This Government Has Abandoned Young People
Tuition fees are rising, and we're all up in arms. But why are the students up in arms?
Many voted for the Liberal Democrats purely on the basis that they would get rid of the university fees that many people accrue, not to mention the promise of proportional representation in government. The tuition fees scandal (of which I affectionately call 'Tuition-Gate') looks to be the biggest issue to separate the Liberal Democrats since they formed their coalition with the Conservative party.
Cable's Calculation
Labour had a huge drive through the Nineties for everyone to go to university to increase social mobility. Labour as a generally left-of-centre government (and I use this term very loosely) saw the trap of poverty and unemployment that a lack of education entailed and thus did everything in their power to reduce this and provide a better future. The only person to speak out in favour of the tuition fees rise is Vince Cable; the Lib Dem MPs are in absolute revolt. Despite Vince Cable's scathing attack on capitalism and its evils which evidently have led us to supplement banks to avoid a complete financial meltdown, it seems that Cable wants to see capitalism instead integrated into the British University system.
And how? The new cap will mean that a university may increase its fees to £7500 a year. To help the deficit, why not recover billions of pounds through the use of tax havens by corporations? The tax that is rightfully ours.
Oxbridge Opprobrium
Here's a hypothetical situation. You apply for Oxbridge, you get your grades on results day to go to Oxbridge; congratulations! However, you come from a working class background. At sixth-form/college you were eligible for the full thirty pounds a week as your parents earned just under the threshold. The same person from a better off background gets the same grades as you... but can you afford to pay seven grand plus a year in tuition fees, not to mention the expenses of living and college materials. Even if you get out of university and get a good job at &21k+, you'll pay around £40,000 pounds back in total.
And it's not just Oxbridge you will need to pay that much to as the Russell Group universities want the seven grand cap to be scrapped all together so they can charge what they want.
Who will be able to afford to go to uni if their parents cannot subsidise them? Who can afford this debt in this current climate? The better off, that's who.
Funding Feudalism
Lord Browne's and Vince Cable's policies go in the direct opposite of social mobility, as it will dissuade those from worse off backgrounds from attending university. It will increase the gap between the rich and the poor, reinstating the class system which is an offshoot of the feudal system. The one that Britain has been trying to get rid of for years. The rich will have the education to rule, and the poor will be reverted back to their traditional state as the working class.
Crime and unemployment are directly linked to a lack of education; are the poor being lambasted for daring to aim too high, to go to university? How dare we try to better ourselves. We're being criticised for choosing higher education. Capitalism dictates that those with the most money have the most opportunities: why is this being written into the education system?
If one million 18-24 year olds are unemployed at the moment, how much is that figure going to rise when students can't afford to attend university? By how many hundreds of thousands or millions can we expect?
Cuts are vital because "our generation has messed up" insists Nick Clegg; so it's your children who have to suffer? We're already paying off their debt which they incurred. In Wales we get less funding per head than England and life expectations are already lower in Wales. We've inherited global warming from our parents, a huge ageing population and now we have the Conservatives in power?
Conservative Cuts
Then again, it is the Conservative party. You know, the one who shut the mines, plunged industrial Wales into poverty and sold off the railways. With the spending cuts hitting transport, we'll be paying more for train services with deteriorating service. Privatising the water, trains, and now their children's' education. Why is it our generation that's seeing all of this, our generation who are being targeted? We're £33,000 in debt before we've even taken a student loan, owing to the bailing out of the banks per person, and now we're going to get around £40,000 more on top of that? Even before we've bought a house or a car?
Why does the coalition hate young people? They've cut child benefit which goes directly to our mothers to help us, they've cut new buildings so we can be educated in comfort away from 'portable classrooms' and now we can slog all we want to get great grades but come away with more debt in its thousands than figures to our age when we graduate?
Street Politics
A cutting of services in the Eighties lead to mass disruption because of the Tory government lead by her highness, Margaret Thatcher. Bin men went on strike for weeks on end, as well as the miners.
In France a few years ago when they tried to implement budgets on this scale, both the lecturers and students went on strike. We need to see this happening in the UK; if we bring the whole system to a standstill the government will see how powerful we really are. We gave them our vote, after all.
If you vote for someone who promises not to do something, and then does it, what are our rights on this? Surely this is fraud; getting something through lying? How stupid of us to have faith in the Liberal Democrats!
The last time the Lib Dems were in power was from 1910-1916. With these damaging cuts (a leak showed the government are planning to take 80% from the FE/Uni budget) which directly goes against their manifesto, it looks like they won't be back in power while this is in living memory. Then again, my parents remember the Eighties under Thatcher in Wales and the Tories are in power now.
And as for Labour? Better to deal with the devil you know than the devil you don't.
Info Education Higher Education
Info World, Europe, UK & Wales Politics UK Politics
Info Money Money while you learn Higher Education - Welsh Assembly Government
Related Articles:
Politics & Media: 6Music, UKIP & 'Yoof'
Sprout User Holds Nick Clegg To Account
Young People Feel The Razor Of Government Cuts
3 Comments – Post a comment
CeefaxOfLife
Commented 67 months ago - 18th October 2010 - 14:30pm
I feel cheated. Voting Green next time.
CeefaxOfLife
Commented 67 months ago - 18th October 2010 - 17:09pm
It wouldn't be a wasted vote if we had propositional representation, a central tenet of Liberal Democrat ideology that's been discarded upon grasping power. It was the main reason I voted for them. Now we have to settle for a referendum on the compromised Alternative Vote system.
Screw it I'm moving to France. Tuition fees are around £160 a year there.
SamuelPatterson
Commented 67 months ago - 18th October 2010 - 21:20pm
Hey, great article. As I read it, I felt a mixture of nostalgia and nausea. But in the sense that your brilliant writingmade me feel that way. I knwo what you're thining, but honestly it's great, I just feel that way coz I hate politics.