Higher education finance

THE latest survey suggesting students are leaving universities with a debt of anything up to £34,000, as well as their degree, makes spine- chilling reading. It leaves a great many questions unanswered as to exactly how and why the final figure can vary so much, between £1,650 and £34,160 – and that in London, of all places – but the overall picture it presents agrees in general terms with what other researchers have discovered. So far, the introduction of debt-financed higher education does not seem to have put young people off from enjoying the benefits of a degree. Indeed, the university sector has been one of the growth areas of the educational economy of the last quarter- century, and it would not have got there, had it not been for the demand from students. In the immediate Merseyside area, there was but one university in the late 1970s, in Liverpool. Now there are five: three in Liverpool, plus those at Edge Hill, near Ormskirk, and Chester. It’s been a remarkable achievement, fuelled both by student demand and economic growth.

Source : http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/liverpool-daily-post/2009/08/18/comment-higher-education-finance-revolution-yet-to-be-completed-92534-24463267/