to be very heartened by the student riots!

[Heathcliffscathy]

apathy be damned...I predict more riots...looks like the youth have found their teeth.

Definitely agree with Ormirian & picesmoon. Would love to see a thread discussing this separately, maybe will start one when not at work.

I'd definitely prefer dd to go on a good practical course or apprenticeship unless she happens to turn out super-academic.

I agree we need technical and practical people, electricians etc.

BUT we need to ensure that 18year olds don't go into these technical courses or university degrees depending on their parents' income and experiences and expectations. Which is what used to happen, and might happen again if these fee structures come in.

I have just read your post Ormirian, which says the same as mine. If you want to do aeronautical engineering it makes sense to do an apprenticeship.
My DS is solidly middle class-he is not out of place on an apprenticeship-there are lots like him.
I get annoyed at some things on MN -but the rubbish about finding 'working class boys something to do so we don't have to educate them' makes my blood boil!! I would say that it was outdated-except that in no point in history has it been true. It is outdated in the 'boys' bit. Can't girls be electricians, aeronatical engineers? I can assure you that they can and are!

I agree with you Fennel and an apprenticeship should be entered into on it's own merits not because they can't afford fees.
I am against the increase and think the march a good thing. It is sad that a violent minority spoil it- but they always do-it doesn't matter what the cause they will take the excuse.

That is true fennel.

But in a way we possibly have a worse situation now, where people go to a good or less good uni based on their parents income/etc. Varying fee levels stand to make this even worse.

Surely a situation where m/c children go to the (expensive) unis with a good reputation & job outcomes, and those with less experience choose a (cheaper) uni with poor job outcomes is likely to be the worst of all worlds.

i also agree with ormirian and piscesmoon.

i won't be encouraging ds or dd to go to university unless it's for a 'proper' degree like law or medicine for example.
i will be proud of them whatever career path they take.

i am not even slightly academic and i struggled for years to get my a-levels before giving up and going into beauty therapy, which helped me realise my passion for massage.

my older sister went to university and is doing a job totally unrelated to her degree, so are many of her old uni friends. what a waste of their time and money.

Frosty - my family are threatened directly and indirectly by pretty much all the spending cuts which have been proposed. My children will definitely not be able to afford to go to university if fees of £9,000 p/a are inroduced; their life chances will be significantly diminished as a result, making them significantly more likely to suffer the physical and emotional effects of poverty in the future. If riots are what it takes to turn that scenario around, then riots it is.

And as for 'my property' being threatened, as i'm of the first wave of students to have to pay fees and take out loans, I'm currently £14,000 in debt. roughly speaking, every 2 years since graduation my debt has increased by £1000. As a graduate I have struggled from day one to find a job which pays over the threshold for loan repayment. I would need to earn at least 5 times that to be able to afford to buy property. Sadly, my situation is the thin end of the wedge in comparison to what today's students will go through. Heaven help them.

Will the fees be taken into account as debt when applying for a mortgage? If the fees are not payable upfront (and therefore no loan needs to be taken out) then the debt isn't "real" until you start earning over the threshold. Do you have to declare it if you are not paying it back?

Of course there are loans that may have been taken out to cover accommodation etc.

Perhaps Universities should be encouraged to use more scholarship systems - a la the USA - for the able but not well-off students?

The thing that has never sat well with me is that people expect to get things for free. I have friends from Australia who paid $50,000+ to study their degrees and they see nothing wrong with having to pay.

Hrh, it's not 'free' it's over £3,000 per year even before these fee increases are introduced.

I paid two thirds of what students are paying now, and had about 4 hrs contact time each week, in a class of 20-30 other students - how the heck is that worth £9,000 per year, per student?

I'd love to see a breakdown on where this money will actually be going. I can only assume university overheads are absolutely astronomical.

"And to be frank calling for vocational courses and apprenticeships to replace degrees not only smacks of finding something for working class boys to do so we don't have to concern ourselves with educating them, it also ignores the very real fact that we don't have any call for these kinds of jobs anymore."

There are LOADS of jobs and careers I can think of where a degree course per se is useless!
Things like counselling need people who have trained vocationally. a 3-year-degree course in theoreticals and no practical experience of actually, y'know, counselling someome face to face is a bit chocolate tea pot.

Journalism is another one.Why do you need to do a degree course when a one-year Nationaly-recognised NCTJ course is available.

I don't see the point about students being "different people." So? This doesn't seem to apply when people are blaming the current government for the errs of Thatcherism. It is now NUS policy to support tuition fees. They did a U-turn, so did Labour.

Hussy, sorry I meant physically threatened. We too are facing the facing university charges among others and I'm scared shitless about the amount of debt that will be incurred.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have protested - in fact they should, and hopefully will continue, what I don't agree with is the physical violence and damage to property.

I'm hearted by the student demos. Doesn't matter if I agree with their message or not, everyone's entitled to protest peacefully. Such a shame it was hijacked.

From £3000 to £9000!!

Bloody outrageous!!

Regular students can't face those sort of debts.

I'm with the OP.

I do hope that Dave pooed himself just a tiny bit yesterday.

I bet Nick did.

cupcakes

Hijacked by who?

Are you saying no member of the NUS was involved in the violence?

Lol if you are....

good to see students taking action, but I'm not convinced it was the students who led the rioting - other people were involved.

Usually I don't agree with violence, but from time to time, if you push people hard enough, it becomes understandable, maybe even reasonable - the Suffragettes for example.

According to well-placed sources, DP, the protest was hijacked by a far-left group of anarchists who whipped the crowd of students up.

I wonder if when Dave shat himself, he had to wipe his pampered tooshe on Smythson notepaper. I do hope so.

Well i also don't want to pay for useless degrees.
I know this will be unpopular but I think all the funding available should go to worthwhile degrees from good universities not used to a poly, worthless degrees.

The 'worthwhile' degree could be based upon employers across the board ranking the importance of a particular degree from a particular university. After all if the degree is worthless the student is unlikely to pay back through taxes!

And who decides what degrees are worthwhile, scooby?

I graduated from an ex-polytechnic and I've done alright so kindly STFU.

As I said in my post employers could rank the degrees and subjects, that way funding would link directly to usefullness of degree and potential employment.

I am sorry if I offended (I know some ex poly's have there place for certain degrees) it's just the bottom end 'uni's' churning out ridiculous degrees that should not be funded. I left school at 16 but put myself through uni at 30 which cost me £15K + just for fees. I therefore had to consider very carefully whether the degree would be financial viable for me. By funding better degrees we are not discriminating against the brightest people who maybe aren't well off.

Sorry if I offended Cupcakesand bunting my wording wasn't the best.

From my (albeit limited) experience of protests/riots, there are other groups involved who go crazy and caused damage. Like when they had the G8 in Edinburgh, all the, uh, schemies came into the city and followed the legitimate protestors around, and got into fights.

Hm. Scooby - I highly disagree with your proposal. For a start - employers deciding what degrees are worthwhile? Really? That's effectively saying an education is only viable/valuable if it has commercial value, which is bollocks. Total bollocks.