I have to admit when I first heard about the new plans for student fee’s I felt furious. Education should be free. When I went to university to undertake my undergraduate degree, my student fees were paid by my local authority and I had to take a loan to help support myself through the course. I always had a job and worked a minimum of 8 hours a week but usually it was more like 15. my debt when I finished my undergraduate was £10,500.
At the core of my value system I believe that everybody should have a right to a free education. For me knowledge is not purely a means to a decent income but an opportunity to widen one’s mind. An opportunity for personal growth and through education a person can come to understand the wider context of our being. The study of civilisations and wars can enrich our understanding of ourselves, our action, our beliefs and where they come from. I believe that a good education can bring meaning to life. For example when I consider my ancestry and the many people who have given their lives for the freedom that I enjoy, I am inspired to use that freedom positively, to experience as much of this life as I can, to use the freedoms that were won for me to good affect and to progressively move forward in my own life time.
Since the beginning of this debate I have noticed that the media have been keen to communicate with working and lower middle class young people. There has been an emphasis on studying vocational courses. The message is loud and clear, do not study a subject that will not guarantee you a job at the end of it. The kinds of courses they are pointing these young people to, doctors, nurses, social workers, engineers, teachers and the like. Do not study history or politics, do not try and enter journalism it is to competitive and it is unlikely that you will succeed. This on the surface sounds like good and practical advice.
I can’t help but notice that the working and lower middle class are being directed towards the kind of jobs that were once termed as “trade” by the upper class in the UK. Though all of these professions are good and indeed I occupy one of them, they are but jobs that carry with them very little influence.
If however you have the opportunity to study politics, history, even the sciences to higher levels, well you could end up being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds just to think. To think and advise the government about the way things should be done. For example just this week the specialists who advice the government with regards to our policy in the Arab world have been in the hot spot. These are people who have studied Arabian cultures, who have lived in their societies just to further their knowledge and understanding and are now paid substantial sums of money to share their knowledge with our policy makers. More to my point they are highly influential individuals who have the opportunity to influence how Britain relates to Arab world. The same is true for so many other areas such as economics and the like.
We personally have an acquaintance that has a son who is paid ridiculous money just to sit at his home in Scotland and think.
In my view the recent discourses about education are geared at keeping the large majority of people in their place. The ruling class of old can continue to enrol on the kind of courses that set them up to become political leaders whilst the working and middle classes continue to work in the fields that were assigned to them decades ago. This surely is the natural order of things!
So back to student fees I would just like to point out that a free education was abolished under the Labour government and students have for some time now had to take a loan not only for living costs but also for their student fees. Below are some figures outlining how much students have to pay for their education now and how much they will have to pay under the proposed system. The figures below are based on annual student fees of £6,500 as this seems to be the general consensus amongst most universities at the moment.
Proposed System Current system
3 years at university = £34,350 @9% 3 years at University = £24,720
Average earning of £25,000 Average earning of £25,000
=10,800 @ £30 per month 30yrs =22,500 @ £75 per month 25yrs
£11,700 more
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Average earning of £30,000 Average earning of £30,000
Repayment 30 years Repayment 25 years
= 24,300 @ 67.50 per month. = 33,750 @ 112.50
£9450 more
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Average earnings of £40,000 Average earning £40,000
Repayment 30 years = 51,300 Repayment 15 years = 33,750
= £51300 @ £142.50 per month = 24,720 @ 187.50 per month
£17,750 more
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Average earnings of £50,000 Average earnings of £50,000
=44,370 @ £217.15 per month 17 year 34,650 @ £262.50 per month 11 yrs
£9,720 more
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Sorry for the lay out I could have done a better job. As you can see for yourself though I am loathed to admit the con/dem’s proposed system could indeed be cheaper for some students although those students will be paying something back for 30 years. All I can say is that if the calculator I have used is accurate try not to earn an average of £40,000 because if you do, you will pay back the most and will be well and truly ripped off in comparison with your fellow students. The cynic in me feels that £40,000 might be just about the average graduate income by the time the 2012 students have made their way into the market place. Who knows?
All I ask is that you give your career some thought before buying into the media led value system that if you do go to university you must do a vocational course with a guaranteed job at the end of it. If that is what you want, then that it is all well and good, I love my profession and hope that I get to remain in it for some time yet. But if you desire something else then you will have to learn how to take risks and that may begin with your undergraduate course. I do know of a few working class people who have made it into professions of influence, who have become journalists and gained positions in politics. If you really believe you are made for something then I believe you just have to go for it.
