Opponents of the coalition government scream that tuition fees have been trebled, and "good" universities do little to disabuse them. A new generation is politicised - in an initially scattergun/scatterbrained direction - and Aaron Porter is kidnapped/kettled by the people he was elected to represent. Another day on the political front line.
First the good bits...
First the good bits...
- the coalition government is piling more resources into further education
- the coalition government is including part-time students in the loans/grants scheme, where before they really did have to pay up-front
- given where they start from, the new loan repayment scheme is much "fairer" than what it follows (it doesn't change anything for those who are already facing a levy when they get to £15k pa)
- that's about it, though it isn't nothing
Now the bad bits...
- withdrawing most, or all, government funding from university teaching is a powerfully symbolic move which I would also label despicable
- expecting a large proportion of young people - from whatever background - to start their working lives with a sizeable loan hanging over them goes against every change we need to make in our thinking about money
- hey kid, it's OK to have a loan, it's OK that you never had to prove you could pay it back, and - you know what's best about this? - most of you won't have to!
I'm laughing all the way to hell.
