I have just returned, much refreshed and calmed, from a performance of Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor. Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. It was a special performance for Remembrance Day, in the splendid setting of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. It was performed by our local world class orchestra, Oxford Philomusica, and the Christ Church Cathedral Choir. The red robes of the choristers (some of them only knee high to a sparrow) set off the poppies worn by nearly everyone. Earlier on Thursday I was walking along Whitehall near the Cenotaph just before 11 am and was very moved to see the crowds gathering, and the young men and women in service uniform arriving to take their place for the ceremony. This was a crowd gathered with a purpose, to remember our war dead. Shortly afterwards I was in the chamber of the House of Lords where we too observed the 2-minute silence.
But only a day earlier, there had been a very different crowd scene a few yards away from the Cenotaph. I believe the students who rioted on Millbank lost precious popular support for their stand against tuition fees. The students had occupied the moral high ground until that event. It has lost them a great deal of sympathy. The way they destroyed buildings and went on the rampage evoked the worst stereotypes of student behaviour, even though the event may well have been infiltrated by non-students with other motives for causing damage. It will give an excuse to everyone who does not want to pay extra taxes to help higher education.
The violence we saw accompanying the demonstration the other day was deplorable, and will have done harm to the protest against the rise in student fees. However, I would hope that the strength of feeling that is felt does not go unnoticed. Strip away the violence and you will find many sensible people who see the chance of a university education being taken away. From talking to colleagues with young children I know that they are seriously concerned that when their turn comes in a few years they will struggle to cope with the level of fees, just as the students will struggle with the debt. In future students will need to question strongly the value of their proposed course to see if it provides an appropriate return on investment.
There is a real issue here about the change we imposing on university education, and a question about the value we place on it for our children. It’s not a simple question, and ultimately not just about the up-front cost of fees. It’s a real shame that the violence dominated and denied the protesters their opportunity to make their point.
The student riot looked extremely stage managed to me, the picture (bbc) below shows an arc of photographers who obviously didn`t just happen to be there. The Police just looking on, perhaps covertly in their own protest over cuts.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49882000/jpg/_49882578_windowsmash_pa.jpg
The riot did evoke a thought in my mind.
University costs £9000 per annum, Prison costs £37,500 per annum.
There does appear something wrong with that.
Perhaps the ridiculous part of this is that people that want education will be denied by finances whilst in 2015 the school leaving age will rise to 18. This of course will create a huge financial burden on the system making the present burden seem insignificant.
It is also hypocritical to state “you must” stay and be educated whilst also stating you cannot afford to stay.
The problems of keeping 16+year old students in school will be many fold as will the cost.
I think you’re being too harsh on the vast majority of students who were involved in a very peaceful protest. There are always a very small minority of students who, for some reason, relish the prospect of anarchy and fail to consider the consequences of their behaviour but it’s unreasonable to believe that it undermines support and sympathy on the issue of fees itself. We ought to recognise that 50,000+ (and many more that didn’t attend) are feeling very angry and betrayed about this, and yet they didn’t resort to violence.
Incidentally, I was discussing the issue of fees in class with some of my students yesterday and even though I emphasised the point that future students wouldn’t have to pay back their loans until they were earning a particular wage, most of my students said that simply the prospect of leaving University that much in debt would have put them off going.
If this is representative of attitudes for future students, then it is something the Government needs to think seriously about.
What makes you think the government hasn’t thought about it seriously? Entrenching the privileges of university for the monied classes seems exactly like the kind of thing the Bullingdon toffs would be in favour of, don’t you think?
Just because we don’t think it’s a good idea doesn’t mean them upstairs have the same opinion. I mean, for God’s sake, these are people who reject countercyclical spending for reasons of dullardly ideological blindness, who still haven’t got over their fetishisation of the EMH yet, and, from what I can gather from their absurd nonsensical policy plans, have approximately the same knowledge of the last three centuries of British political history as a used dishcloth. Who knows what passes for a good idea up there in cloud cuckoo land?
Carl H: remember that this took place in the middle of the Westminster village, which is always crawling with photographers.
Emily Ryall/jonfryer: it seems the only barrier there will be to anyone going to university will be the fear of debt. There are no upfront fees, so in a practical sense, anyone can go to university irrespective of wealth. The “debt” isn’t a true debt in the sense of mortgage, credit cards, etc. With an ordinary loan, if you lose your job, you are in serious trouble if you can’t make repayments. Similarly, if the interest rates went up to 90%, the repayments would go through the roof. But with student debt, there are no risks, no uncertainty, no burden. You pay a small fraction of what you earn, it doesn’t matter if interest rates go very high or you lose your job, and you stop paying after 30 years. This is why mortgage lenders do not normally consider student loans as a debt. The proposed repayment scheme could very easily have been branded as a graduate tax, and then I wonder: would we have the same trouble? (The Lib Dems certainly wouldn’t!) As far as I can see, the only real difference between this system of loans and a graduate tax is that former has an outstanding balance associated with it. In fact, far from being a burden, this is an advantage for some students as it means they can stop paying the graduate tax before the 30 years are up.
I should add that I can see where people are coming from. I was brought up not to live off credit, and that debt was a bad thing, although mortgages were always excepted. We simply need to move away from thinking of this student finance system as a “debt” and for people not to be afraid of it. After a mortgage, it should be the second exception to that sound parental advice. University will still be heavily state-subsidised for many people as they will never repay the cost of their fees – that’s how the system is designed.
I’ll finish by adding that I’d always been opposed to university fees. However, I’ve also thought we should go back to only 10 to 15% of people going to university (based on ability, not wealth or social class). Unless people agree with the principle of reduced numbers – and I can’t see the NUS going for that – fees are a necessity, I’m afraid. I do think the whole idea of a “market” in higher education is ridiculous. It isn’t going to happen, as was proved with “top-up” fees. But let’s not forget which government commissioned the Browne Review.
Jonathan, I agree with pretty much everything you say. I agree that there needs to be a change in cultural attitudes or perception to the idea of leaving University with a debt. I also agree that there will be no market in HE (I’m fairly sure that all Unis will charge around the £9000 fee). I also agree that we should get away from the idea that University is some kind of vocational training and has a wholly economic value. I know of a situation of two people (two friends of mine) who work for an engineering company and are about the same age: one has a good degree from Cambridge, the other went straight onto an apprenticeship from school. The one on the apprenticeship is earning more than the Cambridge graduate and has had many more job related opportunities. Even so, I don’t think that the graduate regrets going to University. She realises that it’s more than holding a piece of paper.
And that is where I disagree with you. We should be encouraging more people to go to University because studying for its own sake and reflecting on oneself and the world (and society) of which we are a part makes for a better (more reasonable, caring, tolerant, reflective, safer, brighter) world. You might think I’m being naive but there is much more to a good life than that which can be measured in immediate economic value – which is what we seem to be measuring our HE system in at the moment. But for this change to happen, we require a whole cultural shift in our education system to valuing learning and enquiry rather than a means to pass the next test. My experience of students is that for the vast majority, they have the intellect to study at degree level, they just don’t have the right attitude about its value. Change this attitude at a younger age (and stop perpetuating the myth that it’s all about financial reward) and we will live in a much better (and probably richer) society as a result.
“I also agree that there will be no market in HE (I’m fairly sure that all Unis will charge around the £9000 fee).”
Have you read the Browne report? The system under discussion is categorically designed to create a market in undergraduate degrees. The removal of the block grant for teaching ensures, deliberately so, that the driver of what degrees are offered will be “Student Choice,” a term which Browne uses throughout the report.
With the upper limit being so scandalous, some universities will compete on price, at least to start with, which means the fake scandal of “Mickey Mouse Degrees” will more than likely be brought about by the mechanism which is ostensibly in place to fix them.
This is why I wish people weren’t reporting this as a “student protest about fees”. There were lecturers, parents, teaching assistants and all manner of people there, protesting against a radical change to the relationship between the university system and the state, and a complete redefinition of what higher education means.
Indeed, if you care about the things you purport to care about, you should be livid and demanding that nothing like the Browne report gets implemented, because it is designed from the ground up to produce the exact opposite of the results you say you want.
This is not about fees.
I realize that the intention is to create a market in fees but it won’t happen when Universities will have to charge over £7500 just to stand still after the cuts. They’ll all just end up charging the maximum and then if some find it a struggle recruiting, they will start to offer some bursaries to attract the brightest. (At least, that’s what I’d do if I was a VC.) I’ll be really surprised if there is any real difference between institutions in their initial fees – it’s just not going to happen.
But the Browne proposals don’t include a cap, they just include a progressive levy on fees over £6,000. “Top” universities such as Oxford and Cambridge can, therefore, put fees as high as they like until they stop being oversubscribed. Middle and lower universities have incentives to come in cheaper. One cannot help but feel that the intent of this is to lock in the perceived quality difference as an actual quality difference.
Emily Ryall: I agree with what you’re saying about the true value of university not being economic. I’d always believed in scholarship for its own sake, and not in university being simply a means to a better job. Unfortunately, many people now go to university because they see it as almost compulsory if they want to have a decent job or any standing in society. The result is a vicious circle in which more and more jobs become graduate jobs simply because so many people are graduates. The effect on universities has also been disastrous. When I went to university, it was full of people who had no interest in study at all, and who made it a nightmare for those of us who wanted to study. They were bored, and were simply there because they saw no option. So yes, I largely agree with you, but I think the only way to achieve the ideal would be to change attitudes and reduce the numbers going to university.
mcduff: Time will tell how much of a market is created. Judging from what happened with so-called top-up fees, most universities will charge the maximum for most courses as they don’t want to seem a second-rate institution. Browne’s proposed system was a little more clever, but the government aren’t implementing that part, and will have a hard cap instead, with some hand-wavy bit about having to promise access for less well-off students.
Taking money from poor primary school students in order to offer a sop, is the plan, I believe. I think if it was done by anyone other than this government of rogues people would get arrested for such things.
Whether they go for a cap or a levy, what they are doing is creating a market whether you like it or not. The withdrawal of the block grant and the change in the fees system is explicitly designed to make “student choice” the central principle behind what degrees are offered.
If that’s not an attempt to create a pure market in university degrees, what on earth is it? It’s *certainly* not a way for us to head towards your ideal of people heading to university for the sake of learning, is it?
I am well informed by a student who was on the march, as part of a large group who left the instant any violence started that they found the police helpful, and patient in the face of abuse by people from anarchist groups, with a broader political axe to grind.
To dismiss the demonstration because of violence on the part of less than one per cent of the people there, is to fall into the anarchist trap, of regarding only violent action as having any significance.
I got through university myself on a full grant. My parents were officially poor, so the means test gave me enough money to live on.
The proposed policy horrifies me. It feels like seeing a civilisation coming to and end.
Anglo irishman, you have a point to a certain extent, but what really isn’t helpful is when certain student leaders – and even some lecturers – condone the violence. Some of them indeed appear to believe only violent actions have any significance.
On the other hand, news reports say most of those arrested at Millbank are indeed students, and the idiot who threw the fire extinguisher was a student at Anglia Ruskin University. Should we take it then that the anarchists you mention all sign up for university courses simply to enable them to take part in student demonstrations (a bit like those who go to Oxbridge just to join rowing teams, perhaps)? Maybe this is the reason they oppose fees: it’ll make it too expensive to take part in the protests!
The anarchists I referred to are students, who are members of University Anarchist Societies. They represent a strand of political opinion inside the student body. In the same way, for example, student conservative societies do. and of course there will be student leaders, and lecturing staff who condone violence. Indeed there has always been a certain kind of academic who appears to regard violence as romantic, but would be the first person to go to the police if some one threw an egg at their front door….
If comment focuses only on the violence then the conclusion people will draw is that only violence has an effect; this makes the situation much more dangerous in future.
Dangerous for who?
Certainly violence isn’t the only way, but the point of protest is not just to be heard, but to make it generally unpleasant and uncomfortable for the ruling classes. To change things. And to do that you have to get noticed.
How do you suppose the terrorism-crazed police would respond to someone chaining themselves to the railings outside Number Ten? Would the inevitable response still be classified as “violence” if it all went the other way down the power chain?
Noble lady,
Lucky Beggar! Christ church cathedral choir, and a requeim for the time of year. Nothing better!
Baroness Deech: it seems fitting that you avoided rioting students by seeking sanctuary in Christ Church:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-11752764
*sigh*
It was not a “student” protest about “fees.”
Have any of you even read the Browne report? Is anyone aware of the implications of the withdrawal of the block grant for teaching? Does anyone have a defense of the philosophical poverty of the current trend in government thinking about HE as a cog in the machine for producing employees and nothing else? What of the removal of funding for humanities degrees? Have we decided, as a nation, that it is no longer appropriate to study Chaucer unless we can demonstrate its relevance to creating powerpoint presentations in your mid-level role as a corporate non-entity?
Frankly, I’m impressed at the restraint of the students involved. The way this government is setting about dismantling the welfare state at every level, I daresay this is far from the most violent riot we’ll see over the next five years.
I think the Tories — historically illiterate, coddled blitherers that they are — have forgotten that the welfare state wasn’t set up by liberal do-gooders out of some bleeding heart desire to see less babies die in the gutter, but by stern gruff men who understood that the lumpenproletariat may be unruly and unwashed but they are numerous and prone to irrational violence, sometimes involving flaming torches, or ropes and lamp posts, and that a buffer mechanism keeping bread on the table is also a good way of keeping their buildings from being engulfed in flames. Either that or they’re comfortable enough hiding behind the post-Labour militarised “anti-terrorism” police powers that they think they’re safe. Either way, it’s going to be a fun old ride, ain’t it?