Student protest?

[rubixcyoob.]

Smokey, say you son merely liked "history" or some other 'pointless artss and humanities subject' as others have put it. A history degree could lead to a career yet he isn't certain which one he wants to take. He just knows he wants down that road because its enjoyable.

Will he fund his own way since he isn't certain?

How can you decide what degrees will get him a career and what ones will not? I really do not think anyone can determine that in the slightest.

 

[rubixcyoob.]

Smokey, say you son merely liked "history" or some other 'pointless artss and humanities subject' as others have put it. A history degree could lead to a career yet he isn't certain which one he wants to take. He just knows he wants down that road because its enjoyable.

Will he fund his own way since he isn't certain?

How can you decide what degrees will get him a career and what ones will not? I really do not think anyone can determine that in the slightest.

 

[smokey]

Im not saying im going to choose his career for him or stop him from expoloring options, what im saying is I will not openly encourage or pay for the attitude of an excuse to laze about for anouther couple of years just because he cant be bothered to get a job and join the working world.
If he uses his £25000 to fund pointless lazyness then it wont be there to help him get a place of his own and he will suffer in the long run.
Hopfully we wont have that problem though because he will no be brought up spoilt like OH cousin was assuming he can do what he wants because others will pick up the peices while he goes and signs on.

The money is also there if he wishes to use it to travel though to find what he wants to do in life before he settles down.
He wont know of the money untill the time comes though because I dont want it like my brother who at 17 started smashing the place up untill he got it then vanished for 2 months on a massive drink and drug binge and came back eventualy with not a penny of £10000 left and my parents having to pay bail money and fines for him because he left a car he shouldnt have been driving somewhere in southend

 

[KrisKitten]

Thing is to say that tuition fees should rise to next to inaffordable levels for some because a few people abuse the system and use it to their advantage is the equivalent to saying that benefits should stop for the same reason.
It's not fair on the thousands of hard working students and prospective students who are using/planning on using their degrees to study towards their futures, whether that be an exact career or something they have picked up along the way.
I know some people abuse the system but that will always be the case if you offer any help to anyone. On an individual level the fact that you are a kind person often means you are taken advantage of, but everyone would accept that that is no excuse to be rude and obnoxious to people?
It is not fair on the vast majority of good people to have a system which only meets the lowest level.

 

[EternalRose]

The loan doesnt go on your credit file, so you would still be eligible for a mortgage..

Just clearing that up as someone on this thread queried how students will buy a house once they graduate e.t.c

I disagree with the rioting, but it was hardly going to be a peaceful protest.

I, on the other hand am not too bothered about the increase, dare I be contraversial! Im sure the 9000 fees are only for Oxford and Cambridge. All other unis are up to 6000.

You dont pay anything back till your earning over £21k and even then it wont be a huge amount. If students want to take other loans on top, then unfortunately you have to pay it back thats life.....

You go to uni, and see plenty of students dressed up in designer clothes with fancy cars.There was a time, when students lived to their means to ensure they left uni with minimal debt? But now students want it all, no one wants to wait for anything. My fiance went and had a look at the student accomodation at his university. They do luxury accomodation, that look like penthouses with Plasma Screen TV's in the rooms. £900 a month!! Hello! They have got to be frickin kiddin me?!!!!

I think a lot of students are wasting their bloody time at uni. They dont really want to be there, picked a course they *liked* with no sight into the future, or simply went to a uni to please parents. I think this will deter students from going to university for the sake of getting a degree, then getting a job at tescos afterwards. You dont need a degree for tescos, you dont need a degree for call cantre work!!

HOWEVER, how they can determine what is a useful degree is as opposed to a non-useful degree I dont know. Its all subjective.

Just a few things before you make your sweeping judgements.

- I have never once seen any student in my university with designer anything nor fancy cars. They drive moderately priced second hands ones and nearly everyone mulls arouns in high street fashion.

- yes you only pay something back once you earn £21k or more, but realisticall in this world, where inflation is at the highest it has ever been right now, £21,000 a year does not stretch far. Extra payments are not needed.

- up to £9,000 is just a start and it won't stop there. It also doesn't mean people only pay back a maximum of £36,000 in debt. There is also inflation, interest and everything else a normal loan has attatched.

- that is just one university accommodation. My first year residence in halls was a far cry. I had a room no bigger than a single bed, door, wardrobe, sink, desk along one wall with drawers underneath. That was it. It was also based on drawings for a Norweigan prison if that indicates sizes I am talking about. This is more the norm for accommodation.

- who cares if someone just 'liked' a course. Education should not be something people do simply to get a course in that field, what is wrong with educating yourself further in a subject you enjoy? My cousin done LLB Law and not the diploma, she now works in an irrelevant subject within parliament and can never become a practicing solicitor. Should she have avoided her course?

- may sutdents get jobs in the likes of Tesco or Asda right now after they graduate because there is a shortage of jobs due to recession and cut backs. They cannot help that. I'm sure they didn't think, "great, 4 years of hard work and studying over, time to land my dream role in Tesco as a shelf stacker now!"

I didnt bother reading your post, because the highlighted above tells me all I need to know about where your going to go. You are so rude. I thought this was meant to be a friendly debate?

 

[redpoppy]

Why is no one addressing my points? *stamps foot*

It's not about students. It's about the social structure.

 

[rubixcyoob.]

The loan doesnt go on your credit file, so you would still be eligible for a mortgage..

Just clearing that up as someone on this thread queried how students will buy a house once they graduate e.t.c

I disagree with the rioting, but it was hardly going to be a peaceful protest.

I, on the other hand am not too bothered about the increase, dare I be contraversial! Im sure the 9000 fees are only for Oxford and Cambridge. All other unis are up to 6000.

You dont pay anything back till your earning over £21k and even then it wont be a huge amount. If students want to take other loans on top, then unfortunately you have to pay it back thats life.....

You go to uni, and see plenty of students dressed up in designer clothes with fancy cars.There was a time, when students lived to their means to ensure they left uni with minimal debt? But now students want it all, no one wants to wait for anything. My fiance went and had a look at the student accomodation at his university. They do luxury accomodation, that look like penthouses with Plasma Screen TV's in the rooms. £900 a month!! Hello! They have got to be frickin kiddin me?!!!!

I think a lot of students are wasting their bloody time at uni. They dont really want to be there, picked a course they *liked* with no sight into the future, or simply went to a uni to please parents. I think this will deter students from going to university for the sake of getting a degree, then getting a job at tescos afterwards. You dont need a degree for tescos, you dont need a degree for call cantre work!!

HOWEVER, how they can determine what is a useful degree is as opposed to a non-useful degree I dont know. Its all subjective.

Just a few things before you make your sweeping judgements.

- I have never once seen any student in my university with designer anything nor fancy cars. They drive moderately priced second hands ones and nearly everyone mulls arouns in high street fashion.

- yes you only pay something back once you earn £21k or more, but realisticall in this world, where inflation is at the highest it has ever been right now, £21,000 a year does not stretch far. Extra payments are not needed.

- up to £9,000 is just a start and it won't stop there. It also doesn't mean people only pay back a maximum of £36,000 in debt. There is also inflation, interest and everything else a normal loan has attatched.

- that is just one university accommodation. My first year residence in halls was a far cry. I had a room no bigger than a single bed, door, wardrobe, sink, desk along one wall with drawers underneath. That was it. It was also based on drawings for a Norweigan prison if that indicates sizes I am talking about. This is more the norm for accommodation.

- who cares if someone just 'liked' a course. Education should not be something people do simply to get a course in that field, what is wrong with educating yourself further in a subject you enjoy? My cousin done LLB Law and not the diploma, she now works in an irrelevant subject within parliament and can never become a practicing solicitor. Should she have avoided her course?

- may sutdents get jobs in the likes of Tesco or Asda right now after they graduate because there is a shortage of jobs due to recession and cut backs. They cannot help that. I'm sure they didn't think, "great, 4 years of hard work and studying over, time to land my dream role in Tesco as a shelf stacker now!"

I didnt bother reading your post, because the highlighted above tells me all I need to know about where your going to go. You are so rude. I thought this was meant to be a friendly debate?

Excuse me, how was I being rude, I said nothing rude in my post what so ever.
There was no need for saying I wasn't friendly. I read your post fully and you made comments like seeing students in 'designer clothes' with 'fancy cars' and having 'plasma screen TVs'. That is a sweeping, judgemental view because it does not apply to all students. I then went on to give my own account of student life, showing I have seen no one with fancy cars, clothes or rooms in university accommodation.
That is all.

There was no need for you to be rude and simply ignoring my post because it contradicted your own. Please afford others the common courtesy you want your post to be treated with also.

 

[rubixcyoob.]

Why is no one addressing my points? *stamps foot*

It's not about students. It's about the social structure.

Aww redpoppy I agree!

This is not about the fact it relates to students at all or that they were protesting, it is the fact that social dynamics will drastically change with these fees being put in place.

This debate could be about anything, all benefits being cut because some abuse the system. The NHS being made private sector because some people take the piss. Anything at all. It's not the topic of the debate at hand that is questionable, it is the nature of what it will do to our country.

The fact is, advanced education is not free, it is something our taxes alreayd pay for. If we introduce fees to 'combat the recession', we will still be paying these taxes also. It is not just a maximum of £9000 that needs to be paid by people, on the whole it will add up too more.

Education is not a privilege for the rich, it should be accessible to all who want to achieve it. Without putting them into debt, forcing them to take out loans or just making them give up hope all together.
Soon, education will become more about who can afford to go to university rather than who wants to go. Has anyone seen that programme young, dumb and living off mum? On that show you see many 'rich' kids who have their parents pay for them to go to university, and they just throw away their education, party and do heehaw. Why do they go? Because it is expected of them because they have the money and their background. Sure this may just be a stereotypical view, but it is the same for all students, we are all tarnished with this brush. My point is, that people will still go to university and laze about, wasting their education because they can, not because they want to. Just like there will be students who cannot afford to even dream of a university place without loans and debts, yet they want to study and learn.


Many, many people will be put off advanced education because they don't want loans on their backs to pay off, plus the interest. They will enter the skilled professions, traineeships, college courses or just go straight to jobs. Yes, there is nothing wrong with this. However, if the vast majority of those going to university couldn't go because of the financial issues and took these routes, soon they would be over populated and our professinal careers would be lacking - it would just be the opposite of what people are complaining about right now.

This will change the whole social dynamic of our country. We need both skilled and professional vocations. We needs judges, lawyers, doctors, nurses, accountants, scientists, geologists, historians, journalists, vets and everything else university can offer, but we also need plumbers, hairdressers, joiners, admin assistants and everything else you can think of. Right now we probably have a good balance in that, but due to the recession it makes it unobtainable for some people to enter their chosen career. If fees for university are this high people will avoid it and soon the balance will tip to one side, throwing our whole country into disaster. It's a delicate matter that is being toyed about with.

This will not help us out of a recession what so ever. Many will be put off classical high earning jobs, which pay more tax, which could go to paying off our debts. Instead, if more people enter the classical working class professions it will take longer to achieve this as they will not pay the same in the tax brackets.

Raising education fees for university will not keep the lazy students out, it will keep the lazy 'poor' students out, but the rich ones can still go. It will force people away from high earning jobs with more tax and into 'free' education such as college or traineeships. It has just shifted the balance within our country ever so slightly off and we will pay for it. One way or another we will pay.

 

[KrisKitten]

In regards to the recession all that it will do is increase the amount of bad debt citizens of the country are in and in turn increase the national debt eventually.
The tories are trying to make the old system work to get ius out of the recession, when in fact we should be cleaning up after the mess left by the old system.
It is just digging deeper to try and get out of a hole.
The idea that it will help the national deficit is illogical and laughable x

 

[AppleBlossom]

Thing is to say that tuition fees should rise to next to inaffordable levels for some because a few people abuse the system and use it to their advantage is the equivalent to saying that benefits should stop for the same reason.
It's not fair on the thousands of hard working students and prospective students who are using/planning on using their degrees to study towards their futures, whether that be an exact career or something they have picked up along the way.
I know some people abuse the system but that will always be the case if you offer any help to anyone. On an individual level the fact that you are a kind person often means you are taken advantage of, but everyone would accept that that is no excuse to be rude and obnoxious to people?
It is not fair on the vast majority of good people to have a system which only meets the lowest level.

Yes! This is what I've been trying to get across to people. Not everyone that goes to Uni knows exactly what they want to do and yes, not all students who get a degree will get a job that has anything to do with what they studied. I only know one person so far out of all the people I know with degrees who is actually doing something with it. But just because some people go for the experience rather than the education, why should those who go to get a degree for a specific career they want to have, suffer for it? Like Kris said, it's the same as benefits. The minority abuse the system, never intend to get off their backsides, scrounge for the rest of their lives. The majority actually use the system the way it's meant to be used until they can get out of the rut and earn their own money. But should those people miss out on help they really need for the sake of the minority of scroungers and benefit frauds?

 

[KrisKitten]

I didnt bother reading your post, because the highlighted above tells me all I need to know about where your going to go. You are so rude. I thought this was meant to be a friendly debate?

That's the first openly rude thing I have seen on this thread tbh. If you can't be bothered with reading a post, then don't reply to it

 

[kirmal12]

But Labour openly said they were going to raise the fees too, why is it always blamed on the Tories?

 

[rubixcyoob.]

I haven't blamed the Tories at all. I blame Nick Clegg because what he said about not raising tuition fees in his manifesto and then it was all just propoganda. He chose power and staying in with David Cameron to fufilling his promise to the people who voted for him. It was a very sneaky thing to do. Promise one thing, get people to vote and then as soon as their back is turned going behind it just to keep your position of 'authority'.

This protest would have happened regardless of who had brough the fee increase in, but because he is the leader of our country just now, David Cameron and his political party get the blame.

 

[KrisKitten]

But Labour openly said they were going to raise the fees too, why is it always blamed on the Tories?

I didnt blame the Tories solely, i just said that is what the tories are doing - because they are the ones in government who are pushing the raise.
No matter who had suggested it I still can see no logic in it xx

 

[AppleBlossom]

I voted Lib Dem and I hate the Tories but it has to be said that I think the worst one out of Cameron and Clegg this time is Clegg

 

[KrisKitten]

In this situation absolutely definatley xxx

 

[blinkybaby]

In my opinion, what has lead to this situation in the first place, is the labour government putting a target on getting 50% of A-Level leavers into uni - this is just too many people in my opinion. I understand they were trying to be inclusive and close the gap between rich and poor, but in my opinion I think it did backfire. They should have focused on getting gifted students from all areas of society into uni, rather than introducing fees so that anyone could get in - uni used to be for the academic elite, now you can get in even if you are a mediocre student. I think the system should have been improved by improving access to uni for the most gifted students. I'm not a politician or an economist so I have no idea how it would work in practice, but I just think it's a numbers game and at the moment the numbers just don't add up - too many people wanting to go to uni, not enough money to support them all, hence they're going to have to pay! Some of the students were chanting "education is a right, not a privilege". Yes, education is a right, but I feel that FURTHER education is a privilege that only academically gifted students should be privy to. If they streamlined the UCAS system and cut down on the number of students going to uni, then the need for such massive tuition fees would be reduced. The system just can't cope with the amount of people that want to go.

For example, my OH's friend was living in a council flat, had no money at all, never had a job, got no GCSE's or A-Levels and is generally not university student material in my opinion at all. The amount of debt he was going to get into never bothered him because he had no money or aspirations to start with. He's been at uni for 4 years. He had to repeat his second year. Now this year he is going back because he failed his dissertation, so he is on his 5th year of uni, scraping through to get a 3rd class degree in events management, and he's already told me that as soon as he's finished he's leaving for Saudi Arabia to live with his father and the government can chase him for the debt until the 25 years is up because he's not going to pay it. Once he turned 23 he was classed as a mature student and all he had to do to get in was write a personal statement that he copied from the internet. A system that lets people like this into uni, is obviously flawed in my opinion!

 

[rubixcyoob.]

You cannot make university for the academically 'gifted' only. They are an elite few and far between group. You need 'mediocre' students also. Just because someone is 'mediocre' in school does not mean that they will be 'mediocre' in university also. I was supposed to get AABB for my course and got ABBCC, does that make me 'mediocre' and not academically 'elite'. I work hard at university but right now I am only passing with 3rd class honours from my first and second semester and I am getting 2nd classes in my third one. The reason being is that in my first year I was pregnant and disowned then near my EDD. This semester my worries are less so I am achieving more and going to class.

You cannot make university for a select few, you need people from every walk of life in there. Diversity is what a culture should be built on. University is part of our culture.

People may be 'mediocre' but it could be dependant on circumstance and no one knows how the future will turn out, how university will effect everyone, how people will mature, grow and what they will take interest in.

Making university for the academically 'elite' is just as outrageous as making it for the financially 'elite'. It needs rich and poor, academic elitist and 'mediocre' students in order to keep it furthering and giving people the option they should.

And yes, education is a right. Why is it that further education is a privilege yet higher education in colleges is free? There isn't much difference imo, just what people choose to do with their lives and they shouldn't be punished financially with that. Why should someone who aspires to be a hairdresser not pay for their course but someone who aspires to be a doctor have to pay? Just because they have different ambitions. Very discriminatory.

 

[blinkybaby]

I just feel that uni should be for students that did/do well at school. Students feel the tuition fees are unfair, right? They feel that the government should pay for students higher education because in the future they will see a return in the economy when the students begin contributing to the workforce. It's only logical that for this to happen, the amount of students attending uni needs to be scaled down. How will this happen if students are demanding that EVERYONE gets a fair crack at uni without having to pay for it?

I don't want to comment on your personal circumstances because I don't know you.

OK, if the students want EVERYONE to have a fair shot at uni, and get students in from all walks of life, rich, poor, clever, not so clever - then you are going to have to pay the fees because there is not the money in the kitty to allow all those people access to higher education without having to pay the fees.

Just as an aside, I'm a uni student as well and unfortunately I feel that the fees increase was inevitable seeing as the system is full to bursting point with prospective students wanting to go - the government just can't afford to fund them all. I agree with kriskitten as well that the debt is just a number, loads of people will probably never earn enough to start paying back or be selfish like my OH's friend and do a runner from the debt which will leave the country in a terrible situation, like a ticking time bomb. I think they need to scrap everything and rethink their entire policy on this particular issue.

 

[indy and lara]

I agree Blinkbaby. University should be for the academically most able. There were, when I was leaving school, lots of polys and colleges which offered courses for those who wanted to continue to study but did not achieve the kind of grades that uni demanded. They gave the opportunity for everyone to enter tertiary education. These were largely done away with in the 90s when the Government decided everywhere should be a university.

By making everywhere a university, what effectively happened was that the value of degrees was damaged. A 2:1 from some universities is not at the standard as it is from another university. It is an unplalatable truth but one we need to face up to when examining the state of further education at the moment. 2 years ago I started my Masters in Education as a PT course at the weekends. The workload and level of research needed for each module was breath taking. Last year a friend started the same course at a different Uni and our courses were so different. She needed to do minimal research and her submission were not even to be footnoted. However at the end of the day, we will have the same letters after our names but the courses are worlds apart.

Rubixcyoob, your highers were not mediocre. I think you know that. When I was at uni, there were a lot of people who joined my course who had taken access courses at college which enabled them to join the course once they had achieved a certain standard. Further education should be available to all those who wish to embark on that road but it does not necessarily have to be university education if that is not the most appropriate path for someone to follow.