to be very heartened by the student riots!

[Heathcliffscathy]

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

Custardo, I am confused

30 yrs ago there wern't the same benefits as there are now - although there were some. you left school and got a job - why? got your mum needed the money. You couldn't go poncing around uni, listening to indie bands and being 'arty

Are you saying this was a good thing or a bad thing

and that's for you appletrees

:o Custardo. Sorry must have misunderstood you about the specific issue of indie bands (love the turn this thread is taking) but stand by the idea that wandering about uni being arty and listening to indie bands was exactly what students were doing in the 1970s. Unlike today where they're more likely to be doing 2 or 3 jobs to keep them going.

i'm assigning neither good or bad to it. Unless we go back to the point which i was answering which referred to choice.

the choice to go down the mill or go uni - or anything inbetween.

It wasn't self selection that kept numbers down. It was the highest achieving, mostly, seven per cent: as opposed to the highest achieving.. Er.. forty per cent.

I don't base my opinion on newspapers but my experience. A level students work very hard. How much of that is repeating modules to get a higher grade.. not with greater knowledge, but writing to what is required? Over the last decade, quite a lot. More work, no increase in learning, higher grades. You can imagine I read this in the papers if you like. I am quite sensible.

With the new fees the poor no longer have the Uni choice

oh blinks get your reading glasses out

(sarky nob)

"but stand by the idea that wandering about uni being arty and listening to indie bands was exactly what students were doing in the 1970s. Unlike today where they're more likely to be doing 2 or 3 jobs to keep them going."

YES YES YES - its what i was saying. Only the reason behind the enabling of poncyness for the poor, was the fact that there was a cultural shift and a financial one where if you were working class, youdidn't have to automatically do WC work on leaving school. You could 'ponce' about at uni and have a part time job.

newwave - it's certainly a huge dissincentive

No musty.. there was nursing, there was making tea at the local papers till you got put on the golden wedding rotation, there was printing cheque books as a sixteen y o in the bank and so to management, there were supermarkets with promotion opportunities, there were shops with retail management and buyer opportunities and the list foes on.

yes yes - not the point.

the point is choice - not how many careers exist in the world

You said it was the mill or university.. I am saying that is not the case. You are saying there was no choice.. I am saying there was. Not sure why that is off the point.

Are you saying we should pay for people who want to ponce about. I would say no to that. If you did well at school you got money to go to university, it was about three grand or more. That's not so off putting. I

so the only people that should be allowed access to degree courses are those who did well at school?

and fuck everybody else?

Do you really think that i think that only a mill and a university exist in the world?

You said it musty. You said mill or university. Did I misunderstand?

Why yes I am blinks. You have fourteen years of free education and you are either not academic enough, or don't wish to be academic and study, then you've had a jolly good chance and can pay for any extra yourself.

I don't really see how you fan say that anyone should have Veda regardless. Why bother with grade requirements at all then?

I do agree with some of your point Appletrees. It is ridiculous that you now need a 2:1 degree in order to do almost anything. Feels like employers are taking the piss TBH. My friend dropped to a 2:2 and although he is excellent at the (vocational) work he does, is unable to get an interview, despite that fact that his qualification in wholly irrelevant.

"I am quite sensible." bless you, I'm sure you are :)

But other factors were so different then as well. It's not like taking the highest 7% of A level candidates now. There were a lot more filters. Firstly you had to have been into school enough at age 11 to pass the 11+. If you were from a rich family of course they could pay for you to go to a private school without having to pass any exams at all at that age. So that filtered out a lot of students, giving an advantage to richer people. Then you had to be comfortable enough WRT family income to be able to stay on at school after 16 (15?). Another filter, another advantage to better off children who were far less likely to be required or expected to leave school and start contributing/paying rent. Very similar filter in place WRT university. If your family needed your income, you would have to leave school at 18, again giving the advantage to children of better off families who would be free to make that choice.

And then of course there were far more university places open to men that women. Another filter.

Van read can

Veda read access

I went to a comp where a teacher threw chairs and girls got pregnant at fourteen. I bought my clothes at jumble sales. I worked from age eleven. You know what I am going to say now. Yes I worked hard and went to university with jolly good grades.

Do not think I was the only one. I wasn't.

I am a girl. We are talking thirty years ago not eighty.

I think this policy has created a new trap. Less choice. University or unemployment/dead end job. Why the left imagines this is progressive is mind blowing.

My god its two am.

'Why yes I am blinks. You have fourteen years of free education and you are either not academic enough, or don't wish to be academic and study, then you've had a jolly good chance and can pay for any extra yourself.'

that's an unbelievably black and white way to view things... do you make no concession for family/personal/financial constraints or is it just tough fucking luck?

No I don't. Education is free. Use it or lose it.

I will admit now I haven't read all of this as I've only just got back from London.

I was at the protests today, there was about 50000 people and it was a very small minority who were violent. Their stupidity shouldn't take away from the fact that there are literally thousands of people who conducted the protest peacefully, as I can promise you that everyone on that protest today was just as angry at the Government as the ones who were causing trouble. I was there when the attack on 30 Millbank started and saw some people smashing the windows, me and my friends decided to move on at that point! Very few people who were on the march today condone the violence.

Having said that, I hope that it gets the message across just how angry people are at the cuts to education. Nearly all of the MPs in parliament benifited from free university education and now they are ensuring that the next generation can not recieve the same benifits that they did. Education is a right, not a privilage for only the rich to enjoy. I would much rather that the violence today had not taken place, but the sheer number of people who arrived in London today should send a message to the MPs about just how unpopular these reforms are.