If your 17 year old wanted to take a day off school to attend the student funding march on Wed would you condone it

[mrswoodentop]

What it says really,ds1 ,17 ,very politically aware wants to attend.Its a school day,independent school so I need to write to say we are authorising him to have a day off.

Dh violently against ,very angry with me for even thinking about it ,treats ds like a naughty little boy.I am more ambivelent,I am proud of him for feeling strongly (dh thinks that because he wouldn't go on his own that he just wants a day off school with his friends),I think that this issue is going to have a profound effect on his life and in a way I am quite proud of him for wanting to have a voice, also proud because he has thought carefully about the issues and wants to hear both sides and yes he wants to experience something big ,something new,to be there if you like.But and and its a big but he has to have day off school,he's not a definate oxbridge candidate ,his grades aren't perfect he can ill afford to miss a lot of school,but one day? I don't know,dh has said no and he's agreed so I suppose its over but perhaps we are doing him a diservice (sorry not sure of spelling)

I can understand your worry.

I had the same thing with a younger child over the Iraq war. In the end I just didn't give him the money.

I just rang my eldest to check where he was - he was still at university, he had wanted to go but couldn't get a place on the coach. I was relieved given all the anger at the end (which was unecessary) but I was proud of him for wanting to go.

I just read through the thread and just to share. I went to university a long time ago when there were grants - I got a 'minimum' grant which my parents did not make up and so had to work all the way through my first degree. It was difficult and tiring working evenings, I sometimes had to work through the night to get things finished because I would be at work in the evenings.

I am sorry but I don't think it improved me as a person at all. I had the same 'can do' (hate that phrase) attitude before I went (I had indeed saved a lot of money). Nothing changed for me as a person except that I had a harder time.

Having had this experience I have gone out of my way to make sure that I could help support my own children so they didn't have to live as I did. That, perhaps, is the only effect my self-funding university experience had on me. What our children are facing is much worse. I would not wish it on them.

I see the demo has turned v nasty. Hope everybody's kids are ok.

the demo wasn't actually nasty at all. There was a bit of 'minority action', that's all. The vast majority of everyone there (99 percent) were totally nonviolent. All that being said I can understand the anger of those who did break into Tory HQ.

the reporting has of course been biased and unfair as ever. Sigh.

I think it's awful that students will be potentially saddled with so much more debt than they already are, in a market where there are so few grad levels jobs. But that's the price you pay when you try to send 50% of kids to university. We cannot possibly, possibly fund 50% of all young people to stay in full time education until they are 21. Anyone who thinks we can, or should is nuts.

I understand the students' anger and frustration and fear, but I think most of them have little understanding of how things have changed - they think it sucks that they don't get full grants like their parents, but the bottom line is, in their parents' day most of them wouldn't have been there in the first place. They'd have done an apprenticeship, or a one or two year course in the local tech or poly and be out in the big wide world by 18 or 19, debt free.

Sending this many kids to university is a silly indulgence frankly. We just cannot sustain it.

It's a horrible time because so many kids have become accustomed to the fact they will go - it's what everyone does - they think it's an automatic right, and a rite, in both senses! The only people who don't go now are

a)the apathetic no-hopers, the NEETS

b) the people who have very strong vocational/trade leanings likes chefs, builders etc(and even most of those courses are being converted to degree status now)

c)a handful of mavericks/trailblazers who see the situation for what it is, and have decided to buck the trend, strike out by themselves and see what life brings them.

As usual the ones who will really suffer are the ones who qualify for no help whatsoever, but whose parents are not well off enough to help them out along the way. A whole swathe of middle income kids will be so in fear of the debt they won't dare go. People seem to think this only applies the children of the poor or benefit dependent. What nonsense. The only people able to go into HE in two or three years time will be the children of the very rich - and the children of the poor, who will continue to have their fees wiped out by a grant.

Allowing some universities to set higher fees will sort the wheat from the chaff, undoubtedly, in terms of course/uni quality, but it will also mean that middle income kids will pick the course they can afford rather than the one which is right for them based on their abilities. That's wrong.

If we stopped treating all courses as equal and offered funding/loans in accordance with ability and course suitability/quality, then people would start to really think about whether the debt is worth it, given the likely outcome. Some courses will die a natural death, quite rightly. At the moment it seems to be nothing more than an artificial construct to keep loads of otherwise unemployed young people busy while we worry about what to do with them all for the next 20 years.

Currently you get access to the same funding/loans whether you go to Cambridge with 5 A* or to the University of Nowheresville with 2 E's and an ASBO. And you are not expected to pay back your debt until you earn above a certain limit, so the bright employable kids who have benefitted from their degree pay theirs back sooner, whilst the ones who should never have been in the first place - don't. There is a glaringly obvious problematic situation there.

Not to knock non-academic young people - they have many desirable skills and talents -I just think it's time we took a good hard look at the whole sorry thing, and re-evaluated what HE is supposed to be about.

and the logic that slaving away for a degree 'improves' you as a person is bollocks. Education is a public good. There is no need to justify it through a business model or even through a model of intensive self-sacrifice. not only the students lives but the society they live in are vastly improved by the creation of a wide range of knowledge. The comments above about students living in luxury are utter rubbish. Several of my own students have had to pull out of their courses due to financial hardship. This will no doubt intensify under the cuts to the extent that education becomes the privilege of those who really ARE indulging in luxury clothes, ipods and flat screen tvs ad nauseam- because daddy is paying for it. Presumably that's fine? They are of course the children of the 'deserving' population, the wealth creators. Bah. That attitude makes me feel ill and it's a tragedy that people who think in that idiotic Americanised way (pace decent non-Republican Americans!) are in power right now.

FellatioNelson, your comments make some sense- however, your stark distinction between Uni of Nowheresville and Cambridge is misleading. A degree is not a passport to a high salary. Education is a good IN ITSELF. Highly educated and motivated young people who go on to work in (what is left of) the public sector or indeed anywhere outside banking and law will ALL struggle to pay back their debts regardless of whether they got their 2:1 at Cambridge or (*supply name of despised institution here).

Education is not a preparation for earning, an acquision of profit-making skills. yet this is how it is being treated by this revolting goverment.
Education can be followed by vocational training (such as legal practice courses). Just because a student gets the benefit of a liberal education, is trained how to reason, argue and think deeply, even (god forbid!!) to appreciate beauty and literary merit, s/he is not rendered 'unemployable' and often the reverse is the case. Whether said student has the capacity to really benefit from such an education is of course another matter, as you say.

I agree with almost everything you say allegra although we are on different sides of the political divide. However, learning for learning's sake is an indulgence we can ill-afford to extend to everyone at the moment. I know, I know - there are no jobs either!

Degrees that were in fairly useless but nevertheless highly academically valued subjects used to be a mark of intelligence and potential in themselves.

yes Fellatio- and they still should be. On the excessive handing out of degrees I agree with you. What we are doing is to cut off lower-income and increasingly even midddle-income children including those of the HIGHEST ability from the education they should be getting and which would be of enormous benefit to society as a whole.

My own parents and probably myself would simply never have been able to attend university under these conditions. This is a recipe for a whole slew of personal tragedies, full stop. People of enormous ability will be cut off from their potential; and the country as a whole will suffer when it restricts 'indulgent' education to the few who can afford said 'indulgence'.

Education is not an indulgence. In many of its forms it should not be handed out en masse as a necessary step to a career either. Sadly previous years of policy have confused the two 'goods' horribly.

(btw by the above I don't mean to imply that I and my family are all of 'enormous ability', LOL)

No, I understand you completely and I agree.

FellatioNelson Post on Wed 10-Nov-10 @ 18:55:50

Brilliant post!

well my 2 ds are at uni.. they were all set to go and then both got offered extra shifts at work so took them.

am proud of their work ethic but as dh says..'bloody little thatcherites'!!!..

they know how hard it is for us to send them to uni though, I have gone back to work full time now to support them through uni and help with their living costs..

nick clegg is a lying two faced worm imo...

Thebody lol at'bloody little thatcherites' I assume he is very proud of dc with a good work ethic the other 364 days of the year

I think that's a bit unfair on Nick Clegg TBH. Everyone knows that compromises need to be made in coalition governments. Would would you do? If you are given the chance to have a stab at the job you always wanted, and alter the course of your nation's history, but you can't have total autonomy - merely an influence in the a way things go - would you say 'No thanks - not interested, if I can't have it 100% my way I don't want to be part of it at all' ?

And the first rule of politics is that you don't publicly acknowledge any signs of dischord among your colleagues, or 'divide and conquer' will prevail. I'm sure NC is spitting about many things he has to publicly put his name to - as I'm sure DC is too! If Vince has agreed to this rest assured it's because they've realised it's the best they can make out of an awful mess.

Sorry to interrupt. Just seen the news about the demo. What a pity that a well-planned, orderly march was high-jacked by a minority of hot-heads - but it is hardly surprising, after all.

What is strange is that there were so few police on duty. After G20, that's very odd. And chilling what Boris Johnson said - implying that to march was a privilege (if I heard him right). I hope this is not used as an excuse to stop future marches.

Thank goodness no-one was killed this time.

OP - did your son go?

Thank you to those of you whose kids did go - hope everyone was OK. For what it's worth, I'm convinced it's worth while - and a vital right in a democracy.

End of interruption.

Fellatio, totally agree.
It's so freaking unfashionable to say that not everyone should go to uni, or to in some way admit that 5 A* are better than two Ds. So we've got a bonkers situation where 1000s of youngsters travel 100s of miles across the country to spend 3 years on courses... which equip them no better for life or a career than the old diploma courses used to.

I actually think it does both academic and less academic kids a great disservice. I could no more strip an engine than my mechanic could answer questions on John Donne's sexuality, so why not let us both get letters after our name which are relevant to our skills and abilities?

I agree that further education, in its traditional, mind expanding, capacity should be available to anyone who wants it. But most 18 year olds don't want their minds expanded (not all, the academic ones still will), they want job propspects, some fun, and to leave home. It shouldn't cost £60k and 3 years of your life to do that.

Quite right.

Who says your mechanic couldn't answer questions on John Donne's sexuality - have you asked them? It is possible for people to have interests outside work, you know. And I expect there are some lecturer who can fix a car. I know a (medical) doctor who can repair TVs...

Always suspect opposition to mass higher ed is really about class prejudice.'Oh no, we couldn't have the proles discussing Heidegger or string theory, what on earth would that do to property prices!'

Yes we need good apprenticeships and training for craftsmen and women and to have some respect for vocational qualifications. But let's not go back to the bad old days when universities were just for the top three per cent of school leavers. The more working class youngsters who have a grasp of philosophy, or Eng Lit, or Mandarin, or geology, or history, or engineering, the better, frankly.

I would let my teen go! Its their right to protest against an unfair and unjust rise in tuition fees that punich the poor and limit education oppurtunities.

Good on all the students who protested today! Its about time the country started to stand up to this power thirsty Government.

Shame on Nick Clegg for caring more about his own position and perks that the promises he made to students - they are our future - and they will remember!

I'm just about to read the thread (or some of it) having seen the demo on television. My dd went, and I think good on her. Sorry to shout, but I THINK PARENTS SHOULD ORGANISE A DEMO OF THEIR OWN - IT'S THE KIDS WHO POTENTIALLY MIGHT WANT TO GO TO UNIVERSITY FROM 2012 ONWARDS WHO ARE HAVING THEIR HIGHER EDUCATION PUT IN JEOPARDY.
What do other parents think? I'd be more than happy to take a trip to London and cause further discomfort to the government. Something must be done about this - it CAN'T be allowed to go ahead. A massive demonstration by the middle aged would give further pause for thought, no?

dotnet - I totally agree with you, I have 3 children who I will imagine will want to go to university, and it will be me and DH who has to foot some of the bill to prevent the kids from starting their lives saddled with crippling debt.

I reiterate what I said earlier, Good on the students for standing up - I think the country should be out protesting against this Goverment, not just students.

I do understand the need for cuts and change, but disagree with the way this Government is doing it.

Shame shame shame on Nick Clegg and any other Lib Dems who vote for the tuition fee rise. Remember the pledges they signed promising to cut those fees???????

I wonder whether you will see companies sponsoring students through university in the future? If my local council hadn't funded my post grad course the company I was recruited by would have paid the fees. They funded my living expenses for the post grad year.

There seems to be a lot more pointless courses now than there were when I was at uni. I don't especially agree with tuitions fees but if it makes the academic bodies more examined and rigorous then it isn't all bad.