Mmm while I agree with the sentiment I do think your figures are a bit off.

To be honest, Damo's attitude comes across more as turning down a job because he feels it is beneath him, rather than him being unable to do it, due to any physical problem.....This is probably something that is probably quite common among younger folk leaving education with their 'qualifications' under their arms.

First of all people who've 'suffered' from my outbursts should to learn to move the hell on. I have since apologized for my behavior on here in the past but certain people won't accept an apology.

When I hit myself with a brick - it was fake - I'm good actor.

The whole stealing a sink from a pub episode was a joke as well. It was a joke from my comedy blog which wasn't reality.

When I was banned, I was only banned from the sinbin and that ban was between me and Mintball. I have never been banned from any other forum on here and I was still active on southstander during my sinbin absence. It seems that certain people's hatred of me grew when I left. Well I can't please everyone and I don't intend to.

Tuition fees should be in place, it shouldn't be for the taxpayer to foot the bill and let us get a bigger and bigger deficit all the time.

The Tory government under John Major made all the ex polytechnics into universities as part of the "prizes for all" mentality that the tories tried to breed, but they thought the taxpayer should pay for it. In the end Blair recognised reality and had to take the unpopular decisions, that of course now the Tories support.

30 million people were convinced to go to university? Wow.

I said 50% were convinced that they "should" go to Uni, not that amount would actually go.

The problem isn't going to university the problem was New Labour convinced lower classes that it was right for them to go to university.

In the 1980s you got a state grant to go but it was generally people well bred that went to university and we were doing proper subjects like Ancient History and Classics, or as we called it at Oxford "Literae Humaniores". These were courses that taught you important things and more importantly they told you how to think, and this has served us in good stead in our jobs in the City, at the top of industry and the Civil Service, leading the country.

Then came Blair and his well meaning leftist chums who wanted every ruffian from a comprehensive to go to university and do what I would call a Mickey Mouse course.

I have to think back to the wise words of Dr Hendrik Verwoerd in South Africa, the "high priest of Apartheid" who when passing the Bantu education act said "The Bantu child should be taught from a young age that equality with the white man is not for him". A bit non pc for the modern age but I think we would be wise to remember again that university isn't for everyone, just for the elite, a lot of people, especially from the working class rugby league communities that frequent these forums, just aren't meant for it.

The issue with tuition fees is that it puts off many poorer students from going to University.

It was Blair that started the mass University rush not Major.

If the numbers who went to University were kept at 1980's levels, then the country could afford this without resorting to tuition fees.

Sorry, Major started it with the conversion of Polys into University of some indistinct area, Blair just continued down the same road (as he did with many of the Major/Thatcher policies). It was the Major government for instance that started the drive to university educate all nurses for instance.

It's the Conservatives that encourage people to better themselves and go for things like higher education.

Labour just encourages the feckless to sit on their backsides watching their plasma TVs and let the rest of us pay for them.

In a little over 5 years, that'll be me

Nope, that again was started by Thatcher and continued thru to Brown, Thatcher wrote off large swathes of the workforce by getting rid of industries like mining and replacing them with very little, there are still areas where mining and steel were once the backbone of society where two generations only know life on benefits.

Why not be the first option in my post and be aspirational and go to university?

If you haven't already been and had student finance there's nothing to stop you going to university and getting a tuition fee after you have retired.

If your pension doesn't take you over the threshold for repayment you don't have to pay it back.

Why not spend your retirement getting ratted at the taxpayers expense at the SU bar and pulling some freshers. You will never end up having to pay it back, unless you live an unusually long time on an unusually high pension.

I seriously doubt that in 5 years time I'll be in any position to kick back and watch the world go by. Well not if I want to eat and stay warm anyway

Quite right, too sally cinnamon.

I'll tell you what, I've never thought of that, what a brilliant idea.

I can imagine the entrance interview:

"So what would you like to be when you graduate?"

[i"Continent"[/i

It was picked up in an article in the FT when the new funding system was first out (can't find the link, sorry), by Alasdair Smith, the ex Vice Chancellor of Sussex University.

He wrote a half-joking article pointing out the fact that there would be a large market of people coming to retirement age, that have not yet had student finance and are therefore eligible for it, and that universities could simply target curriculum towards degrees that the older generation would like to do, and the government would be obliged to fund them under a repayment system that would mean in reality they didn't pay anything, or only paid a pittance, back.

It sounds fanciful but some people will do it. You could get say a bloke in his 60s approaching retirement that is a military history enthusiast, tell him he's eligible to get his fees paid by a 'loan' that he won't have to repay and he can go and do a BA in Military History or War Studies and that's the next three years of his life planned out pursuing his hobby....

Superb idea. That's my retirement plan sorted.

Bloody hell, me too.
Not Military History though, I'm thinking more Plantagenet.

But [url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/asda-unveils-plans-to-create-5000-jobs-6293344.html?origin=internalSearchAsda are going to "create" an extra 5000 jobs[/url and Cameron thinks it's smashing. He's absolutely thrilled that "eligible employees" will be given the opportunity to train for a City & Guilds apprenticeship. Although I'm struggling to see just what benefits, other than a training bung for Asda, there would be gained from such apprenticeship schemes.

According to the Fair Pay Network's recent report [url=http://www.fairpaynetwork.org/uploadedPDF/Face-The-Difference.pdfFace the Difference[/url many of those new jobs will be subsidised by the taxpayer in the form of housing benefits and working tax credits.

I thought this lot were trying to reduce the benefits bill?

a) You are quite right to use inverted commas around the word "create". These are not created jobs, they are simply shifted from some other retail area. No-one buys more milk, apples or bread etc just because a new Asda has opened.
b) I've been banging on about the iniquity of subsidising supermarkets through benefits and tax credits for quite some time ... what we need is a minimum wage that is more realistic ... it wouldn't completely eliminate the need for tax credits or benefits but would make the employers pay a bit closer to what they should be paying and hence reduce the amount claimed in tax credits etc.

The difficult bit is that tax credits and benefits vary according to individual need and you can't really legislate that employers should pay according to need.
But you could legislate that the minimum wage should be higher (the stats must be available to set it at the right level) ... then check to see how much the eligibility for tax credits has reduced.

It makes economic sense too ... money paid in higher wages will be spent boosting the economy, which is what we need right now ... whereas money saved through low wages will be sucked-up into profits and squirrelled away offshore to avoid tax (all in the name of boosting the share price).
Most people on minimum wage (who let's not forget, do most of the actual work in Supermarkets to produce those profits) don't have a huge pension pot and gain very little from increases in share price.

Too bloody right I will, my dad would never let me go to Art College because he thought it was full of "bloody weird hippies" and he was right, it was why I wanted to go, so I had to go get a "proper job" instead.

This is brilliant news, beard, sandals, incoherent mumbling and lots of "groovy man" and an end of term show of paintings that no-one understands which way up they hang, all for £9000 a year of unrepayable debt - where do I sign up ?

£27000 of debt at 68 years of age plus the student living allowance, HMRC are going to hate me

We're getting a new Asda in Worcester. They recently advertised for 300 vacancies and got 3000 applications. I guess the 2700 unsuccessful applicants will all be feckless wastrels set on an easy life on benefits, eh?

The one (not insignificant hurdle) that the retirement undergrads will have to go through is that whilst the government will provide you with a fee loan you still need to meet the entry requirements for the course. However if you don't already have suitable qualifications you can probably enrol at a local college and do a one year "Access" course to get that.