To wonder if these riots will change anything?

[poshsinglemum]

I think it's getting totally out of hand. I think that HE should be accesable but that's what the students loan company is for-no? i have no money; I have a student loan. When I start to earn enough again I shall continue to pay it back.
I have no problem with demos but attacking a car etc is not helping the cause.

But mummo, they're cutting benefits and hiking student loans up, so those who are in the middle will continue to be slapped from both sides.

I didn't go to uni thinking that it would all be ok because I'll be a millionaire because I've got a degree and I'll be able to pay it back. Most people with a degree don't become doctors or lawyers or (dare I say) politicians - they become teachers, nurses, office workers and sometimes shop workers and cleaners. Not everyone with a degree will automatically be able to pay it back.

Uni doesn't need to be free - Giddy I agree about the ones not stringing a sentence together - and a student loan is essentially a graduate tax anyway. But to allow fees to go up this much now, by the time my daughter is Uni age (if she wants to go) I dread to think what sort of financial impact it will have on her future.

xpost Christmaseve, I've just said that on another thread. A lot of the people protesting today aren't even eligible to vote yet. This is the only way they can have their displeasure hurt, seeing as they can't vote either way.

I agree, I think it is about more than just the fees issue - it is about general political powerlessness.

I applaud them and they were trying to stick up for all of you!

Dancing, thanks, if only people could think out of the box.

Why do people seem to think that they shouldn't have to pay to be educated.

We pay for everything. We all have mortgages, pay for our food, pay for our children etc.

I was privately educated and my parents never begrudged the fees. They felt it was well spent.

I didn't suddenly expect to not continue to pay for my education when I commenced University.

I didn't expect my parents to fund my Uni degrees. I worked part time from the age of 16, including all the school holidays and most Saturdays and most of my wages went into savings to pay Uni fees.

I did have a small HECS debt but didn't start paying that off through my income tax until I was on a reasonable income.

Angels, your parents paid for your private school fees, so why should we not pay for our bright kids to go to uni, Get lost, please.

Because it's against the law for 5 year olds to go to work to pay their own school fees.

For gods sake, by the time a person reaches the age of 15 or 16 they ae surely mature enough to see how the eral world works.

My own pride wouldn't let me take handouts from my parents after this age.

By all means pay for your childrens' uni fees if that's what you want and you can afford it, but don't whine about it.

Also christmaseve, grow up. You sound like a petulant child.

If your kids are so very bright perhaps they will think for themselves and decide they would like to be self sufficent and do it themselves.

What was wrong with what angels said, she worked to help fund uni, good on her,

should be real world. Meant to say they MAY wish to think for themselves. If they don't, then they have obviously been taught to rely on other people for what they want.

what christmaseve said.

Well said angels

Angles, we don't need privately educated kids coming on here telling us that our less fortunate kids shouldn't whine about, now, having to pay 9K plus living expenses to get what should be a free education.

When did you go to uni? Are you paying your loan back or was it free?

I just don't understand the problem with paying for uni TBH. As I said on the other thread DH and I both left uni with big debts, which we were not expected to pay back until we reached a certain income level, what we did instead was live very very very cheaply after getting jobs and cleared the debts asap.

Both state school kids who had no assistance (other than love and support) from our families. I just don't see what is so hard about doing it that way?

I just don't get it.

christmas If you had taken the time to read my reply you would see that I had a debt which had to be paid off through the taxation system.

You are not doing your DD any favours by adopting a victim mentality and pasing it on to her.

Your child is not "less fortunate" than any other child. We all have it in our power to make of life what we will.

If your child grows up thinking "poor me I come from a single parent family,Please feel sorry for me" well then she probably won't achieve her full potential.

It's called a"self fulfilling prophecy"

Tell me again why it should be a "free education"

Nothing in life is free. My mothers atitude when i was growing up was "you get nothing for nothing"

You value things much more if you pay either through hard work or giving back to the community in some way if you cannot afford to give financially.

I'm pleased to see students actually waking up, doing something and protesting. For a while now, students have seemed so bland compared to a few decades ago when they were gutsily protesting against various things.

It's well worth us enabling young people to go to university. Graduates on average will be paying more tax over their lifetime so they are already repaying the cost of their education. What next? Pay back the cost of your A-levels, your secondary schooling, your primary education?

FWIW I can't believe the amount spent on sport and the Olympics which could go towards education...

I fully support the protests, there are a few idiots who will break windows and what not, doesn't detract from anything. Nobody would be talking about it now if it went off without a hitch would they.

Also some stupid police woman giving a statement on sky news, waffling on about acts of terror . 9/11 was an act of terror, smashing a window (the footage they were showing at the time) is not.

We are working poor, our kids won't have a chance, for a 3 year degree your talking 3 years at 9k plus 4k of student loan, so approx 39k of debt. Fine they won't start paying it off until 21k (at the moment) but what about if they do earn 40k, exactly how much are they going to be paying? People on here earning that much are always whinging they can't make ends meet or afford as many children as us scrubbers.

God knows what the price will be the time mine think about going, or perhaps they will just be chipped in a warehouse to service our rich worthy masters

I also don't get this "why should a bus driver pay for jocasta to study Law". Surely an educated population benefits everyone, wrt to pumping up the economy/scientific advances/doctors etc.

You are wrong angels, of course a child in a single parent/poor family is disadvantaged. Compare to a child born to wealthy educated parents, how on earth can they not be disadvantaged? Even on the having to have a job during uni front they are disadvantaged.

Was your Mother a Maggie Thatcher fan by any chance? The odd person will get to a high position from that background, but for a hell of a lot of people it's just not possible.

Btw my Mother was also a Maggie fan, you get nothing for nothing type of person. Guess what she worked herself to the bone in a crappy job for most of her life, earned not very much and died at 59. Well done her, life well lived, well for the people who profitted from her hard work that is, she sure didn't.

Kitty I think if you'd been there you might have been terrified too. That's what terrorists do.

Seems to me that too many people on this forum think it's their/their childrens' right to go to university. It's not and it's wrong that so many do.

I've just been reading through CVs from university "educated" applicants and am absolutely appalled at the poor grammer, spelling and presentation of these documents. Shocking. The CVs are going in the bin.

kittyfloss I had a job during Uni. The amount of time actually spent at lectures and tutorials isn't really very much.

If a child is truely bright they won't have any problem fitting in a part time job.

I had a part time job by choice. As I said earlier, my parents could well and truely affford to finance my Uni degree but it was my decision to do it by myself.

beautyspot I agree with you. How the hell do they get through university?

Agree with beautyspot- it might indirectly benefit the bus driver to pay for Jocasta to study medicine. It certainly doesn't benefit him to pay for her to study some crappy degree at a crappy university....

..........and that's why the new proposals are so ludicrous. If your degree is worth doing, you pay it back. If it's not, then you don't. How is that logical?

Disappointingly, the government has dodged the real issue of why we have so many graduates we dont need, doing degrees which are neither economically or socially beneficial, and in subjects (eg green keeping) where a degree is a completely inappropriate vehicle for delivering the required skills and knowledge.

However, smashing stuff up is not exercising your democratic right. It's being a wanker. There's a difference .....and the poor old bus driver's going to end up paying for the clean up.

Sorry beauty spot, but "grammer" that is inexcusable in your post lol. I can't even be bothered arguing tbh. The amount of time spent in lectures/tutorials/labs is quite high for doctors. Should only cossetted students be allowed to studt these 5 year/high cost subjects?

I would also LOVE to know what percentage of those rioting now actually got their shit together and registered to vote, and then actually got out of bed and voted at the last GE

Well get rid of the crappy degrees at crappy uni's. Fully fund high quality degrees for high quality students. .

If I had been there, I might have been penned/kettled in by police freezing my arse off. I am not a violent person, I would not have been partaking in the violence. I'm pretty sure I would not have been subjected to terror by other protestors. Terrorists do not use a shovel to break windows. They blow people up, do you understand the difference?

I honestly despair.