Spending review?

[averybluemonkey]

The thing is though is that nakamura is right, peaceful protests achieve nothing. I marched in the anti-Iraq war protests before the invasion, the largest political demonstrations in the history of this country. They received almost no media coverage and what little there was was extremely one sided. They had no effect, Blair didn't even acknowledge them.

Students today work damn hard and the way that the middle classes are being targeted in this manner is appalling. I genuinely probably could not have afforded to attend University at these current prices.

[nakamura]

Sounds a bit like terrorism, m'boy.

Not really. Because with terrorism you are looking to kill people. With aggressive protesting it is all about causing a lot of trouble. It could be a huge strain on police, fire services etc or just a lot of damage which would cost a lot of money. No intention to hurt people though.

If I was in government I would not be bothered by any peaceful protests in the slightest.

[prinnysquad]

It's brilliant the way the politicians and the big money men have got the upper-working-to-middle classes bitching at each other, in a selfish scrap to make sure everyone is as bad off as each other. After the world financial crisis was propagated by the greed of capitalism, it's fallen on the shoulders of Joe Average to take the fall. So the politicians and the media have engineered the current mindset of society to pit the average bloke against the average bloke, and produce a seige mentality. Not of, 'why the hell are we taking the hit for these greedy bastards?', but a mentality of 'well X group of workers have had to do such and such as an austerity measure, so should every group of workers.' 'X, y and z services have had to do something - why should others be exempt?' We've been programmed to accept that all of this is necessary simply because it's happened, but most of the people who caused it have crawled away into the background. It's dragged everyone else downwards, and succeeded in creating an age of bitchiness, where everyone has to be dragged into the ****, because everyone else apparently is. Meanwhile, the twats who created the mess flit between high-profile jobs, use their connections to stay rich, and, in the case of politicians, already engineered their places on the boards of various companies they got invited onto as MPs anyway.

[Spatial]

I see they're at it again. Kids today etc...

[NW2013]

Young people are so f**king thick, some of the phrases they've come out with are classic. "My rights are being impeded upon", you mean "impinged upon" or even just "impeded" with no "upon" numbnuts. It doesn't sound like half of them even understand what they're protesting against.

Also it's not a "right" to go to University, you've already been educated (not very well). Higher education is optional.

I hope the police and courts deal harshly with all those causing criminal damage.

I bet they all change their tune within five years of graduating and think students should "pay their own way".

Why can't guns and killing rampages be legal in this country? I'd sort them out good and proper.

[averybluemonkey]

Easy to say when you're not facing a £30k+ debt just to get an education. There are plenty of industries where you won't get a look in without a degree.

Of course I guess we should all sit back while the government destroys one of the key enablers for breaking down class divide in this country. leaving a university education available to only the rich and those poor enough to qualify for grants.

I would personally be very happy to pay higher taxes to enable the abolishen of tuition fees because I see it as a valuable investment in the country's future.

[Ginger Tosser]

Easy to say when you're not facing a ?30k+ debt just to get an education. There are plenty of industries where you won't get a look in without a degree.

Problem isn't those people doing a real degree, it's the people doing media courses and other wank courses. If most degrees were useful/applicable to the real world then I doubt we'd have to make these cuts.

We've had successive education minsters thinking we need to give everyone a degree, when frankly we really needed skills. Some employers don't help though, degrees needed for call centres?

[abigsmurf]

The students who attacked Charles and camillla's car are moronic thugs. Wonder if they would see it as 'a laugh' if they found themselves slapped with treason charges. Not gonna happen but these idiots should still be put in front of a judge

He has nothing to do with the tuition fee charges, he infact does a huge amount of charity work that benefits 10,000's of young people.

More evidence that a lot of these student protesters are more interested in having fun than making any political impact. Great, you don't want the tuition fees... What's your alternative to pay for university then? Tax the rich? What are you going to do when the rich all move to tax havens to avoid the high taxes? Take money from elsewhere in the budget? Allow the country to get more into debt?

The new system may cost more overall for students but it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to pay back than the loans of most people in here. They pay back smaller amounts and the income threshhold is much higher.

[CMcK]

Problem isn't those people doing a real degree, it's the people doing media courses and other wank courses. If most degrees were useful/applicable to the real world then I doubt we'd have to make these cuts.

We've had successive education minsters thinking we need to give everyone a degree, when frankly we really needed skills. Some employers don't help though, degrees needed for call centres?

This. When I last moved job my apprentice was applying for my old position. I had a look at the application form and discovered that I wasn't well enough qualified to apply for my own job!
Also out of all my friends and family that have been to college or university only two of them are in a job related to their qualifications. Neither of them on decent money either unfortunately.

This whole tuition fees debacle will hopefully bring about a look at the higher education system as a whole. If the UK is to get back to be a strong economy we need to stop being a service industry based country and get back to actually producing things and more importantly exporting more goods. We need skilled people to do that not more 'engineers' who are managers in disguise.

[Cornflakes]

The new system may cost more overall for students but it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to pay back than the loans of most people in here. They pay back smaller amounts and the income threshhold is much higher.

Isn't the issue more complex than that? It is tied in with the education budget, which has been cut, and they are trying replace the cuts through the increase of self financed tuition fees. Problem now is, increasing the fees might put a lot of potential student off, meaning the gap won't be filled, which in turn means more teaching and research position will be scraped. I don't think there is a good solution to solve the problem, maybe we have to face to the fact that only certain people can go into further/higher education, either from rich background or through sponsorships.
However i can see that a lot of universities and colleges in the UK will have to scale back, and possibly in some cases, face closures or mergers. They just grew too big in the last couple of decades.
Personally i think students should be sponsored by companies, meaning they have to work for them during holidays and a couple of years after graduation.

[Kit]

The students who attacked Charles and camillla's car are moronic thugs. Wonder if they would see it as 'a laugh' if they found themselves slapped with treason charges. Not gonna happen but these idiots should still be put in front of a judge

He has nothing to do with the tuition fee charges, he infact does a huge amount of charity work that benefits 10,000's of young people.

Indeed. Very telling of the type of people protesting. If any of those students had ever actually needed financial support, they’d be aware the Prince of Wales Trust helps a lot of people. Instead they trash the car of a man clearly sympathetic to their cause. Nice one guys.

[abigsmurf]

CNN had some 'interesting' coverage of this.

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

Well the bad apples have completely f**ked it up for them all now. Most ppl I know dont give 2 shiny ****es for the students after what these idiots have done, including me. I admired their enthusiasm, but its gone too far.
Vandalism of buildings, damaging the cenotaph, attacking royals. They really dont realise that all of this is gonna have to be PAID for too now. Their lack of respect just shows how infantile they are, which to me suggests that they dont deserve the education they apparently want. And due to the way the law works here they'll all probably get away with it or it wont even appear on their criminal record.

I agree with Ginger Tosser - too many pointless, simple degrees around these days, which will get you where? I'll tell you where - pulling pints in a pub or filling shelves in a supermarket, because they're worth ****e.

CMcK - its funny a few of us were discussing the disappearance of the UK industry today in work. We have nothing left & we need to re-build it so that instead of students believing that they have a right to go to college despite their idiocity & end up doing pointless degrees with nothing to show in the end, we have instead a diverse & thriving industry where young people can learn a real trade or skill, get an apprenticeship, earn while they learn, & then have a genuine job that they wanted to do at the end of it.

And as has been mentioned - If you go on a protest with your i-pods & wearing your designer gear then dont go pleading poverty .

[nakamura]

I agree with Ginger Tosser - too many pointless, simple degrees around these days, which will get you where? I'll tell you where - pulling pints in a pub or filling shelves in a supermarket, because they're worth ****e.
.

This is so true. So many students that come in my shop spend most of their time pissing money away and never studying for their quite frankly pointless degrees.

Student life has become a doss. It needs to be hard work, people need to learn the real value of studying again.

[BaronSqwelch]

I agree with Ginger Tosser - too many pointless, simple degrees around these days, which will get you where? I'll tell you where - pulling pints in a pub or filling shelves in a supermarket, because they're worth ****e.

maybe they should just charge on how worthy the course is...

Doctor = Free
Psychology = £5000
Media Studies = £10000
History of Art = £5000000000

then if you want to spend 3 years being a drunk/c**t/drunken c**t doing Golf Course Management I dont have to help pay for it but if you are able to sew me back together after being shark attacked I have invested in my future.