Quote Originally Posted by Deebunked View Post
You're not making any sense. On one hand you seemed to be saying it was wrong that "other people" indirectly paid for education to be free. Now you're saying you disagree only that can afford it directly can have it. Which is it?

I know from experience that the education itself being free isn't handing anyone anything. It's simply making the opportunity a bit more possible. The poor still have to make sacrifices to get through it, or put in a much bigger amount of effort. Fees on top would make it largely impossible.

You see that in England where the ratio for the poorest kids going to Uni is approx half of the less poor and that widens to about a third for the top universities. The odds are stacked against poorer kids.
Hi Deebunked. Spent a long time trying to answer your questions. Trying to be precise. I thought my answers showed that we need a different approach because we do not seem to be making things better.

I think I should have placed more emphasis on the words " it needs more than just GIVING help, imo. We've been trying to close the attainment gap for decades, Tony Blair, Education Education Education, giving everyone the chance to go to University, Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland when she was responsible for Education and Alex Salmond's pledge the Scottish universities would not charge fees.
I think the idea that education is an important way to escape poverty is not believed by the very people who we think education would help. I include you , me, Tony Blair, Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond in that "we".
If what we are doing isn't improving things, why should we think that carrying on with the same approach will improve things?

I went to university in the days where you received a grant based on your parents income. There were different and distinct options for tertiary education and apprenticeships and technical colleges and further education establishments gave opportunity to those whose school experience had not been successful in terms of their academic achievement.

I am not waging some class war against the poor. I just said that I agreed with TheAuld Yin's comment.