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Is This Lawful?
(135 posts, started )
Quote from 5haz :A lot of people don't like students because of ignorance and ill informed stereotypes.

People don't hate students as such. They just hate having to pay for them!
Quote from Intrepid :People don't hate students as such. They just hate having to pay for them!

Nail on the head! People with jobs working hard and paying tax having to pay for a lot of students who have no intentions other than to get pissed for a few years and have a laugh until they have to get a real job. Winds me up! Half of me wishes I'd have done the same as my mates so someone else could have paid for me to get wasted and party 5 nights a week.
#28 - 5haz
Quote from Intrepid :People don't hate students as such. They just hate having to pay for them!

Everybody has to pay for everybody (unless you're a tax dodging business don and you've got the government in your pocket), one day you'll get old and somebody will have to pay for your care, what will you do if you have no family or personal savings left to cover it? How will you feel if younger generations complain about funding your welfare? Its 'I'm alright Jack' until it affects you.

Its also ironic that at the same time, people who complain about students and have 'proper jobs' can be drunken thugs themselves, and cost the government a packet.

This song sums it up fairly well, regardless of what you think about drugs.
I have no problem paying for someone to learn at university.
I do have a problem with paying for someone at uni to get pissed 5 nights a week.

I sound steretypical but when I've visited my mates at different unis I've seen it with my own eyes on several occasions. It's great fun going out with them so I can see why they do it but at the same time it makes me sad that the taxpayer is basically paying for their fun when they have no real intention of doing the work or using the degree if they get it.
#30 - 5haz
Meanwhile, the honest, tax paying bloke's idea of fun is to go out and get smashed and perhaps beat someone's face in for looking at their girlfriend, this is the reason why even the McDonalds on my home town's high street has to have security staff after 9pm, and why there has to be heavy police presence, and I wonder who pays their wages?

Is that not having 'fun' at somebody elses expense? This is why quite a few of the people who complain about students are massive hypocrites. Its easy to pick on students because their costs on the government and taxpayer are more obvious and visible, while most people are completely oblivious to the costs of their own actions. At least you're more likely to gain worthwhile skills from university than you are from a drunken punch up.
I have mixed feelings about all this to be honest.

Firstly: The right to protest is ****ing important, and if the police decide to ban marches in the capital I personally will go join future marches in the capital, and I imagine a lot of my friends will too. Purely to protest the ban on protests.

With regard to tuition fees: The problem here is twofold. The last government encouraged the majority to pursue a bachelors degree, which was a stupid thing to do, meaning we've now got complete cretins with bachelors degrees, devaluing the qualification. It also means that a large proportion of full-time students could be in full-time employment, benefitting the economy in the short term instead of chasing qualifications that will be of no use to anybody.

But the universities have geared up to accept the increase in applications, so to discourage the majority of students from applying now would mean having to scale back the universities' capacity, resulting in more job losses, loss of revenue, etc.

But my biggest beef with all this is that - primarily as a government spending cut in reaction to an economic recession which was caused by a complete disregard for enormous levels of debt - I find it completely irresponsible to encourage school leavers to begin their professional lives with five-figure debts as if it's a perfectly sensible and normal thing for people to do.

And that's why I support the tuition fees protests.
I thought it was amusing that so many people value their university education so much that they miss god knows how much teaching time to go throw stuff at police
It was even more amusing having anarchists protesting for more goverment.
Voilence is a totally different matter. I believe punishments should be much much higher!

But back to the uni issue this new policy is great and should stop a few people going to uni just for a good time like they do now which can only be a good thing for everbody.
#35 - 5haz
Quote from Alric :Voilence is a totally different matter. I believe punishments should be much much higher!

Stronger enforcement and harsher punishments cost more money.

Quote from Alric :But back to the uni issue this new policy is great and should stop a few people going to uni just for a good time like they do now which can only be a good thing for everbody.

It'll discourage some hard working people too, surely raising the required grades would be a much fairer way of weeding out those who are going to waste time and money. I don't understand why nobody has even given this idea the slightest consideration?
Quote from thisnameistaken : I find it completely irresponsible to encourage school leavers to begin their professional lives with five-figure debts as if it's a perfectly sensible and normal thing for people to do.

And that's why I support the tuition fees protests.

The only friend of mine who didn't go to uni and did an apprenticeship has learnt his skills whilst being paid. Finished with zero debt and now gets paid an amazing amount of money much more than if he had gone to uni and got the degree and job that way. More people should do this but it did mean he couldn't get pissed 5 nights a week and get up at 1 everyday.
Quote from boothy :It was even more amusing having anarchists protesting for more goverment.

Had the exact same thought myself!
Quote from 5haz :It'll discourage some hard working people too, surely raising the required grades would be a much fairer way of weeding out those who are going to waste time and money. I don't understand why nobody has even given this idea the slightest consideration?

Not if they have faith in their ability to finish the course well and get a good job at the end and therefore pay off the loan no problem.

I totally agree with you that raising the grades required should be done. I honestly don't know why they don't but I suppose it may be looked at in the future as A level results get better and better year on year.
#39 - 5haz
No amount of faith is going to make £40,000 of debt vaporise into thin air. If a government defecit is so unacceptable, then why is a student defecit considered so normal? Graduates have credit ratings too.
But you don't seem to get that you only have to start paying it off once you start earning over £21,000 a year.

Do you not agree earning a lot but owing more is better than owing less and earning nothing?

I still believe that there are better ways than uni full stop to get into most job sectors.
We need to stop students choosing what uni they go to depending on what the night life is like in each city.
Quote from 5haz :It'll discourage some hard working people too, surely raising the required grades would be a much fairer way of weeding out those who are going to waste time and money. I don't understand why nobody has even given this idea the slightest consideration?

Excellent idea, but then "crappy" universities will die [cos no-one will want to go there], people from disadvantaged backgrounds won't go to uni [cos they go to "crappy" schools and "can't get the grades"], plus good grades !!!!!!= not going to waste time and money :P
#42 - 5haz
Debt dosen't just vanish if you don't pay it.

Quote from J@tko :Excellent idea, but then "crappy" universities will die [cos no-one will want to go there], people from disadvantaged backgrounds won't go to uni [cos they go to "crappy" schools and can't get the grades], plus good grades !!!!!!= not going to waste time and money :P

I went to a 'crappy school' where someone in the year above left with 11A*s at GCSE level (I don't know how well they did at A level), which just goes to show what you can achieve if you are willing to put the effort in and you're smart enough, even at a supposedly 'crappy state school'.
Debt is the reason this Country is in such a mess.

Therefore forget uni and do a work based apprenticeship instead!

Get the skills, get the job, don't have the debt and get paid more at the end.
Quote from 5haz :No amount of faith is going to make £40,000 of debt vaporise into thin air. If a government defecit is so unacceptable, then why is a student defecit considered so normal? Students have credit ratings too.

... because the student stands to benefit most.

Everyone is forced, with the threat of violence, to pay tax. Whether you like it or not you pay tax. The government's deficit is everyone's problem.

A young person is not forced to go to University. They do not have to take on these massive debts if they choose not too. There are no threats of jail if they don't take on these debts and do something else. So if you do wish to purchase access to a degree it's perfectly acceptable to assume you will have to pay for it.

The facts are quite simple - we have no money, we never had any money, and we are never going to ever afford mass state-spending projects. The only way we could afford all this over the last 13 years is because Labour created a financial bubble that gave the illusion of wealth that could afford this spending. We couldn't, we never can! We haven't just run out of other people's money, but we're spending and running out of money of people that haven't been born yet, let alone been able to vote.
Quote from 5haz :I went to a 'crappy school' where someone in the year above left with 11A*s at GCSE level (I don't know how well they did at A level), which just goes to show what you can achieve if you are willing to put the effort in and you're smart enough, even at a supposedly 'crappy state school'.

Exactly - but that won't stop people slating the idea that you need to be seriously clever to get into uni, because then supposedly only rich people and no-one from said "crappy state school" will get in, even though they will.

EDIT: Ah I forgot to "" around can't get the grades in my previous post
#46 - 5haz
Quote from Alric :Debt is the reason this Country is in such a mess.

Therefore forget uni and do a work based apprenticeship instead!

Get the skills, get the job, don't have the debt and get paid more at the end.

Work based apprenticeships can't cover everything, theyre fantastic for more 'hands on' professions, but for more academic jobs you need to have studied the theory in that field before you start learning the ropes on the job itself.
Intredpid, you talk a lot of sence. You seem to be able to put what I think in a better way! Agree with you completely.

And that's one of the problems 5haz, I totally agree more of the academic jobs need people to go to uni first but the problem is the illusion that EVERYONE HAS to go to uni because it's just what you do and because they don't really know what to do with their lives they end up doing a meaningless degree and waste the taxpayers money.
#48 - 5haz
Quote from Intrepid :... because the student stands to benefit most.

Everyone is forced, with the threat of violence, to pay tax. Whether you like it or not you pay tax. The government's deficit is everyone's problem.

A young person is not forced to go to University. They do not have to take on these massive debts if they choose not too. There are no threats of jail if they don't take on these debts and do something else. So if you do wish to purchase access to a degree it's perfectly acceptable to assume you will have to pay for it.

The facts are quite simple - we have no money, we never had any money, and we are never going to ever afford mass state-spending projects. The only way we could afford all this over the last 13 years is because Labour created a financial bubble that gave the illusion of wealth that could afford this spending. We couldn't, we never can! We haven't just run out of other people's money, but we're spending and running out of money of people that haven't been born yet, let alone been able to vote.

Nobody here is in denial about the defecit, it could just be reduced in a fairer way with a bit less debt for everybody to carry. The nation needs educated intellectuals and so it should be in the interest of the government that intelligent people are given the chance to carry on the higher education. Surely if you want to find the most intelligent people you should sort them in order of their intelligence, wealth has nothing to do with it.

You talk about higher education as if it is some kind of luxurious commodity for the rich only, but we need intellectuals as much as we need a police force or a fire brigade, which is why some public money needs to be spent on higher education.

You never see the people who are carrying out research and design to make your life better, they're not always visible like the police or fire brigade are, and this is why people completely underestimate how vital higher education is to the good of the nation.

Quote from J@tko :Exactly - but that won't stop people slating the idea that you need to be seriously clever to get into uni, because then supposedly only rich people and no-one from said "crappy state school" will get in, even though they will.

EDIT: Ah I forgot to "" around can't get the grades in my previous post

So we should just give in to people's prejudices about education? To be honest thats just an excuse lazy people use to explain why they didn't go far. My experience of lower education in a supposedly bad state school makes me think that it really isn't as terrible as its made out to be.
@alric -thanks for the compliments but I wouldn't say the idea to stop student funding should be based on the fact some are just wasting their time. I think it's morally objectionable that someone earning £12,000, with an overall tax burden of around £6000, should be subsidising students. Government deficit or no deficit.

However, when talking about the deficit, slowly but surely the useless economists who occupy many of the UK's media outlets are starting to realise what deep shit we are in. They really are useless. I trust economists less than I do bankers. Back to the point, the cost of higher education pails into insignificance when you consider the overall debt mountain. We are talking not just of cuts to education, but things like selling off the entire NHS. Leaving my own personal views aside about that system of healthcare, the amount of damage, stress and pain this will cause is unthinkable.

Unfortunately this scale of pain wouldn't have been so bad had Labour not decided to bail out the bankers, 'stimulate the economy', and print money like their was no tomorrow after creating the most destructive financial bubble in world history - thanks lads!
Quote from 5haz :So we should just give in to people's prejudices about education? To be honest thats just an excuse lazy people use to explain why they didn't go far. My experience of lower education in a supposedly bad state school makes me think that it really isn't as terrible as its made out to be.

Absolutely not! But it'll never pass parliament due to the fact half of them probably think that

Is This Lawful?
(135 posts, started )
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