Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

[Gutter Boy]

They'll have even less if EU students are able to pay the same fees as UK students, I'm sure I read universities make a loss on each UK student even at £9K a year. They're all propped up by grants and overseas fees.

Yeah, absolutely. Students cost £12k but are only funded at £9k. The extortionate international fees make up the difference.

The proposal though is that the government will fund at least the £3k shortfall to universities if the EU student goes ahead, as it's effectively the UK's fee for entering that completely unrelated Made in Europe scheme.

 

[P.D.]

Yeah, absolutely. Students cost £12k but are only funded at £9k. The extortionate international fees make up the difference.

The proposal though is that the government will fund at least the £3k shortfall to universities if the EU student goes ahead, as it's effectively the UK's fee for entering that completely unrelated Made in Europe scheme.

The potential net value is lower though, there will be a higher percentage of students paying the UK rate and there's probably only a handful of places like LSE, Cambridge etc that could raise international fees to make up the difference.

 

[Gutter Boy]

The potential net value is lower though, there will be a higher percentage of students paying the UK rate and there's probably only a handful of places like LSE, Cambridge etc that could raise international fees to make up the difference.

There haven't been many European students since Brexit. They just didn't bother paying the international fees, and were replaced by Indians and Nigerians etc.. So it's not international fee payers converting to home fees, its potentially an expansion (to help counter the demographic drop of British 18 year olds).

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Of course it ties both parties together. There are drawbacks, as in if the stock tumbles or the company goes out of business, but if the Govt were gifted the shares in the first place they won’t suffer the losses.

Not saying I’ve got a business plan in place but it would be an effective method of addressing inequality. Imagine if this could pay for universal healthcare in the US for example?

Haha you're not following the golden rule.
Follow the money.

It's because they need data centers, and that is going to be the biggest political hot potato in the next ten years

So what do you do? Drag the government into your corner by giving them a fair chunk of your company gratis.

 

[Lost Mango]

Asking perhaps a really silly or obvious question - what is it we (the general population) need all these new data centres for?

My understanding is that it is primarily to run and improve AI. Is there actually any necessity to them?

 

[johnaliola]

An AI data centre seems to be the central corruption in this latest season of Tulsa King.

 

[Clarky]

Asking perhaps a really silly or obvious question - what is it we (the general population) need all these new data centres for?

My understanding is that it is primarily to run and improve AI. Is there actually any necessity to them?

I understand the 'why' as it is about the growing storage needs and future scaling of data usage but many of the arguments 'for' seem to start talking about centralising, removing the needs for servers remotely and bringing them into a centralised facility. My concern would be that it takes away control from the business and puts many businesses at risk, especially as we can now see that these data centres are going to be targets. Why would anyone connect a strategic assets to an external network in this day and age? Yet 'the system' forces us to. You can barely have a brick without subscribing to something.

 

[Lost Mango]

Thanks @Clarky

Isn't it datum for data sake rather than actual necessity, the latest Wizard of Oz smokescreen where a small group of people are monetarising something and claiming it as an absolute necessity for the future? Just the latest form of commercialisation to feed the economic model that we already know is unsustainable and broken.