale devolution of power. The 1974 compromises have left places like here in Greater Manchester cu...
  • Peter Martin
    "......England’s new territorial governments should have powers comparable in seriousness to Scotland and Wales. " Has anyone asked the elector...
  • Tim
    300 MPs is not enough if ministers will mainly be MPs as now...
  • Peter Davies
    We should start by asking "What powers should the state (at any level) be exercising and at what level can they be taken democratically by a body covering all t...