Well said...(not)
I too am that old to get a grant for my education. Unlike you I did not simply head for the nearest hall of residence but got off my arse and found my own accomodation. As a result I lived on my grant during term time and found part time work in the holidays. However with the advent of universal property speculation from the Thatcher era onwards and the ME society, rents have gone through the roof and the number of things people see as essential for daily life have increased. Going to college has been made much more expensive as a result and one loses the opportunity to learn practical survival skills. Mind you these are not much use in a society that just says spend, spend, in order to control us by fear induced by indebtedness
(, Sat 13 Nov 2010, 13:16, Share, Reply)
I love it when people miss the point...
We have too many fucktards that are bring told they have a right to a degree, when a degree was, by definition supposed to be the preserve of the top few percent of the academic achievers. We are importing people with PHDs from Eastern Europe to empty the bins, because teenagers who can barely walk and talk without prompting are being told that anything less than a PhD is beneath them. Why fo' we need tuition fees? Because that jug-eared twat Blair decided that 50% of the population should be given a university education, despite this effectively negating the whole point of Universities - i.e the really academically bright people go there, whilst those not gifted in science or the arts should get vocational training, which is perfectly fine. Essentially he stated that half the population should be above average in intelligence. Thus proving he knows fuck all about Maths and also pressurising an academic environment that was geared to under half that capacity to double or triple resources required.
The net result? A degree is worth next to nothing in the job Market, universities cost too much for the government to run and we either turn students away or increase fees.
Remember that it was a LABOUR government in 1997 that decreed free higher education was unfair and that charging for it was somehow fair - so it became the preserve of those rich enough instead of bright enough to be there based on their talent.
Yes, I had a grant that paid for next to nothing. Oh, and I didn't get food, bills or anything else included in any if my residences, so I had various jobs trying to keep myself fed whilst also doing 20+ hours of lectures and 16 hours of lab experiments a week, so it wasn't like I wa on three hours study and as much beer as I could cope with - but of course, those sorts of degrees are under threat of being lost as the Tarquins and Samanthas are too thick/lazy to do that, so they fo' Media Studies or other timewaster courses.
Frankly, I still had over £10k of debt from loans I had to take out to pay for food, heat and light - so I agree that it's no hassle to pay it ba k - the rates are tiny and they have just raised the requirement level of when it starts being paid back. It's just a bunch of spoilt brats whining about maybe having to give something back toward funding their privileged existence.
(, Sat 13 Nov 2010, 22:56, Share, Reply)
intolerance
or rather, the hope of changing up 'society', alerting us hard-nose grinders and number-crunchers, to the plight of a less-luckily endowed mass of humanity- this hope is the reason the weight of your 'worthless' humanities courses and grads grows. So you see the possibility that we're all a bit more educated as a problem?
No. The problems, sir, begin with the amount of resources being flushed by my country's superrpower militaries, and the lockstep which leads your land into our wars, and worse- eg., IMF, 'illegal' crop interdictions. But these are "human problems", created by humans, not by limitations.
(, Tue 16 Nov 2010, 7:18, Share, Reply)