rigorousintuition.ca

anuary 21, 2003
If I'm paying for your education, so can you

The proposed £21,000 in university fees isn't a burden, it's a bargain
Michael Gove

The Government is about to introduce a new test for those considering a university career. The central question will be punishingly direct. Do you want to run up a debt of £21,000 in order to go to the best British universities? Some people will, apparently, be put off applying to our elite institutions by the prospect of taking on a debt of this size. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is all to the good.

The first point that needs to be made about the so-called deterrent effect of a £21,000 loan is that anyone put off from attending a good university by fear of that debt doesn’t deserve to be at any university in the first place...

Those of us who are net contributors to the State, graduates or not, are getting a terrible deal for our money. We could guarantee far superior healthcare and schooling for our families if only the Government gave us back the money which it confiscates from us in taxes and then spends on the schools and hospitals which it runs so badly... But of all the money wasted by the State there is perhaps no greater scandal than its mismanagement of the funds it takes to spend on higher education. The system it has built to disburse our money is inimical to equity, liberty and excellence.

Higher education is now a nationalised industry, with universities utterly dependent on state support for their survival. Like all the nationalised industries which taxpayers had to subsidise in the past, from British Coal to British Leyland, UK Universities suffer from grotesque inefficiencies, low motivation, ministerial second-guessing, poor salaries, and a stifling excess of bureaucracy...

A gobshite writes:

#1556: E Davis in Littlestone, Kent writes: "Shouldn't all these protesting students be sitting at their desks learning, instead of making a nuisance of themselves and costing the taxpayer big money to pay for police overtime?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:Jesus, a mounted charge just there. Police now getting driven back! Lashing out a fair amount as they try to force the crowd back... Are they aware that most of the demonstrators are just kids, or does that not matter anymore?

#1602: The BBC's Phil Herd, in Westminster, says police are trying to reinforce the line of officers. However, there is a lot of pushing backwards and forwards against the weight of 3,000 or so protesters.

#1600: Melanie Frame in Bangor, Wales writes: "I am shocked at the scenes in Parliament Square. These are not disaffected youth rioting, these are our brightest children, the ones who studied hard at school so they could go to university and make a bright future for themselves. They are being charged by fully grown men in riot gear and by horses."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

MacCruiskeen wrote:I tell you, Ahab, I don't want to see anyone getting hurt, least of all schoolkids. But I can't see anything changing without what the Beeb and the Guardian insist on calling "violence", i.e. sustained occupation and - whenever necessary - destruction of property. That includes both private property, such as banks, and public property, such as the Houses of Parliament.

If this disgraceful vote passes...

MacCruiskeen wrote:Well, that's the most inspiring speech I've heard for years. Thanks, vanlose kid. The times they are a-changin', I hope.

- Can any of you actually see the BBC's live video-feed from Parliament Square?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509

It's been entirely inaccessible here for the last hour or more. Seems mighty convenient that the BBC's cameras have gone suddenly blind, just as mounted riot cops stampede against the nation's uppity schoolchildren.

MacCruiskeen wrote:That's what this gobshite government wants: a population that's permanently heavily in debt, and therefore passive, fearful and pliable.

For something like 100-150 years that System required an educated, skilled workforce to tend machinery and manage empire. Thanks to advances in technology, most of that educated, skilled workforce is now surplus to requirements and the System would like Us to, thanks for everything, go away now

And before We go away, that System would like to hoover up whatever crumbs of capital We managed to collectively accumulate over those last 100-150 years

All of which should be bleeding obvious but a lot of people just don't seem to get it and insist on believing that news like this...

...is somehow an unfortunate consequence of the harsh economic times we live in and not part of a Systematic eradication of a class of people that is now surplus to requirements