Reply #42: Usually your posts are better grounded than this one, AP

[Mairead]

What that means is that taxpayers, and poor kids pay for the great educations of a few rich kids (and whichever poor and working class kids who get lucky enough to get into Oxford and Cambridge). It's a subsidy that gives rich kids a benefit they didn't need anyway.

It's certainly true that a posh public school education gives one a greater chance at Oxbridge admission...but it doesn't begin to be a lock. And, just as people go on to fine careers from schools other than Harvard/Yale and MIT/CalTech, so do people go on to fine careers from schools other than Oxford and Cambridge.

Another thing that low tuition rates guarantee is low starting salaries. Lawyers and doctors get paid high salaries because of the investment you make in your education.

Think about that for a bit, would you? Why should lawyers and physicians make a packet? What's wrong with the idea that we pay for their educations and then pay less for their services? Certainly some would choose to go into other work if they couldn't make enormous salaries, but I hardly think they'd be a loss to their professions. I don't want someone treating me who's in it for the money any more than I want my wellbeing to be in the hands of cops who are in it for the power or graft. Would you?

Another problem with cheap educations is that people tend not to take their educations seriously if they have nothing at stake.

Sorry, that's handwaving, and a canard. A uni education is taken very seriously in Britain. Ask anyone with experience of one.

Dennis's plan is just the ticket: do all that we can from gestation to adulthood to see that everyone has an equal chance to bring to fruition all their natural abilities. We can't afford to waste any talents, if we truly want the best tomorrow.