The Inkling Volume 3

Should University Fees Be
Abolished?
by Katie Kirkpatrick & David Makalena
In the autumn term, SVC hosted our heats of local MP Lucy Frazer’s Parliamentary Debating
competition on the subject of university tuition fees. Eight Year 11 students took part in the heats,
which were held over a lunchtime and judged by Lucy Frazer and Head of School Mr Hampson.
Inkling editors Katie Kirkpatrick and David Makalena debated against each other, and here we have
some of their most convincing arguments...
David: I am here to make my argument for abolishing tuition fees and I open with this:
education is a right. People have the right to be educated so surely then university should be
accessible to everybody, not just the people who can afford the luxury. Now I know that you
can recieve student loans which help pay for your time at university but the decades of time
afterwards are tainted with the constant pressure of repaying your loan. Should a young
adult be sprung into the world with that instantly weighing down on their back? This has not
gone unnoticed in the world either and leading politicians have pledged to abolish tuition
fees - most recently Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 elections, an election season which left
Labour with a much larger presence in Parliament. All of this politics and morals all point to
the same idea: education is a right and university tuition fees should be scrapped.
Katie: Personally, I am against abolishing tuition fees as I believe we should prioritise
providing the highest quality of education. It is widely recognised that tuition fees bring in far
higher an income to universities than would be produced by taxpayers. We need give
universities the best possible chance to provide the best possible education for students,
and to do this they obviously need adequate funds. It would be impossible to study, for
example, Chemistry or Medicine, without the necessary lab equipment, which can be hugely
expensive. If taxpayers were expected to provide all funds for university, universities would
be given the impossible task of providing the same high quality of education with far fewer
resources and funds. We can’t let this happen. The better the education of our young
people, the better off our economy is as a whole, and thus we need universities to provide
the highest possible standard of education. Returning to my earlier example of Medicine, if
doctors are trained poorly, the health of the entire country will suffer. We need to educate
fully the doctors, journalists, teachers and CEOs of the next generation to secure the
economy for future years.
David: The main issue with money is not the fact that universities will not be able to afford
equipment, it will be the fact that they can’t pay for the best lecturers and professors.
However, in a recent poll, lecturers have said that they stick to their universities not
because of money but because of heritage and legacy. Professors at Oxbridge are not likely
to go to one of the lowest graded universities in the country just because of pay. Being a
lecturer at Oxbridge is an honour for most and the reputation behind the school is too large
to turn down. Furthermore, a large majority of university students are actually foreign,
especially in the better schools, meaning that the country is benefiting from their
immigration and bringing money into the country. The economy may not rise as quickly but
things will not turn rotten due to the fact tuition fees are abolished.