Students

[tobyaw]

Student tuition fees was the big issue in English politics today. Clegg defended his position at PMQs, while the NUS marched outside. There was potential to damage the coalition, particularly with the politically opportunist change of heart on fees by Labour.

But then it all went wrong for the students: the protests descended into violence and confrontation, and the news channels were filled with students expressing astonishing levels of entitlement. Students justifying their bully-boy tactics made for pretty unpleasant listening. I felt great sympathy for the people working in the Millbank Tower and at 30 Millbank, and in the surrounding area.

The students' message appeared to be that they want taxpayers to give them money, and if they don't, violence will follow. Isn't that a protection racket?

What a nasty bunch.

Comments

[makyo.livejournal.com]

It's not just the individual graduate who benefits from their education, the entirety of society does. The most obvious benefits are economic in nature, but one certainly shouldn't underestimate the non-economic side-effects of a highly-educated populace.

I'm certainly happy for my tax money to be spent on funding education for everyone, to as high a level as is useful to them; furthermore I have no objection to people learning less practical subjects, as long as they learn something. And if a more vocational route suits some people better than a traditional academic one, then they should be allowed to do that too. There are many far less useful things that our tax money gets spent on, at least education provides a decent return on the investment.

[tobyaw]

It also keeps school-leavers off the dole queue. I wonder whether that is the biggest motivation behind the expansion in student numbers in the past decade.

[lapswood.livejournal.com]

As a compromise, I suggest that the family pay half of the tuition but only for the first two children. Any further children must be fully funded by the trust fund system of the scholarship system for the poorest.