Anyone else fed up with the protests??

ok, so i get why people are upset, but its getting stupid!!
so what people will have to pay more, a degree is worth more than £27,000 anyway!! and an education isnt a right! its something you earn from working hard, and it shouldnt just be handed to you.
i really dont understand why people are so mad. if you want a degree that much you wont care about how much it costs, i sure as hell dont and i am not exactly rich or anything, i come from your average working class family.

I am however, annoyed that despite the increase in what we are paying ("paying") there are still cuts in department/university funding. Or at least that is what I am aware of.

Education is a right; it enables us to gain the knowledge we need to pursue jobs that we are naturally skilled at doing. Education = knowledge = freedom and therefore education is a right to freedom. What's more, if it wasn't an inalienable right, we wouldn't have free primary and secondary education, and one of the World Goals for 2015 wouldn't be the achievement of universal primary schooling! Everyone deserves the right to the sort of jobs they would excel at; it would benefit society as a result. The number of potential geniuses that will be restricted from top jobs as a result of mammoth tuition fees is horrifying. Having money does not give you a better right to knowledge than someone who is born into poverty.

I could go on and on.....there are too many reasons why higher tuition fees is a bad idea, and why these protests are exactly what we need to ensure policies so damaging aren't ever put in place

What annoys me is the amount of police needed to oversee these protests because of a few idiots kicking off. At my uni there had to be one police officer for every protester, as well as police on horseback. I'm sure they have better things to do than babysit a bunch of students whining about Cameron.

Education is a right up to A level as education to this level is needed for everyday life.

You do not need a degree to get by in life you could easily live without it. Therefore its not a right.

You saw what happened when there were not enough police. They trashed and tried to occupy a building and the police got yelled at for not doing their job properly

The reason the fees are increasing is because of the cuts in government funding for universities. Thus the universities won't actually be better off, and so despite paying 2 or 3 times more for the degree, people won't get a better education (and in some subjects where funding is being totally cut to zero, then people may get a worse education). That is part of the reason why people are angry.

That is debatable. An awful lot of jobs now are asking for a degree. It doesn't matter if they actually need one to do the work or not, you won't even get an interview without a degree.

In any case, if someone is intelligent enough, then why shouldn't they go to uni? Why should they be held back because of the cost of it?

Anyone who fully understands the government plans will realise they are in a far better postion when they leave uni than they are now.

What about yesterday in London? Where for the most part the police couldn't keep up with the protestors. It was peaceful yesterday until the police started to kettle them in again.

It is people like you that make Britain, the misreble foul smelling garbage heap of a country it is today.

Education is a right and it should be free for all no matter what. The best countries in the world all have free education systems. If Britain carries on with this neoliberal route then we are all screwed.

How will they be able to compete if their teaching budgets are being cut by 40% and their research grants are also being cut significantly. Take a look at this table,



The UK will fall even further behind the likes of the USA, because their universities receive ridiculous sums of money in terms of endowment, and as a result, are able to attract the best academic scholars from around the world, and build the best facilities.

Let's take an average highly rated UK university, say York. They get an endowment of £8.7 million from the government. Now let's take a counterpart from the US, say the University of Michigan. They get an $6.6 billion in endowment.

Now let's take another example, regarding the higher end of the spectrum. Let's take Imperial College as an example. They get £276.6 million in terms of endowment (which is considerable compared to most in the UK). Now let's take a counterpart, say MIT. They get $8.3 billion a year.

Finally, if we look at the very top end. Oxford get £3 billion. Harvard get $27.4 billion.

So it's easy to conclude then, why the US universities are in a whole different galaxy in terms of academia. And the UK is only going to fall further behind, thanks to these cuts.

Just wondering, where did you get those figures from? Seems like quite the gap in funding if true.

From what I heard of the protest yesterday protesters started burning placards and trashing nelson's column leading to the police kettling them in and letting out small groups so they don't have to deal with massive groups of protesters all over London.

Protesters responded to this by throwing fireworks.

I got the figures on university endowment from wikipedia. I got the figure for the 40% cuts from here (and here). And I got that table from this regional source.

I see. But won't it be difficult to pay off that loan especially if you're focusing on getting a mortgage in the future too?

What rich people do not understand is the poorer people have a fear of debt. Rightly or wrongly, they will not want to take on £50,000 worth a debt.

Well from what I have heard, it was initially the police who were violent. Kettling people in BEFORE they started to be violent. I suppose it depends who you listen to. But had the police actually used their brains, and not tried to kettle people right at the start of the protest, then it would have been a lot easier to police.
But thats asking too much of them. (also note that most of the police had their ID numbers removed so they couldn't be identified - which is illegal).

You lot are thick as ****.

The 'debt' is only going to be paid once you are in a position to afford it after you have finished uni. You don't walk in on day one of Uni and hand over £27,000 to the receptionist.

Furthermore the police were very soft on the protesters on the first day of protesting but after they started wrecking police vans, buildings, starting fires, assaulting police officers and throwing fire extinguishers off buildings they proved themselves not to be trusted so you can't blame the police for being pre-emptive.

I don't care about the protests but if they continue to become violent then it will cause the government to see us as immature kids and we won't be taken seriously.

So we are thick for having a fear of exactly what caused the recession? (ie debt).
I'm sorry, try going to someone who comes from a family who has grown up on £10,000 a year and then telling them if they want to go to uni to better themselves, they have to spend that much on tuition fees alone. You'll get no where. I'm not saying its right, but people in that position do not want to think about that much debt. In any case, there was a report out a few days back saying that the majority of people will pay MORE than what they do now, not less.

And you can blame the police for being pre-emptive. Because it is arguably illegal.