This policy paper (40 page PDF) makes the case that a graduate tax would be a better alternative that student loads for higher education funding. I can see the logic - as the report says at one point, students who earn less, and therefore received less benefit from their higher education, end up paying more money, because their repayment periods are longer. That makes sense to me. But what I wonder is, why create a special tax at all? Surely, if a person is making more money, then a progressive form of income tax (or even, to a lesser extent, sales taxes) would result in them paying more taxes, and even enough, presumably, to cover the cost of educating them in the first place. Indeed, how is it even fair to require that students assume the risk in funding their education when students have the least ability to repay and when their education is in fact a wider social benefit?
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