Comments on: Top up fees (yet more dissent)

By: Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak — Sat, 31 Jan 2004 12:41:17 +0000

I have yet to see a college giving any housing assistance to a lecturer.

By: kuan im

kuan im — Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:34:32 +0000

Nasi lemak, one shouldn’t discount the living allowances/mortgage help that many colleges give to their lecturers. I know of at least one case (and not even professorial) in which interest free housing loans of 250k have been offered.

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:14:46 +0000

One cannot but be amused/bemused that the WashPost online autolinks this story to the services of blair.com (at bottom of page).

By: martin

martin — Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:05:38 +0000

ahem: Before tax. I dunno where your figures are from but that’s not what the SLC says: “Under the new student support scheme, you are liable to start repaying your loan from the April after you graduate or otherwise leave your course, and when your gross income exceeds £833.33 per month (£192.99 per week or £10,000 per annum).” http://www.slc.co.uk/

By: Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak — Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:08:06 +0000

dsquared – I’d seriously doubt that the non-salary compensation of Oxbridge fellowships does more than partially (slightly) outweigh the high cost of living – except in the handful of colleges which still rent out properties for a pittance to fellows. The other stuff (a couple of hundred free lunches a year etc) really isn’t that big a deal, and certainly doesn’t make the jobs competitive with junior tenure-track posts in the US. Of course my mum gets utility from telling her friends that her son teaches at Oxford. I’m not sure if that counts as non-salary compensation.

By: ahem

ahem — Thu, 29 Jan 2004 08:08:41 +0000

Just to clarify ahem, student loan repayments kick in at earnings over £10,000 PA After tax, you mean? The deferment threshold is £1780 gross per month (£21k p.a.), so if you’re only getting £16k before tax, you should really be getting the SLC to defer your repayments. I heard today that the average age of a first time buyer in the UK during 2003 was 34! Mean or median? But anyway, I suspect it’s because parents are now buying houses with/for their kids. And it’s always nice to see a list of university towns where parents can make a killing by buring up a house for little Crispin, thus further escalating property prices and making it harder for first-time buyers who actually come from those towns.

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:18:36 +0000

dsquared: “Barry: UK junior lecurers do have a union (NATFHE when my dad was in it, presumably now part of some mega-union called Consilience or something), so the situation might be a bit different.” Thanks, Daniel. In which case (IMHO, of course), that’s how the junior lecturers will get any scraps from this deal. Of course (continuing my theme), one of the more prominent features of the US/neoliberal system is that unions are to be destroyed…

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:53:11 +0000

dsquared: “One other thing I’d throw into the mix is that AFAICT, UK universities are distinctly less rapacious in laying claim to the intellectual property of their employees, something that we perhaps ought to make more of.” IIRC, this really started in the US in the mid 1980’s, when a federal law allowed publicly funded universities to own patents and draw revenues from them. Assuming that any partial privatization of the universities would eventually allow things like this (it fits the ideology), and that the university administrations will more business-like, and that their appetite for money will be inexhaustable, then this is another US feature which will soon be installed in the ‘upgraded’ UK system.

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:48:03 +0000

Matthew: “But you have to love last saturday’s Guardian take on that vote: “We have to be on Blair’s side for this regressive policy, and forget his other regrettable non-progressive decisions of the past years, or this will be the end of progressive politics.”” Matthew, speaking as an American living under the Bush administration, it doesn’t sound that ridiculous to me. It is the sort of statement that would leave a slimy taste in my mouth if I’d made it. However, Blair would be a breath of liberal fresh air and sanity compared to what we have now.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:41:20 +0000

I heard today that the average age of a first time buyer in the UK during 2003 was 34!

By: martin

martin — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 13:28:16 +0000

Just to clarify ahem, student loan repayments kick in at earnings over £10,000 PA. I earn substantially less than £16,000 (in London no less) and I am repaying my loan. Oh, and housing ladder? Don’t make me laugh/cry.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:35:47 +0000

I think that Bristol, Durham, York and Edinburgh lose out on this criterion. Based on the small sample of high-flying young academics who I know socially, both of them have been offered and turned down US jobs. As far as I can tell, Oxbridge fellowships are pretty thick on the non-salary compensation; there’s a lot of sweeteners and benefits that they can provide, so the differential in total comp is actually not so big. London University gets you close to government, so politically obsessed types will put a high value on it relative to opposing salary offers. One other thing I’d throw into the mix is that AFAICT, UK universities are distinctly less rapacious in laying claim to the intellectual property of their employees, something that we perhaps ought to make more of.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:25:15 +0000

I was thinking about being concessive (since D2’s latest points, like all his points, have a lot of merit), but I might as well quibble instead …. I’m not at all sure that labour market competition other than at the very high end is something that favours US over UK. If “very high end” refers to institutions then we agree since my point was that it is the University of Oxbridge rather than Popleton that is competing for the labour concerned. But what about individuals? Of course our resident academics are all “very high end” in terms of quality. But they aren’t Jeremy Waldron, Martha Nussbaum or Edward Said yet. So how would the salary differential affect how Brian, Harry, Jon, Eszter, Kieran or Henry would think about taking a job in the UK? Perhaps there are non-salary reasons for some of them (in fact I know there are), but if that was all it came down to?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:21:12 +0000

Barry: UK junior lecurers do have a union (NATFHE when my dad was in it, presumably now part of some mega-union called Consilience or something), so the situation might be a bit different. Chris: I think SK is pushing it a bit far on the Russell Group, but the lower input-output efficiency of the tutorial system is enshrined in current funding patterns.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:13:04 +0000

Simon Kinahan They’re so massively inefficient (as are most of the rest of the Russell Group) than a bit more money is going to make very little difference to the way they work. I suppose you have some evidence for this claim?