All Must Have Tuition Fees

Mike

Its good to see at least some commentators saying it as it is in that university is not suitable to many who leave school at 18. Trade school, one day a week off work for college and even evening school is a much better option for many and always has been.

The mantra of degrees for everyone no matter what the degree patently doesn't work, it costs the country and now the student too much for little if any return on investment.

If nothing else hiking tuition fees will in a round about way make many students unsuited to uni go and find a real job and potentially be ahead of the game over those that do go to uni.

Oflife

Kudos M for once again predicting the long term damaged caused by PC thinking. Fortunately, according to the papers yesterday, an increasing number of people are approving of more pragmatic and realistic Thatcherite values.

There is hope yet.

Ricky

The majority of protesters appear to come from elite universities, privilege and independent schools.

A case of self interest from the future elite?

" We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control....Hey! Teachers, leave those kids alone. All in all you're just another brick in the wall..."

Pink Floyd lyrics.

Dave Gilmour. Pink Floyd. Worth est £38 million.

His son, Charlie. Arrested following latest riot in London.

Educated: Lancing College & Cambridge.

All in all.......you're just another.....

Dai, Edinburgh

I made the mistake of thinking I could enter four year study as a full-time mature student based on a simple written request to the principal. The senate consisting of college professors invited me to attend an interview. On discovering that I had left school with nothing but a first in truancy, they helpfully suggested that in order for me to appreciate the intensity involved in studying that I obtain two Highers at night school. I duly followed their advice obtaining an A and a B and was offered a place, but this criteria was not the end. In order to progress from year 1 to year 2 I had to sit an elementary language examination. Then in order to progress from year 2 to year 3 I had to sit another elementary language examination. Failing either of these two exams would have prevented me continuing and completing the degree. After four years hard slog for a forty odd year old I graduated with distinction. I was thankful to the professors for ensuring first of all that I appreciated the hard work involved in studying, and also for their confidence in offering me a place. I progressed further - if one could call it that - to mercifully - and I do mean mercifully - completing a tiresome social science (read Marxist/postmodernist/feminist drivel) degree. This particular degree was a matter of processing the student rather than educating him. In short, it was doctrinaire.

Stuart Seacole Smith

Yep, that's about right. The unemployment figure fiddling system, oops, education system now means that we spend more time and money to supposedly prepare people for jobs that many could perfectly well do without a degree. The degree itself is now no more than a "pass" to get your CV read. The onus is on the employer to sort out the wheat from the huge number of "I know my rights/ I'm edukated now innit" dope smoking lefty chaffsters. Funny how so many of the tenets of socialism turn out as rather less than they were cracked up to be.

Mark

Last week Nick Gibb, Schools Minister said the education system was failing the 44.6% of boys on free school meals who were not attaining the level expected of an average 11 year old in reading.
One would expect around that percentage of children to be below average. Seems that the new government is going to continue the push on schools to ensure that as many children as possible are average. Nothing's going to change yet.

Dave C

It was the fate of Casandra to correctly foresee the future and have none believe her

JaneS

Melanie
Why don't you throw in the recent OECD tables which verifies the frightening decline of UK educational standards.We know have an undergraduate population many of whom are unable to exercise judgement and for the large part unemployable. Watch the further ascent of the privately educated!What a tragedy.

Paul from Texas

I don't understand. Does the gov't control the cost of tuition over universities and students? Does the gov't control the wages of university employees, including professors?

Paul from Texas

In the U.S. people get a college degree to get a good job, not to get an education. In the past, employers used to administer tests to prospective employees -- mostly IQ tests to see if a person was qualified. Those tests are now illegal because of racial discrimination laws, so now most people get that degree to prove their worth with a diploma.

And universities have increased their tuition in response to the increased demand. But the single biggest component to increasing tuition is gov't involvement in the student-loan process. Now with Obama in power, the gov't has taken over the entire student loan market. We now expect tuition to skyrocket, and we expect more fraud, waste and abuse -- and favoritism.

Dave M

It's a complex question. I do think the vast rise in population engineered by New Labour has something to do with it. So far as I'm aware this country has been funding higher education for foreign students within our borders for quite some time. I have grave doubts such loans will be paid back either. Suffice it to say when I revisited my own old uni I found a good deal of the students were now coming form overseas and often funded by the Labour Government at the time. Thus, it seems to me we have too many students taking out loans and free education should be for British nationals same as in Japan or China. It's overseas students who normally pay. Same as I would expect to pay if I chose to do a uni degree at a Chinese, Japanese or Indian university. Or wherever.
The other point is as has been said education neeeds to be streamlined so only the gifted do degree courses. It should be based on merit and not class. So long as you get the grades you should get a grant.

TomTom

Conservatives introduced Comprehensive Schools (Edward Boyle), debased exams (Keith Joseph and GCSE), and destroyed good Polytechnics and Sandwich Courses (John Major).

Labour simply turned Universities into Comprehensives and made schooling compulsory up to 18.

The English contempt for Education runs through all political parties whose leaders buy themselves out with attendance at Eton and Westminster

SAM ARMSTRONG

The fact that so many seem to want a degree, and worse think it'll transform their lives, shows that a lot of people don't have a lot of faith in their own abilities. You don't need to do a degree to do well in life. It is essential if you want to become a scientist, or an engineer, or a kind of advanced skill. But for most people's purposes in life, a degree is unnecessary. All one needs is passion. With passion you get a free pass to the University of Life, where you can pretty much go anywhere and do anything. But people seem to have forgotten about that; they seem to think that you need to get a degree to be successful. Yet another example of how the initiative of Britain has been worn away by state intervention.

MikeW

I'm interested in the drop out rates for courses. If assume less than half (a figure I admit is out of the air) of students UK wide complete the course and get the degree what about the other half of students. Is this a graduate tax or an ex-student tax?

If the tory argument is that those that benefit from university pay back once they've gone on to get this mystical amazing job, what about those in life that could still end up with a huge debt but hover around or just above 21k? It's a blot on their CV forever 2 or 3 'lost years' and I defy anyone to say someone in that situation has had any benefit whatsoever.

It's all very well for the silver spoon etonian millionaires to propose that the underclass should pay for their education when they've had it all for free all of their lives. It'd be entertaining to watch them trying to run a household with debt payments and an average wage.

At the same time the same politicians create this inescapable debt they begin to criticise borrowers in favour of savers that "do the right thing"

phil

I am so fed up with us stating the obvious year after year after year and being ignored by the new glitterati,After watching last weeks performance of Young Britain ,well hooded and well armed with filthy mouths and well defended by that obnoxious girl on newsnight ,I am just starting to wonder whether we are going to survive as a first world nation .
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It does not take a genius to have seen that a fair share all the violence came not from genuine students ,but from the usual crowd of funloving criminals and regular marchers .Some of these young people would take an A in boozing and drugs and and what used to be a fail in their degree course ,and we are paying for them.The thoughtless and greedy think we should provide everything for them and they should not be a part of the financial pain we are all suffering.The QT audience which regularly reflects the lack of knowledge so wide spread in our nation did not even try to listen to the explanations of the coalition plan ,and one that seemed very fair to those on lower incomes
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I must have been some fool as I paid for all my education and worked part time to do it .Well now I see our nation rushing over the cliff like lemmings with the cry echoing in my ear "but I have rights " -maybe but they also have responsibilities and someone needs to tell them .

John Steadman

I've nothing in principle against second-rate minds taking degrees, for I belonged to that category myself. But at that time, hard graft was needed to make up the difference, and my subsequent experiences at the front of the classroom revealed to me that in large numbers of would-be undergraduates this could no longer be assumed. A good search-engine and a ridiculously dumbed-down examination system are now key-factors, and these are among the reasons why Melanie Phillips' comments are bang on.

Louis Berk

I'm not sure what is wrong with educating as many individuals in our society as possible to university level, per se. You could almost argue that it is a benefit of being the 6th wealthiest country on the planet. What is, of course, the problem is that we still fail to really redistribute wealth in this country. You could say the Cameroons are not only burying their heads in the sand about education but purposely burying their heads in the sand so that the elitist and filthy rich members of the government do not have to pay a fair share of tax. Solve the unfair taxation system in the country, where billionaires can avoid their tax obligations by siphoning it off to their non-dom wives and perhaps we wouldn't have to charge university fees at all? Or, for that matter have a sub-standard health system, or an over burdened police force. But there again, I'm just a long suffering and hard squeezed member of the middle classes, so what do I know?

Kittler

There is no such thing as a British Educational System, there are no "British" tuition fees. If a commentator is unable to get the simple, basic stuff correct, what confidence should we have in the value or veracity of their opinion.

Robin

Louid Berk - the problem is that we still fail to really redistribute wealth in this country.

Err.. you want to redistribute what wealth I have worked hard for for 46 years to those who haven't? I think not. Why on earth can't people work hard and create their own wealth. And please don't bleat about people not finding jobs. I was made redundant at the ripe old age of 50. Changed direction and found a slot for myself after 3 months. Haven't stopped since.

Like many of the ANTIs I know, I object to my tax pounds going to the idle 1.5 million who sponge off the state. That includes students attending mediocre courses at mediocre, pseudo-universities.

Bhaskar

Tuition fees for the more elite universities is not a bad idea if these universities emulate Harvard, Yale and Princeton from the other side of the Atlantic. These later Ivy League institutions have a remarkable track record of admitting students from poorer and minority backgrounds by offering generous scholarships and bursaries. Obama is the most famous beneficiary of someone from a humble background going to Harvard. Unfortunately their British counterpart (Oxbridge) have a notorious track record in this respect and do not inspire confidence that they will broaden their social base and reflect Britain as it is rather than Britain from a bygone era epitomized by 'Brideshead'. Files released recently under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that certain Oxford Colleges have not admitted a single black British student over the last five years despite the fact that all these students were A grade candidates. While simultaneously, Oxbridge colleges set up dozens of 'access' events at Eton each year. If you allow them to charge astronomical fees they will only become more elitist. Oxbridge positively discriminates in favor of candidates from private schools.
By the way, the Russell Group is an imitation of American Ivy League. To say they represent all the best British universities is a myth since two of the finest British universities (Durham and Sussex) were not admitted to it. And finally, let's not forget, it was John Major who devalued higher education by allowing every polytechnic and higher education college to call itself an university.

davvers

It seems to me that the herd instinct is alive in the young today. If others are going to Uni to have a good time and get a useless degree then why not. It sure beats the hell out of working. Oops they are now going to charge us a lot.....b..ger that. Lets march.

Mustapha Bunn

I find it ironic that the "students" who rioted over increased fees stayed at home when,not so long ago,the media announced that over 10,000 British born students were unable to attend British universities because there were so many places being offered to overseas students who could afford the higher fees that universities are now so dependent on.

Peter North

Right again Melanie. Sucks don't it.

David Lindsay

TomTom, spot on. Replacing O-levels with GCSEs was the most destructive thing that Margaret Thatcher ever did. And that is saying quite omething. Not least since, as Education Secretary, she had closed so many grammar schools that there were not enough left at the end for her record ever to be equalled.

St Bruno

I’ve always thought the demise of the Polytechnics was a bad idea. So was the demise of the Colleges of Advanced Technology that came before, remember them? And not forgetting night-schools that did O and A-levels and other leg-ups to higher education for working class kids. All gone, binned for the funding of universities and the age old belief that education is age related. If you don’t make the grade at eighteen you are not of the right intellect for higher education. You were classed as a mature student and if you did get to university the best you could hope for is a 2.1, unless you were of the right class, or a failed public school boy who fluffed his matric and your background is acceptable and economically independent to join the elite professions. No matter how hard you work at your essays and course work you are always tainted with the ‘not bright enough’ to get your A-levels at school and got a job instead.

Things have changed today were every diverse citizen can benefit from University education even if the degree gained is of not worth the paper it is written on. Well at least the government at the time is seen to be keeping the unemployment figures down, but creating a real lack of skills and proficiency amongst a British generation that has been neglected and needlessly diversified for the needs of class and greed.

Ricky
December 13th, 2010 1:52p

Watch a take on the Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5SXYqGg1g&feature=player_embedded

Gregorius

The most infuriating thing about the Browne review is that the so-called progressive system of repayments (no payments above £21,000 and interest linked to income) will penalize students at proper universities even more than the current system. It is a step backwards. As a student, I am forced to choose between this and the leftist thugs in the NUS. I don't know why I bother.

Stuart

So how does Ms Phillips define 'patently ill-equipped [young people]'?

Lee Jakeman

You mean the hike in ENGLISH education fees, don't you?

Derek BLADES

Melanie misses the point herself when she writes “[universities] are now processing …. vast numbers of young people who should not be at university in the first place….on the grounds that pretty well everyone is entitled to have a degree qualification.”

The reason that political parties of both left and right have encouraged young people to go to university is not that they are “entitled to have a degree qualification”. The argument is that most will end up better people from going to university. People who have studied for a degree course generally understand better how the world works. They are more likely to take an intelligent interest in political events at home and abroad, more likely to help their own children to learn, more likely to read books than watch telly, less likely to subscribe to silly conspiracy theories, and more likely to read the Guardian than the Mail.

The vicious hike in fees and the inevitable fall in the numbers of youngsters going on to university is a sad return to the dumbing-down trend which Margaret Thatcher initiated and which Tony Blair reversed.

Students are right to protest.

Andy Gill

It is a disgrace that so many young people are excluded from University simply because they are not academically gifted. Oxford and Cambridge in particular have a shameful record of discriminating against dimmer students.

We need to ensure that University undergraduates are fully representative of the population, so that even the thickest can benefit from the opportunities that university education provides.

That should solve the problem.

Peter

I've been saying this for all the years since retiring from my University career - over ten years ago.

The education system is much closer to complete meltdown than the general public think. In some(I should possibly say many) Departments in the newer Universities, you know those little colleges who really love the title 'University', I've come across senior staff who simply cannot write a page of English. And these are what we like to call white, indigenous English people.

MC

For the first time in my life, I agree with Mel.

Work have sent me to a former Poly to do a Postgrad diploma. The economics module covered topics that were more akin to A-level economics than for a postgrad.

Rebel Saint

I will soon be able to demand a premium salary and be fast tracked to senior positions because I will be one of the select 10% who do not have a degree.

Dave M

I think the concept of charging for higher education has gone way too far and the protests are a good thing because we can afford to fund uni education. It's to do with priorities. First of all, the Iraq war (a country which had nothing to do with us) cost us billions. Then, as the media pointed out, the huge sums in foreign aid to Pakistan and other countries that is no longer viable. A bit of juggling around I think and you find there is indeed money that can fund higher education. In my day (1989), you had to work hard to pass A levels and some universities would let you in. It came with a free grant as well as housing allowance. So what happened between 1989 and now? Sure the economy is nowhere near as good but I also think vast amounts of money have been wasted on George Bush's grudge war in Iraq and also a reckless immigration system and so on.
Still, it is a good point made that we now need to ask how valuable a degree is. Myself, I think if I had my time again I'd have not bothered and opted for a trade instead. The snag is if too many people have a degree the value of the degree diminishes. So, it has to become more competitive to get a grant but grants should be available. The problem is the current crop of politicians think you can continually go on importing foreign labour to drive the economy so they probably don't see any merit in training young people. It now seems to me if China and India have far better success churning out graduates and skilled employees we're going to get left behind. More than likely in 20 years time we'll be relying on imported labour on a massive scale to keep the economy afloat which also means massive home grown unemployment. That's why it's right to protest and hopefully the protests will continue.

Terry McHugh

You are soooo right on this!!
When I first heard that the last government wanted to put 50% of the population in to universities, I thought they had lost their marbles.50% of people are simply not capable of higher education ( and I include myself in this ). Where do they find these people!!

Smuglus

Totally agree but what about the ridiculously short term times at all Universities. Degree courses could easily be condensed from 4 to 3 or even 2 years - Get the Lecturers and Staff to work proper hours and give the students some value for monety

Tilly

Nothing wrong with as many people as possible getting as much education as possible. The only problem is how results are interpreted. At undergraduate Uni level, I suggest:

1st class degree = consistently hard worker, high-level literacy/numeracy, solid research skills, excellent critical faculties, much original thought, flashes of brilliance.

2:1 degree = hard worker (with occasional lapses), adequate literacy/numeracy, uneven demonstration of research/critical skills, capable of original thought and does attain levels of excellence but rather inconsistently.

2:2 = hard worker but struggling, or reasonably bright but lazy, some quite alarming areas of weakness in literacy/research/critical skills, very rarely achieves excellence on any score.

3rd class = minimal effort and/or inability to cope with assignments set, inadequate academic skills all round (except, maybe, socially).

Pass = attended uni for full three years, but ...um ... that's it.

Fail = who is this person? No-one seems to know.

Hope this helps.

Jon_Boy

The problem with universities is that the whole industry has become too big with both local and the national economy too reliant on the university sector. The university sector currently keeps thousands of young people from being registered unemployed between the ages of 18 and 21 with students expected to borrow money to help facilitate this. The unsustainable property boom partly began and was also sustained by the enormous proliferation of young people looking to rent from buy to let landlords using subsidised loans from government for their subsidised university courses.

The increase in foreign students coming to the UK was due many factors. There are a small core group of UK universities that will attract some of the best students from all over the world for purely academic reasons. However in my experience many foreign students come here to second and third rate institutions simply because back in their own countries they would not have adequate academic qualifications to attend university.

For these students the natural choice is between English speaking countries with the UK becoming very popular over the last decade due to foreign students being allowed to work during their studies, some allowed to access the benefits system during their studies and it being extremely easy to obtain a work visa, then indefinite leave to remain and finally citizenship after their studies. Before anyone kicks up about the benefits statement I knew several Malay Malaysians, with families, in the mid 1990s, in Manchester who were collecting benefits legally whilst studying in this country.

I am aware that some foreign students may come to the UK because there may not be enough universities in their own countries e.g. Chinese or they maybe they are even discriminated against back in their home countries e.g. Chinese Malaysians or they maybe from an extremely poor third world country with no adequate tertiary educational institutions. Yet very many come here simply because we have institutions in this country willing to accept students and issue university degrees to those who would simply not be considered to have attained a minimum high school standard of qualifications to attend university in their home countries.

The current system of university education in this country is corrupt and wasteful. We spend large sums of money on education yet still suffer large skills shortages in key areas which need to be filled by immigrants and foreign students. Many courses have been dumbed down and many are truly irrelevant both practically and academically.

I personally know of someone who a couple of years ago attended and completed a UK university course in order to become a social worker. I have known this person since we were kids. He is well spoken but is as thick as two short planks. He failed every single dumbed down GCSE he ever took save for an F in English and then duly left school. So years later when he told me he was going to attend university I was happy for him and asked him if he had been back to retake his GCSEs and maybe a couple of A levels at a the local college. I was shocked to discover that he had done no such admiral a thing and that they had simply let him go to university even though he doesn’t posses any piece of paperwork that proves that he can read write and add up save for now his university degree certificate. So the painful truth is that anyone can attend a university in the UK and the tax payer has to pick up the bill for this madness.

I don’t know what the solutions are to this economic and highly political madness which we call the UK university sector but surely a start would be to target the vast amounts of money we spend into areas where the country needs skills whether they are academic or practical. Also part of the problem is that not enough people have been punished by the ‘market’ for choosing to study easy A level subjects and subsequently mickey mouse university courses. Too many people took this route and ended up on better money and jobs than those who did indeed study harder subjects in key shortage areas. So not only do we have to sort out the education system we also have to question why both the public and private sectors have insisted and persisted in over paying many relatively unskilled people well above those in far more intellectually or practically demanding jobs.

Louis Berk

Robin

"Louis Berk - the problem is that we still fail to really redistribute wealth in this country.

Err.. you want to redistribute what wealth I have worked hard for for 46 years to those who haven't? I think not. Why on earth can't people work hard and create their own wealth."

Let me get this straight. You expect an 18-year old to accumulate the wealth necessary in order to go to university because we shouldn't be taking from wealthy members of our society to support members who have no wealth? That should take about 20-30 years of work, I estimate, so they can begin their university course in their late 40s.

Did you go to university and how much did you pay? Sounds like you are not much younger than me and I recall paying sweet fanny adams back in the 70s. So, perhaps you (and I?) should start paying something back now?

BTW, I did go back to university in my late 40s when I, like you, was made redundant and at the age of 50 became a qualified secondary school teacher.

How much would you pay for the qualification to allow you the privilege of teaching this nation's youth?

Ron Todd

I work with a number of people with university level educations.

They range from good to somebody who has a Masters degree in a technical subject who cannot be trusted to put ten screws in ten holes without missing at least one.

Some might argue that his degree equiped him to think not to do. Not seen much evidence of him doing that either.

Sad thing is that if he stays with the company long enough there is a big chance that he will be my boss one day because he has the qualifications and I do not.

Charles Barry

Dear Melanie,

This whole article is based upon the premise that "universities are broke". Unfortunately you cite no evidence to support this this central position, and so the whole argument collapses under its inaccuracy.

Instead of saying that Universities are on average in x amount of debt, you moan that there are too many people going to university. That's not supporting evidence, that's ranting.

As evidence to the contrary of your argument, the Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University, when I spoke to him, said that currently ALL faculties (medicine, science and humanities) were running budget surpluses under the current system.

John.

So, 50% of the population go to university and we need to recruit doctors and other professional people from abroad. Isn't this a bit odd?

David Evans

Spot on - as usual! But we don't hear this from politicians of any Party persuasion.

John Cronin

What Bloom says is true: but as an academic at the "University" of Middlesex, it is rather odd coming from him. If a c.v. from that establishment ever crossed my desk, I can assure you that it would be swiftly dispatched to the big round file on the floor. (or is it "despatched"? Pardon my ignorance.

Tilly

Jon Boy

I wonder if your friend really is as 'thick' as you think...

In the good ol' 1960s/70s, when education (supposedly) set much higher standards and kids were better taught, I left school with five O-levels and two A-levels, all grades appalling and not nearly enough to get into university.

One reason for this abysmal performance was too much time spent having fun, but - just as important - most of the teachers at my school paid no heed whatsoever to 'exam technique' or 'study skills', leaving us to sink or swim.

Apart from a handful of geniuses, we duly sank!

A couple of years ago, I attended a school reunion. To my amazement, a large number of us 'thickos' had not just managed to get good degrees as mature students, but a fair proportion were now quite well known figures in scientific, legal, journalistic, or academic circles.

There was a fair amount of agreement (and some bitterness) that we'd been been 'written off' and badly served as pupils, but also a recognition that a point had come in our lives where we'd simply grown up intellectually. Books which had seemed 'too difficult' or 'boring' in our teens were hardly mystifying at all in our thirties and forties; studying no longer an impossible ordeal.

This wasn't because educational standards had dropped to 'our level' but the result of discovering mental resources we never knew we had while our hormones were playing merry hell and reliable guidance from teachers wasn't forthcoming.

The anecdotal evidence of my schooldays may not serve as a general rule, but of three things I'm sure: (1) intellect is not something fixed in stone - it changes over time; (2) some people are quite mature emotionally at fifteen while others only catch up when they'e sixty-five; (3) there never was a 'golden age' in secondary school education when potential was accurately measured and appropriately cultivated all round.

Mustapha Bunn

John @ 10.34am ... it isn't just "doctors and professional people" who get imported to deal with shortages but also tradesmen.
Firstly the politicians decide that we 'do not need any tradesmen' and then 10 years or whatever down the track there is suddenly a shortage which must be filled by the import of labour.
I may be cynical but I'm starting to believe that there is some sort of plan involved.

John.

Mustapha Bunn: Me too.

michael

why should Scottish students and non British EU students pay nothing in Scottish universities if English students have to pay 6 grand pa?

Sherrie

Melanie. I know a person I'll refer to as Student X. Student X is too dim even to understand the title of her course which includes the words "Recorded Media". Time and again, Student X asked me what those words mean. So I said,"Films, TV, radio, video..." and Student X was happy for a week or two until forgetting the definition again. Student X struggled with the written work on her 'degree' course- just as well there were no written exams - ever. No full plays were ever performed so that saved learning a script or facing an audience. This was quite surprising considering it was a drama degree. But Student X had a go at lots of things - only ever for one day. She's read the news and done some make-up and been in a radio studio and had a go at doing a voice-over. The sort of thing children get to try when they go to film museums. Student X needed help to write essays which require a GCSE level of response. She didn't understand any of the titles. But with a lot of help and an essay so dumbed down to make it appear possible that Student X could have written it, Student X was rewarded with a First. There weren't many essays. Student X had to mainly perform talks. "My most treasured possession" was one of them - for a couple of minutes - an eleven year old would have had no trouble with that. Student X found it very hard. There were projects - Powerpoint presentations - a year 9 pupil could easily have coped with "Find out information about a nominated theatre group." Student X doesn't have A'levels - they weren't needed. Student X had completed a drama course that mainly involved dance and that counted instead. Student X couldn't sight read the extracts of plays they were given to prepare. Student X could not understand them at all. Student X only wants to be famous and be in Eastenders or Casualty. Student X now has a degree despite being unable to think. Student X's parents are very excited that their daughter went to university because they never thought she would and they now truly believe that she is going to be a famous actress. Student X had been planning on becoming a beautician. It would have suited her. It took her three years to realise that she does not have the intelligence to act. She was utterly deluded and allowed to remain so while at her university. The tutors had a vested interest in keeping her on the course.

This makes me angry. To me, this is more of an issue than fees. Students should be protesting that the qualification has been utterly devalued.

dr russell walden

well said...BUT THE ROT IS WORLDWIDE...UNIVERSITIES HAVE BEEN ON THE SLIPPERY SLOPES FOR YEARS...just read the nonsense VC'S WRITE...not one new idea between the lot of them!

Andreas Moser

I don't get the protests of my fellow students: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/what-do-the-students-want/

John.

Michael: Because taxpayers from the rest of the UK, who are paying for all these people to have a free ride, are too apathetic or too ill-informed to tell their MP's that they refuse to countenance their money being spent in this way for one moment longer. We should insist on one law for all and any part of the UK that refuses to accept this should be booted out unceremoniously.