More student protests

[Phage]

From the BBC.

"One woman is holding a home-made placard calling for "rich parents for all".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11829102

<Kenney Everett>I think there's something in that for all of us.</Kenny Everett>

[Bugbait]

Quotes taken from the linked article above.

Mark Bergfeld, spokesman for the Education Activist Network, one of the groups organising the protests, said: "We have the right to protest, we have the right to civil disobedience, we have the right to occupy our lecture halls."

No, they have the right to protest and that’s about it. Civil disobedience results in “regular” people loosing sympathy for their cause. They certainly don’t have the right to occupy lecture halls.

Root cause of the problem? Same as always, a false sense of entitlement.

Further education students and sixth-formers are also protesting at plans to remove the education maintenance allowance, which gives low-income students up to £30 a week to help with the costs of staying in full-time education.

I got my first paid, part time job when I was 11 years old. I didn’t need the money but I wanted more toys and my parents though it was a good idea that I learned the value of money. Maybe students should get off their rear and earn some money instead of expecting a state subsidised free ride through life?

[jim]

To be fair, most of us are getting off our rears, and it's still tough to make ends meet.

I'll be the first to admit that your average student isn't very good at organising their money, but then judging by the levels of debt in this nation neither is your average human.

[Phage]

Update

Dominic Casciani, BBC News, Whitehall -

Some demonstrators are so cold they've been lighting fires to keep warm, using their placards for fuel.
Not really the weather for a good riot.

[Andeh13]

People do see students as a a bunch of free loaders, but for the proper degrees after the first year your ability to do paid work drops rapidly. First year I worked in a pub & was alright with it, but by the time I got to my second year i couldnt spare the evenings off. By the final year there wasnt a hope in hell of me managing to do paid work & expect a decent degree! I would be pulling 12 hour days to fit in a couple days off to see my daughter, and that really put a lot of strain on me. I can't imagine many students holding it all together, and get the degree they want.

On the flip side of it, over the period of the years I was at university I was one of the far more sensible ones with money. A lot of students weren't as careful and got themseleves backed up against a wall over it. More could be done to educate students over money management, it's a tough lesson to learn if you go to university without respect for money.

edit:

Also wanted to add that with my degree & the job I got because of it, I might have cost the tax payer £26K (which i will pay off in the next 10 years), but I will contrubute far far more to the economy then if I hadn't gone to university.

[Phage]

I was speaking to one of the extended family grouping who has recently started at Uni, and he told me that we should see more compressed courses. In his first year he said that he only had 10 hours per week of lectures.
What do you think ? How much room is there for two year courses rather than three ?

[Andeh13]

I was speaking to one of the extended family grouping who has recently started at Uni, and he told me that we should see more compressed courses. In his first year he said that he only had 10 hours per week of lectures.
What do you think ? How much room is there for two year courses rather than three ?

For a lot of degrees, I would have struggled to do mine in 2 years. I might have only had 14 hours of lecturers a week but I did have a lot of work to do outside of classes. One thing that did really grate on me was a friends [then] girlfriend who did Film studies and had 4 hours of lecturers a week, 2 of which were tutorial Q&A session. That is what the government need to look at, not sweeping price hikes on genuine degrees....especially degrees already in short supply...maths, physics etc

Some degrees i saw at university:

Fine Art Studies
Social Theatre Studies
Theatre Lighting *something*
Clothing/Fashion Design etc
More then enough Dramas, Dance, Theatres Studies etc.

They are the degrees which cost the tax payer huge amounts & do no benefit to either the student or wider economy once they have graduated. All of these students paid exactly what i did for my degree & cost the tax payer the same amount.

[Saracen]

Students need to understand, as some apparently don't, that money doesn't grow on trees.

It's like this, guys. The pot of money is restricted, and the country is already drowning in debt. Just about everything is facing severe cuts and you lot have a choice. We can reorganise funding and expect those that go to university to pay a larger portion of it after they graduate and start earning a reasonable wage .... or we can go back the grant system where you don't pay for it at all. But if we do the latter, 5% or less of school-leavers will get a university place instead if the current 45%-ish, so 8 out of every 9 of you will have to get (or try to get) a job instead.

Grow up. The country is in trouble. Stop whining.

What part of "there isn't any money left" don't you understand?

[Cozwin]

As said above i think it depends on the degree... but too many people have degrees it is simple as that which is why the government thinks raising the price will decrease this number, because it will.

I know far to many fellow students either putting in no effort or extremely little because they are here for the lifestyle and wing their way through all year, one of my housemates has been doing his essays the night before (this is second year so actually counts).

But protesting and causing damage to justify raising costs, by providing tax payers a little more debt... please explain how this is a smart move.

I couldnt care less that student fees are rising and do not believe Clegg has backstabbed the voters etc, Lib dem policies and Coalition policies are too seperate things.

[Cozwin]

For a lot of degrees, I would have struggled to do mine in 2 years. I might have only had 14 hours of lecturers a week but I did have a lot of work to do outside of classes. One thing that did really grate on me was a friends [then] girlfriend who did Film studies and had 4 hours of lecturers a week, 2 of which were tutorial Q&A session. That is what the government need to look at, not sweeping price hikes on genuine degrees....especially degrees already in short supply...maths, physics etc

Some degrees i saw at university:

Fine Art Studies
Social Theatre Studies
Theatre Lighting *something*
Clothing/Fashion Design etc
More then enough Dramas, Dance, Theatres Studies etc.

They are the degrees which cost the tax payer huge amounts & do no benefit to either the student or wider economy once they have graduated. All of these students paid exactly what i did for my degree & cost the tax payer the same amount.

My UNI is an old polytechnic and as such follows this same pattern, an awful lot of degrees... that really shouldn't exist, i see a lot of people doing degrees they clearly cannot get a job in but they still do it.

[TheAnimus]

People do see students as a a bunch of free loaders, but for the proper degrees after the first year your ability to do paid work drops rapidly. First year I worked in a pub & was alright with it, but by the time I got to my second year i couldnt spare the evenings off. By the final year there wasnt a hope in hell of me managing to do paid work & expect a decent degree! I would be pulling 12 hour days to fit in a couple days off to see my daughter, and that really put a lot of strain on me. I can't imagine many students holding it all together, and get the degree they want.

Working in holidays is easier, but hard to find work which exists for such a short time. However I'm sorry to say but the fit in a 12 hour day, boo hoo, welcome to adulthood. Also the fact its to see your daughter is not typical of the average student. Its not representative and frankly the government shouldn't be having to plan for it, and frankly I'll be damned if I'm going to loose some of my hard earned to subsidies someone else so they can have their cake and eat it too.

[jim]

Or we can go back the grant system where you don't pay for it at all. But if we do the latter, 5% or less of school-leavers will get a university place instead if the current 45%-ish, so 8 out of every 9 of you will have to get (or try to get) a job instead.

Fine. Do it, and I will stop moaning.

Naturally though, they won't, they'll make me pay to send some donkey brain to do some pointless course at a pointless university in Cornwall or something. Sod them, I really couldn't care less.

[jim]

I was speaking to one of the extended family grouping who has recently started at Uni, and he told me that we should see more compressed courses. In his first year he said that he only had 10 hours per week of lectures.
What do you think ? How much room is there for two year courses rather than three ?

I only have 7 hours of lectures/seminars per week.

However, it's generally agreed (as I understand it) that I'm doing by far the most challenging and the most demanding subject that the university offers. You need far more information than just the number of hours spent in contact time to draw any worthwhile conclusions.

Science students naturally spend more time in lectures and labs because they have experiments to run, which they can't do at home. Arts students tend to spend more time reading, so they have a lot of time off to spend in the library or reading at home.

Of course, some people use it to go and get drunk, which is their choice. Should the university kick them out? I believe so, but I don't know what the policy is exactly.

[redddraggon]

However, it's generally agreed (as I understand it) that I'm doing by far the most challenging and the most demanding subject that the university offers.

Maths?

[jim]

Maths?

No, history.

[format]

Students need to understand, as some apparently don't, that money doesn't grow on trees.

It's like this, guys. The pot of money is restricted, and the country is already drowning in debt. Just about everything is facing severe cuts and you lot have a choice. We can reorganise funding and expect those that go to university to pay a larger portion of it after they graduate and start earning a reasonable wage .... or we can go back the grant system where you don't pay for it at all. But if we do the latter, 5% or less of school-leavers will get a university place instead if the current 45%-ish, so 8 out of every 9 of you will have to get (or try to get) a job instead.

Grow up. The country is in trouble. Stop whining.

What part of "there isn't any money left" don't you understand?

It's not the student's fault that the country is in trouble though is it? I think that's part of the reason why there is so much agitation. The financial sector caused the trouble, yet they continue on after a huge bailout from the taxpayers purse. They still get huge bonus payouts.

And it's the normal people that suffer for it.

Should they just keep a stiff upper lip and keep quiet about this injustice?