to be very heartened by the student riots!

[Heathcliffscathy]

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

So scooby - you did an "arts" degree. why should people have funded you? What have you done with your degree to contribute to the growth of the economy in the UK, creation of jobs etc.? Should the poorer workers of the country have supported you in getting your degree?

I think you are missing the point-the march wasn't just about fees, but also the massive finding cuts unis are facing. Teaching students degrees is a fraction of the work done at universities. The research done drives medicine, science, business and aims to keep the uk competitive in the global markets.

This is seriously under threat which is why lecturers were there as well as students yesterday.

Bickering about "Mickey mouse degrees" is side tracking the debate, which is exactly what the mail etc want to happen.

Absofcroissant I think some employers would and some wouldn't. I am really talking about degrees like say business studies from a bottom ranked uni, I don't want to fund those types of 'uni's'.

Not using your degree in adult life is only a "waste" if you think you only went to university for the sole purpose of getting a graduate job. Fortunately, some of us have a broader outlook than that.

cupcakes Dave was far too busy upsetting the Chinese yesterday. Why would anybody be proud to remind them of the opium war is beyond me. Are we proud of it now? (While simoultaneously begging for their money?)

I do not condone violence, but is really awful how docile and obedient the English has become. "Our children's future and the economy are being ruined. Whatever. Shall we have a cup of tea?"

Totally agree scoobytoo.

Wierd, wierd thread.

So, university admissions are going up meaning that the cost of university to the taxpayer will increase correspondingly. The students are protesting because they think that all taxpayers should foot the bill for their degrees that they will benefit from in terms of future income?

Sorry, but its just kids playing the rebel and making themselves look stupid. I remember loads of local schoolkids protesting about Iraq (perfectly reasonable), but when they were asked questions about it they were clueless. Infomed protest is absolutely fine. Mindless violence is not.

Bugger me I'm old!

You may have seen earlier that I paid £15K+ for my fees alone for my degree as I did it as a mature student so I paid in full. I saved money whilst I was working in order to pay the fees up front.

I now have my own business and employ staff. so that is how I have contributed even though I got no funding whatsoever

Exactly UQD. I did a Humanities degree first time around - because I loved it, and chose topics on the basis that I would find them interesting. And I did, and if you ever have the time I can waffle on for aaaaaaaaages about (in possibly many employer's views) useless subjects. I also learned lots of valuable skills that have been very useful in the work place - being able to do presentations (having to present a paper to a professor who's an expert on the area and tears you to shreds is awesome preparation), analytical thinking, self-motivation, completing on/before deadlines, academic writing, arguing etc. etc.

But I didn't go to uni necessarily to learn to argue like I am able to now, or to analyse etc. I went because I wanted to learn.

SeaShells The cuts are happening in pretty much every area of public spending. However, scientific research - the majority of which takes place at Uni's - has actually been protected and increased a small amount. I'm no apologist for this government, but they have recognised that our research is one of our greatest exports.

Uqd-too true.

I think I just lucked out then .

But I have noticed, compared to some of the people I've worked with who didn't do degrees or who dropped out - they don't have that "professional" polish, and one of them (the guy who dropped out), couldn't complete a task to save his life.

Obviously in an ideal world it'd be great to allow everyone to go to uni for ANY reason, however, our country just doesn't have the money, the tax payer is feeling all the bill increases and government cuts. It may be ideal for people to do degrees to become more interesting people etc but we simply don't have the money do we??

Yes Scoobytoo - you did well paying off your fees, - but generally speaking the working class do not want debt, and the prospect of this kind of debt will for sure put off genuine students going to Uni.

Also agree on the research. I have a friend who's an academic and his contract finished 4 months ago. There's nothing in academia at the moment. For the project he was working on before, half of the funding's completely disappeared (this is in computer-engineery image analysis stuff that I have no idea what he's on about).

I also don't want to pay the £30 incentives for students to turn up to lectures either, call me a miser but.....

It's simplistic to say that it's just raising tuition fees that has shafted the less well-off. University used to be for a smallish and highly academic subset of the population, and it was free for anyone who fitted that profile. That's the reason university degrees were a strong currency for future employement - it was an indicator of a willingness to study hard and ability to think in an abstract way, regardless of the subject studied. But when Blair announced that he wanted 50% of young people in university, it diluted that currency, while placing such heavy burdens on the funding mechanism that it was impossible for university to stay free. So instead of a few people getting a great opportunity, suddenly lots of people have a pretty variable and sometimes downright shoddy one, that they have to pay for.

In effect, what Blair achieved was to keep a generation of young people off the dole queue for 3 extra years, doing in some cases pretty piss-poor 'degrees', at their own expense rather than the State's and not mucking up the employment statistics. It was a disgraceful piece of sleight of hand and has left a generation shockingly indebted, often with no prospect of ever paying off their debt, inflated employment expectations and no practical skills.

The only way to go back to free university places with a strong academic reputation (and hence a real correlation with future earnings) would be to shut down all but the most academically demanding universities, massively ramp up financial support for less well-off applicants, and focus on a range of high-quality practical, vocational learning for anyone who doesn't meet a stringent - rather than politically-motivated and meaningless - set of academic standards.

As it is, what's going to happen in the near future is that the Russell Group will go independent, start charging US-type fees, and then people like my DP - who grew up in working-class Liverpool, worked his b*s off at grammar school and Oxford and is a real example of social mobility, will never, ever have that opportunity. In the name of ending 'elitism', New Labour entrenched it beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

(sorry about the rant, this subject makes me really, really angry)

Just to contribute to the debate about the size of the cuts. Our local paper has published the predicted cuts at our local universities based on research done by the House of Commons library.

Durham 63.3%
Teesside 70.2%
Sunderland 83%
Newcastle 44.1%
York 66.6%
St University College, York 100%

link

Tellingly they forgot about Northumbria, an ex-poly, which I personally rate. They do not have Mickey Mouse degrees and treat their students well (unlike their staff apparently).

Links to articles on effect on Universities in
Merseyside and in Birmingham

If somebody had a link to the original report, I'd love to read it.

Totally Agree Pottonista;-)

I afraid the majority of phd ships in my field are funded by the pharma companies, as government funding long ago dried up. There is a serious brain drain. Dh's field is losing 1in5 to 1in10 academics depending on grade.
I agree on tuition fees (despite my debt) but at this level? Who on earth can afford training at 9k a year that is privately sponsored and then on top pay for food and accommodation, whilst not being able to work full or part time to significantly keep the debt down?

I did 6 years at uni, and had to do over 12 months unpaid work experience in that time; 9-5 contact time daily. I couldn't avoid my debt, and many many students can't either.

We should question these cuts-they are ideological not just economical thatcher wouldn't dream of actually being able tomimplement this level of social engineering.

I've said this before on MN, but this is what I think should happen:

• they should raise tuition fees BUT have measures in place to prevent the poor students from losing out. According to the economist, the actual cost of a degree is £7,000 (obviously this varies, as things like science and medicine are more expensive to teach - lots of equipment).

1. Lots of scholarships and bursaries, and make the information on those that are available more accessible. I spent a lot of time during my degree applying for funding, and it was very difficult - no one at the uni had a clue as to what was available, and how to go about it. Apparently there were millions of pounds of scholarships/bursaries going to waste, as no one was claiming
2. Means tested support and
3. (this is something that happens in SA) - reducing tuition fees on the basis of your marks. So, for e.g. my cousin had straight As for her Matric (like A Levels), and as a result ended up paying practically no tuition fees. If you keep up the good marks, the fees stay down.