[xavieralexandre]

From a taxation point of view I'm under the impression that for a country such as France for example seniors are gonna get _on average_ way more benefits during their pension than the equivalent of their lifetime contribution. Mainly due to demographics and life expectancy evolution. And also for home owners due to the housing market. I do not think this should be a reason to limit the access to university to seniors though. What better use of life to increase and share knowledge, maybe even contribute to it. It would be such a low point for society to bar access to knowledge only because it is not profitable.

[smcphile]

> From a taxation point of view I'm under the impression that for a country such as France for example seniors are gonna get _on average_ way more benefits during their pension than the equivalent of their lifetime contribution. Mainly due to demographics and life expectancy evolution.

(I'm making a digression here from the main topic, so don't read on if you're not interested.) I'm not sure why you would think pensioners in France will get far back far more than they paid in.

Under the current system in France, when you're working, you pay into one or more of the dozens of different pension plans. Each plan is designed to be self-sufficient. It receives money from those who are currently working, invests or saves the money, and pays out those who paid in in the past and who are now retired.

Doing things this way has several pitfalls. The main problem is that if demographics change (greater percentage of pensioners as compared to workers) it puts a strain on those left in the workplace. This doesn't mean however that each pensioner is getting more than they paid in, it just means that proportionately there are less people left paying into the plan.

The retirement system is currently being revised. In the future, there will be one universal plan where each euro paid in will buy a certain number of points, which will have some value when you retire. Since the value of a point can fluctuate, pensioners may end up getting more or less than they paid in. (They'll get what the plan can afford to pay out.)

[jacquesm]

The only people that really got substantially more out of the pension plan than those that take part in them today were those that lived right about at the pensionable age when those systems were introduced. They did not pay in at all and yet had immediate benefits because it has always been the working that were paying for the pensioned people to begin with.

If the pension funds had been managed responsibly (which is not the responsibility of the people paying in to them) then there would have been plenty of money to make the system work. Pension funds management has been responsible more than once for funds not being able to make good on their obligations resulting in a reduction of pensions. In many countries this has already resulted in the pension age being raised from 65 to 67 and there is talk about raising that even further.

Long term financial planning for pension funds and actuarial computations including an adjustment for increased longevity are simply things that go with that territory, that these adjustments are necessary is further proof that the responsible people messed up.

Universities' financial affairs should also not be the limiting factor in people's quest for education and knowledge. I'd much rather that people that are pensioned have access to free university courses because it will always be a very small minority that is driven to do so and they have a unique perspective to bring to the table compared to the rest of the university crowd. You are also automatically pretty sure that they are not following courses because they want to get another job, but mostly because they are really driven about a particular subject, which tends to make for the best kind of students.