It appears the whole university system is a mess. Lecturers don’t get paid enough. Students are overpaying. Where is all this money going? We can all sit and point fingers at one another on whose feet fault lays at.
Labour, Tories, it really does not matter. Ideology is cancer in our university system, and we students are the patients.
By 2019, after three years of studying my passion, I shall walk away with £28,0000 debt. This is just the first stage of debt I shall take on just for my degree. I have a Maintenance Loan, an overdraft, and a job on top of that. A nice myriad of loans to start my adult life.
Yes, it is true that the increase in fees has led to an increase in funding, which is frankly obvious. It might be interesting to research a correlation between Vice-Chancellor’s pay and the increased tuition fees. PHD topic, no? The budget has increased, but I see lecturers setting up picket lines in most of the universities in the country. If I am paying all this money to go to university, I want it in my lecturer’s pocket. Not going to an individual I’ll see twice in three years.
It is interesting that even Lord Adonis, the man who was the architect of the increase in tuition fees, has referred to the current UK system as an almost ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ and called for the fees to be abolished. Jo Johnson, the former university minister (and yes Boris’ brother), has outright refused and called the system ‘progressive’. To be fair, coming from the world of Eton, he is accustomed to paying for education.
Almost laughable that at the time of changing the system, the Blair government were expecting a range of fees, with the max limit being £6,000. There is such ignorance of the fact that all Universities ended up charge the max limit and not the range Tony hoped for.
It is not like this is the common system within Europe, to shackle students down with debt. In Portugal it costs around €1,000 a year, leaving students with almost 10% of our level of debt. Some of the Erasmus students from France I have met this year will end their university life with around €500 of tuition fee debt. Yes €500.
That’s the thing though. This is the ideology within Britain that shivers at the thought of public services being run for public benefit and not, er, profit. You see it with our trains, our mail and our ever-creeping privatisation of our health. For humans to organise ourselves, someone must make money. Students are seen now as a cash cow. An asset that is viewed as a fiscal benefit to a budget, not an individual who wants to learn and develop.
All I know is the amount of money it costs to obtain a higher-education within the UK is not sustainable. But, then again, it is not like this is breaking news to my fellow students. I would support my lecturers, and going by statistics of the universities affected they follow my view. It’s strange because tuition fees arguably changed the last election but Theresa May is insistent on this dogmatic ideology towards public services.
There are huge levels of discontent within our great higher-education system. Lecturers do not get paid enough and deserve a better pension. Us, students, are being mugged off. It appears however, we can all smell the coffee and Theresa May guarantees no change. Therefore, we might have to force her hand and help her change.
By James Evans