Dear Mr David William Donald Cameron,
Sup. How's it goin'? Good? Of course it is. Your children can afford to go to University.
I don't really understand politics, I admit. I don't understand how governments work, why we have to pay tax, and I also didn't understand why everyone hated you, David Cameron, becoming our new Prime Minister. Note 'didn't'. I totes get it now.
I remember hearing talks about Uni fees being scrapped altogether. Thank God! I thought, maybe I could now go to Uni without having to worry about my family's financial situation after forking out thousands of pounds for me to have a life. Because, let's be honest, Uni is the main path for teenagers now, and if you don't go then you can't do anything. You have to stay at home before being finally allowed to work in a dead end job.
Now after this plan obviously faded into space, never to be heard of again, things got worse during and after the recession when more and more students began applying for Universities because they simply had no choice. No work was available so they only option was to carry on in education for the sake of their families. Fabulous, I thought, competition. Every year places are becoming harder and rarer to snatch and it isn't helped by the sheer volume of students getting higher exams results each year than their predecessors. We're naturally becoming smarter. Alas! The recession has ended and the country's financial state is getting better. We have a new Prime Minister so therefore different ideas and new initiatives. Yes? What do you mean? Really? You're raising the prices of Uni fees? Oh right, okay.
....
RAISING the prices of Uni fees? You don't think the pricing cap of £3,290 is high enough? My Grandad, bless his heart, is saving his money to pay for my University fees. There is no hope in hell that he will be able to afford over £12,000 for me. £12,000! For University! I'd like to point out at this point, Daveo, that we come after you in the little plan of life. You're meant to inspire us and overall make us like you. Do you think we're gonna take to this news lightly? Oh what's another £9,000 on top of everything else we have to flash our minimal cash for, eh.
Now do enlighten me, Mr Camz, what do you exactly expect us to do if we don't have the money for University? If we can't get a job because we have no qualifications and we can't get into Uni because we have no money, what do we do? You encourage having dreams and life goals, but how are we meant to fulfil them? Are only the rich allowed to be successful now? Now I don't know if you've thought about this, but what you're doing seems a tad discriminating. You're leaving the working class families to just do what we can in life, and leaving 'you're type' to lead a fabulously dandy future. Talent is going to be WASTED because of you. There are going to be thousands of students left out, and those who have admirable determination to fork out the money are going to be left in huge debt and no doubt by the end of their course will have to wait years before it will seem worth it.
Don't mess with my future D Camz.
Lotsa love and kisses,
Louise Jones and the next generation. X
You go girl!!! I don't understand because people will just end up getting loans because hardly anyone will pay the full fees straight up so surely that will mean the deficit will get bigger ? All I know is that I am meant to be doing 8 years of uni so basically I will be getting a second mortgage! xxxxxx
ReplyDelete£12fucking000?! Are you for real?!
ReplyDeleteCOMPLETELY agree. No money = no Uni degree and no Uni degree = no job, nice going!
ReplyDeletex
What it will result in is a shift in the perception of the University & the student from one of a Cathedral of Learning & its acolyte to one of service provider & customer. Universities have always been thought of as a general benefit to any nation within whose borders they reside, because they are centres for research & development & they used to publish their research papers in ways which meant anyone, including other universities, could access this knowledge & build upon it, and because it trained the professional classes of the country - the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the computer geeks, the scientists, the military officer class & the politicians of the future, who would largely remain in the country & benefit everyone with their knowledge & expertise.
ReplyDeleteNow, with this shift, the university is no longer a Cathedral of Learning, no longer seen as primarily a centre for research, since its most useful knowledge & discoveries get patented by the companies the university is forced to go to for sponsorship. They are forced to teach courses that benefit their sponsors directly, training employees rather than shaping inquisitive brains & giving them the tools to carry on their own learning after graduation. Students, saddled with debt from the get-go, will be forced to go where the salaries are high enough to pay off their debts easily. The best students will take their degrees & run to the sponsor multinationals abroad, typically to the US. We will be left with those who didn't make the grade abroad.
This move is not just an attack on free education - it's an attack on the country's future as a whole. Britain is primarily, in the international arena, a knowledge economy. Drive the brightest & best abroad, and you kneecap the country's ability to innovate. This is the height of stupidity.
Agree with everything said so far.
ReplyDeleteI went to uni in my late 20s (after dropping out from uni when I was 20 - back when it was completely free). I had to pay for my second uni course, but the fees were manageable (about £1000 a year, and I had planned and saved up beforehand). I've still graduated with £9000 of debt. Although I'm now 31 and I have a relatively well paid job, that's still a LOT of money, although to me, it was worth every penny.
BUT, I wouldn't have gone if I had to pay £12000 a year. It's just too much debt, no matter what your future profession will be. I reckon most students will have upwards of £50000 debt when they graduate, and that is more than half my mortgage.
It's absolutely disgusting. Bloody 'Call me Dave' Cameron and his cronies.
Rant over. xx
This is so right, I am in my second year, so as far as I am aware I won't be affected but i know a friend of mine that is determined to go to uni but there is no way she can afford it. She needs to go to uni for her career but poor girl now looks like she can't go!
ReplyDeleteI love this post its so original :)
ellie-jay.blogspot.com
xx
Dear Louise
ReplyDeleteWell done on the bloggy award thingymygig - bravo!
There's also a wider point that no-one is going to study classics, English Lit, history (of any variety) music (have a chum who now plays in the Vienna Phil) art, anything, really, except maths, some fake business qualification, physics, medicine etc.
This policy will destroy learning as heartfelt, as a calling, as fun.
Well done again
DtP
Don't forget that if you were Scottish instead of English that your tuition fees would all be paid for by the "state".
ReplyDeleteYou and every other English student pays the price of England (the country that invented parliamentary democracy) being one of the only nations in the world without its own parliament.
This is the reason English students leave university on average £10,000 more in debt than Scottish students. It's also the reason your Grandad will have to pay for care should he ever need it, or will have to sell his home to go into care. both are free in Scotland.
Congrats on your award btw.
PS - not wanting to sound patronising or anything but me & my best chum kinda bummed about a bit directly from college and defaulted immediately on purpose on all debt whilst having zero assets and living away from our parents and cleaning our bank accounts down nicely before then. Check-out bankruptcy as an impediment to your career structure. I know CRB's are over used but, genuinely, no-one gives a monkeys about bankruptcy for kids. You're not gonna get a mortgage anyway until you're 35ish (you won't want one before - people my age settle down later). I pay a £10enner per month for £9k of debt incurred at college (sure, forever like, but inflation proof - kerching!)
ReplyDeleteJust saying - seriously, if I were your age i'd work out bankruptcy laws for a laugh.
Then when you get to my age your parents will start worrying how to get their money into your name - standard opps.
Good luck. Do something you wanna do and screw finance.
nice blog but just wanted to point out that you don't pay up front for your uni courses - you get them paid for you but when you have got your degree, and are earning pots of money as a top class journalist, you will have to start paying the money back - If you don't get a degree or end up in a lowly paid job i.e. less than £21 K you will never have to pay a penny back - I don't think that's so unfair is it ??
ReplyDeleteGOM
No-one's reading this - old, now
ReplyDeletehttp://mrishmael.blogspot.com/
Watch life - don't live it yet.
Hey Lou
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the award - this is a great blog btw.
I'm studying medicine, but unfortunately I'm not from the background of your archetypal med student - Dad was a prison officer, mum was an administrator. So, I'm the first from my family to attend higher education. Oh and guess what? I'm gonna be AT LEAST £50,000 in debt by the time I graduate due to the extended length of my degree! Whoopie!
I do feel sorry for students, I really do. But what would you do if you were running the country?
ReplyDeleteWe, as a nation, are insolvent. Just to keep things running, we have to go over £140 billion into debt EVERY YEAR just to keep things going. The total amount of debt is over £800 billion. This has to be paid back. So does the interest on this accumulated debt (this is about £50 billion a year at the moment).
And unlike Gordo says, this is not 'investment', as this implies there is some sort of return for this money being spent, like it's being invested in shares, rather than just to keep things going.
It could be argued that university education could be seen as an investment in the country. But with the increase of softer degree subjects which ultimately provide little return, combined with more easily achievable higher grades at A level meaning more people can go to university when they possibly shouldn't, then the argument is more muddled.
When the country is in this much debt then EVERYONE has to lose. Wait until you start paying tax!
The government has to cut it's spending, and this is one way to do it as it forms a barrier to university entry quicker than reforming A-levels and making them harder.
I can highly recommend this video to explain what happens when a country goes into debt and who pays.
Yep that's right it's you and me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd-SLRyuRq0
Very well written.
ReplyDeleteAlways believed that the purpose of government was to do right by the people it purpots to govern
or to be more realistic, to APPEAR to do right by the people it purpots to govern
There is just no defending this move...but hey lets watch how it all plays out....by the next election...