International Bestselling Author Explains Why Tuition Fees Should Be Scrapped

Recently, the British education secretary said that tuition fees should reflect career prospects and interest rates should be lowered. Sputnik spoke with international bestselling author and economist, Joss Sheldon. He believes in free education as a basic human right.

Sputnik: What is your opinion about the price of tuition in England and Wales, and how does it affect the economy?

Joss Sheldon: I think that education is overpriced, but that any price would be too much. My mum was the daughter of a shopkeeper, very working class. She managed to drag herself up in the world by going to university. She didn’t pay a single penny for board or fees, and it really helped her to climb up the social ladder.

That’s the way it should be now. It helped her, it should help my generation and it should help the next generation. The tuition fees should be scrapped entirely.

Our economy is incredibly inefficient. If you look at how we rate for efficiency, we produce $50 of GDP per hour worked. When compared to France, who produces $60 of GDP per hour worked, and Norway, who produce $80 per hour worked, you can see, we are just not as efficient as we should be. And that is partly because of a lack of investment in infrastructure — in roads, in hospitals — but it’s also, a lack of investment in people. We need to give people the best chance to be the best that they can be — to give them the best chance, and to create a better society for all.

Sputnik: Would a reduction of certain fees rectify the issue, or could it work to favour humanities courses over more urgent careers such as medicine?

Joss Sheldon: I think it’s wrong to have different fees for different courses. It’s making it cheaper to have courses which aren’t necessarily productive for the economy. It’s great for people who want to study humanities, but they’re not necessarily going to produce so much on the back of those courses. We need people to become doctors, to become scientists. So we should make it free for everyone.

Sputnik: What does it say about Britain, the fact that we charge up through the eyeballs for something that is essentially a basic human right?

Joss Sheldon: It doesn't say much! We have some of the most expensive tuition fees in the world. It’s stopping social mobility, its stopping aspiration. It’s stopping happiness. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We only introduced fees in the late 1990’s. It’s been less than 20 years. Another way is possible and I think there is a mass movement now saying enough is enough; we need to scrap these fees. We’re not so good as a country right now but we can be better. And I think there is real hope there as well.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.