Denmark and Sweden both eat approximately 50% of their national income in taxation, France marginally lower though this ignores some other deductions but they are, once the off the books stuff is taken into account, horribly in debt.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ta...otal-as-of-gdp
Once health care, mandatory pension and social security are taken into account Germany and Netherlands also both have significantly higher burdens than the UK where this is rolled into general taxation.
We're Mid-Atlantic for better or worse and comparison to the US is probably fairest
When comparing to the US incidentally it should be noted that the quality of many US degrees is laughable. Do we want to go down that route? Are we already there?
---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 ----------
What % of people were going on to Higher Education when you did it?
Careful about what you have and have not paid back in taxes over the years, remember we all draw from public services, pay into what is in theory our pension fund, potentially draw welfare at some point, as we pay our taxes so it's really, really hard to say what any of us have and have not paid for.
Being a teacher even though you may or may not have paid for your education, and given the rubbish pay we give our educators it wouldn't surprise if you haven't, you've most certainly paid it back in other ways.
