Not Fees-Able

[khalinche]

I went on a march yesterday. I went on the march because I spent four years doing an undergraduate degree, six years doing a PhD and two semesters building up teaching experience to find that higher education in the UK is no longer a viable career choice if you value any kind of quality of life at all and also that it will be very difficult from

Comments

[ultraruby]

Thank you so much for this. Hearing about the protests made me realise that I really know nothing about the content of the Browne report or what exactly people were protesting about and this post (the personal/political mix of it as well as just the fact that it's so well written) has inspired me to find out more and to think more carefully about what I actually think, if that makes sense.

[khalinche]

Aww, thank you.

It's really, really annoying at how it's been reduced down to 'LOL greedy students won't pay fees'.

[shreena]

I agree. What I don't understand is how we managed to get to this point where it's considered ridiculous to propose that we continue to find universities through general taxation. The universities budget is tiny. It's less than 1% of government expenditure and will be half that shortly. We will be spending more than the entire universities budget on the public sector pension deficit within a few years, for instance. We spend vast amounts on educating children between the ages of 4 and 18 but, somehow the idea that we should spend anything on people over 18 is ridiculous

[pjc50]

There is a general attack on the principle of universality involved. The Conservative endgame is to get every piece of public spending attacked by those who don't benefit from it.

[khalinche]

I'm unlocking this post if you want to link to it.

[squirmelia]

I managed to forget the march was on until it was actually happening. I marched in 1997, or whenever it was, just before tuition fees were introduced.

There were actually a lot of people in my BSc class (computer science) who seemed to be in it for the money.

[damerell]

[sbp]

Agree, depressed etc.