studying angry

This is on the website of my old university, from the green tights I'd say it was my first year. I'm not sure what this picture illustrates apart from the hit and miss judgement of young students, but despite this I managed to take a small amount of responsibility for myself. And look, i'm carrying around a plastic bag at some kind of private view. I thought it might brighten the page.

It seems ralph and I, from the facebook concensus, are in a minority. It seems everyone else is "on the side of the student". It seems everyone else thinks the £9000 tuition fees is a shocking infringement on our being.

It seems the only people who are saying anything are saying how so very bad it all is.

From my pretty comprehensive listening of radio 4 I only heard yesterday any serious noting of the huge misrepresentation or misunderstanding that is flying about. Unless I have gotten it all very wrong. Because I didn't think that any of the new plans would mean that, if I was having my youth again and if again my mum said "well I don't think you'll be able to afford to go" (as she said with no knowledge of such things called student loan or part time work), students like I was with no money would not be able to get a degree.

I don't think I'm wrong, I think you can still go guys.

On women's hour...

A report from the university think-tank, million+, indicates that women will be hit disproportionately hard by the proposed rise to university tuition fees. Pam Tatlow, Chief Executive of million+, and David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, discuss the likely impact on students.

Here it is to listen to...

It was argued that a young couple would be starting off in life with £90,000 of debt which would mean they were doomed to not getting on the housing ladder or having any fun at all. And poor dave was calmly trying to say that no, very few people would have to pay £9000 per year, and the amount to pay back was lower and easier to manage etc etc. But £90,000! Maybe I'm paraphrasing this, I didn't yet listen again. 

More or less on the radio did a little feature and from what I grasped it all seems really sensible, most people will pay less and only those with super duper wage packets will pay it all. That's good no? Here it is...

And yet I have friends on facebook, all angry updates at how people won't go to university and protesting and such. Honestly, please tell me if I missed something. I had a discussion on a formulating forum that got locked as it seems it was political, which actually I don't think it was, it was about education, and I didn't start the discussion, I just questioned what was most likely meant as a flippant shout/exclamation. This is what I said in reply to general "I support the students/50K of debt/no ema/those making the decisions had free education" comments... (the original post asked if london was all gone to pieces)

I haven't noticed any affects out in NE london! I try not to go into town 

I'm not sure about all of this, my BF and I are both 28 so we feel not too far from when we were at uni. Some of our friends are joining in in the protests etc but as far as I can see we never had it so good as when we were studying, all had loans and student overdrafts etc, all partying and buying shoes and dvds etc. I had no support at all from my family and I didn't struggle to live or to study. Now I don't really earn enough to pay any of my loan, only occasionally if I do extra work. But it's ok as I will plod on and when/if I earn more I will pay more back.

I can't see how it's going to be any different with the changes, only that a few will have larger loans if they go to the really good universities and that actually it will be better as the threshold for repaying is higher (ie, I could work some extra hours and not be pushed into the band to pay anything) People will be pretty much in the same situation as we are now although the actual numbers could be higher, but day to day it will be better for those coming out and starting on a low wage. The student loan is really not like a regular debt.

In regards to the ema, I think something needed to be done but not sure what. BF teaches and at his college some national diploma students were really only turning up to be able to claim the ema distorting numbers and making it hard to the dedicated students. Honestly the number of conversations I have overheard on public transport where teenagers have been discussing how they feel 1, totally entitled to getting "paid" for giving up their valuable time and 2, how they are rinsing the system and feel like they are getting one over on the teachers.
I know this is not all students, but I think that system made a nonsense of education.

I just think that most people aren't really protesting about the right things and that the coverage and comment is whipping people up and deepening the mis-understanding.
(sorry for the long winded semi-rant thread hijack!)

...

(it's all messed up)




I definitely agree with that. I guess from my side, I feel that it is good that I pay for the studies I have chosen to do, as opposed to expecting all others to pick up the cost (as it has to be paid for somehow) and I am very glad that there is a provision for me to only pay it back when and if I am able.

I live on about £12,000 and I don't feel like I'm vastly loosing out on life so £21k seems like a fortune! I eat well and am normally warm  so to me that seems a fair level. I may be wrong but I thought that the amount per month at the threshold for repayments is £40 so not much out of the monthly costs. Dunno, I thought I heard that?

I just think this argument/protest is distracting from the other issues of quality of study/degradation of qualifications as you mention and the fact that learning has become 'job skills training' and the idea that everyone should get a degree (or have the experience of "uni") as opposed to any other qualification.

Did I make sense there?

Anyway, I told my fb friend that it what she said about people not being able to go was rubbish, slightly fascitious I admit but I'm so fed up with all of this...

but surely people can still go to university, no? Or have I completely missed the point that it'll all be pretty much the same as when we went, maybe with higher fees for some places, but not paying back until you earn more than we have to? I'm sorry but this is nonsense, obviously people will still go to uni.

 

She said...

People will still go to Uni. But, for example, I paid my own BA and MA fees through bar work, kitchen work, admin etc. If my fees had been more than £1200 a year (I know they're even more now). I wouldn't have been able to go. Now they will... be even higher and people in the same circumstances will struggle to commit to degrees. Also, Im talking specifically about the borough of Erewash (where I'm from and where I voted) where the population have become disarmingly right wing. Ilkeston is a NF stronghold and UKIP seems like the answer to many of the local's 'problems'. This borough voted for the tories but many have jobs related to public sector. They are the aspiring middle classes with precarious mid incomes who'll now struggle with the rise in tuition fees. However, the student loan shark company will probably create a mega loan and save us all.

Come on, please. You mean you wouldn't have bothered with an art degree if it had cost you more? I had another friend previous to all this that said she wouldn't have gone to art school if she didn't know she had her parents to rely on. This looks bad for art degrees. I can't help but think that possibly the best thing for art education would be a reduction of people not fully, fully committed. That's not to say these guys didn't work hard and do well but it puts an odd gloss on it. I did it knowing that know one else but me was going to pay, aren't I good. Maybe that is the disparity here, that the views are of varying expectations, I expected to have a hard time and actually it was ok. I assumed before even thinking about university that it would cost something, I hadn't had any support from my parents for a while before going and was indignant that their finances had no baring on my situation.

I wanted to quote something I heard last year sometime about how in a truly ..... society (can't think of the word) we would not fund higher education at all but spend all the money on early years and primary schools as this is where the inequalities and disadvantages embed. In looking for the quote and realising, not knowing the exact quote it was impossible to search for, I did come across this from 2006.

 

That is why, if the expansion of ‘life chances’ is the priority, the more radical approach would be to shift the balance of public spending away from the higher education system and towards the under fives instead. 

 

 

This is me working really hard at university with george working really hard in the background. Can you see me counting the disappearing pounds, imagining the sound of coins forming into a giant debt mountain? No.