Thousands of students and lecturers will blanket the country in a new wave of protests today as they continue to fight against Government plans to triple the cost of the price of University.
The Deputy Prime Minster Nick Clegg signed a pre-election pledge earlier this year - with the Liberal Democrats - saying his party wouldn't raise fees until the next general election - this pledge clearly wasn't worth the piece of paper it was printed on.
Of course the Lib-Dems have been forced to negotiate and abandon some of their policies from their campaign manifesto, but something they were adamant about was abolishing tuition fees, a policy which gained them a lot of support. Students and lecturers are furious Clegg's backed down and abandoned their policy for a share of the pudding with the Conservatives.
Currently the cost to study at a University in England and Wales costs just over £3,000 - Scotland don't charge their students. New proposals would see the cap raised with the maximum charge shooting up to £9,000, a far greater amount.
Many argue it'll discourage bright teenagers from poorer backgrounds applying and in the long run, damage our countries future by depriving us of the next generation of academics, lawyers, doctors, businessmen and women.
Some people support the hike because they believe the taxpayer shouldn't have to subsidize fees and students should pay for it all themselves, plus they won't have to start paying any of it back until they're earning over 25k and can afford to - a fair point, but here's the problem. The sheer worry of having extreme amounts of debt upon graduation is massively off-putting especially when a degree doesn't guarantee a job at the end of it. Even if you don't have to pay it back right away, knowing that sooner or later you're going to be paying off masses of debt for years to come is fairly disheartening.
There's no doubt that loads of youngsters want to go to Uni for the experience and it's these people that we need to root out and close the gates to - cut the waste. If we're looking to save money shut down bogus courses like Surf Studies and Comedy Performance.
A good point raised to me was by someone saying, if the Coalition insist on taking more money students should be asking for more contact hours.
Like any story there are two arguments to support either side, for and against ... It's certainly difficult to agree with the Government on this one because it'll have so many negative effects especially on social mobility.I was fortunate enough to escape any rise in price of a higher education and have an undergraduate and postgraduate degree. But if I were 18 again, and fees were tripled, I'd be looking for a job ... Not looking to cripple my future with debts.
Government Ministers vote tomorrow.
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