Up until a year or two ago, nursing degrees were free of tuition fees - which made sense as it would encourage people to take up nursing. Why anybody in government thought it was good idea to bump up the cost to 9K is beyond belief.
If we had any sort of intelligent government, you would adjust the fees for each type of course to address skills gaps. For example charge 20K a year for a media studies degree and use this money to cross subsidise STEM courses.
Of course you would need to change the student loan model - because at present, the cost of the course is fairly irrelevant to the majority of students who will never pay off their loan in full. Personally I believe that if you want to recover costs from graduates for their course, you need to to do this fairly and charge all graduates additional tax, not just the ones that cannot afford to pay upfront.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
