So, students can't afford tuition fees, eh?

@Jacquesmetat Said

they still don't get any support because they are working so they can afford to pay.

@Jacquesmetat Said
So some of them really can't afford fees. Well, you can be sympathetic with them but hell, nobody ever said life was fair. Welcome to the harsh reality of the adult world. Nobody is entitled to a university education by right.

@mark_is_god Said

i would call you glaringly gullible.


and now onto the holiday makers, you don't even know if any of these people were even at any protests let alone part of the small minority who were violent, so trying to connect these people to the student protests and small amount of violence that was present, is also stupid.

@jonnythan Said

That's a great attitude that will make your country continue to fall further behind on fundamental research and technological innovation.

Look, the reality is that a full university courseload is an immense amount of work. Many kids have jobs on top of these classes and still can't afford housing, food, and tuition.

Kids dropping out of university because they can't afford the tuition fees is bad for everyone. Subsidizing college education for smart kids is a quality investment in your own nation's future. Throwing them out because they can't afford it just makes you look like an angry, bitter old fart who hates that kids are having so much fun on vacation.

@Jacquesmetat Said

And you don't know they weren't.

And coming out with bollocks based on numbers you made up out of thin air is also stupid. There were only 50 arrests but far more were taking part. Something like 600 alone forced their way into the Millbank building. Look at the news footage, how many were on that roof? More than 50 at a pinch I'd say

@Jacquesmetat Said

well, this is britain. You do what you like in the states and stop trying to order us around. You might like to think you own this country but there are enough of us still around to tell you to mind your own business.

you look after your side of the pond and we'll look after ours, ok?

@Jacquesmetat Said

well, this is britain. You do what you like in the states and stop trying to order us around. You might like to think you own this country but there are enough of us still around to tell you to mind your own business.

you look after your side of the pond and we'll look after ours, ok?

@Jacquesmetat Said

So some of them really can't afford fees. Well, you can be sympathetic with them but hell, nobody ever said life was fair. Welcome to the harsh reality of the adult world. Nobody is entitled to a university education by right.

@jmo Said

That has me down to a tee.

If I'm not complaining about my tuition fees I am either living it up in Spain or destroying London...

Or in reality the tiny minority of UK students who went on that one holiday in Spain are a separate from the tiny minority of protestors who broke the law in London who don't make up the vast majority of students who disagree ideologically with tuition fees.

I'm fortunate, I don't pay tuition fees because my government pays them for me and I've managed to get a job to earn money for rent etc. I am very aware I am lucky as most students in the UK will have to pay tuition fees and many can't find jobs at the moment with the economic climate.

However even as a student, who compared to most in the UK, is probably relatively well off I can't afford trips to Spain or holidays to sunspots in Europe to get drunk and sleep around (and tbh I wouldn't do it even if I could as those sorts of holidays don't appeal to me personally). Those who can are a minority and there is a decent chance that can afford tuition fees. Good for them, good for people who can afford their tuition and can afford a luxurious life whilst studying.

Many can't however, many really struggle.

It doesn't seem particularly just to denote that a minority of students can afford tuition fees and afford expensive trips or whatever else therefore all students should have to pay high tuition fees.

Maybe, if you are really opposed to your tax money going to students, there should be some form of graduate tax to pay for them, would that be more fair?

@mark_is_god Said

of course i don't but im not stupid enough to make silly generalizations based on that.

as for the numbers if you did a little research, instead of reading the sun you would see the figures i quoted were accurate.

as for the mill-bank building that was actually 200 people out of that 50,000, so that's 0.4 percent of the total 50,000.

@Jacquesmetat Said
the yank who seems to think he's got some sort of god given right to tell us how to run our own country.

@jmo Said

I know this is Scotland specific and doesn't apply to the whole of the UK but according to a poll produced by the BBC and ICM yesterday, voters in Scotland rank free education their third biggest priority. I think it shows that many people up here at least believe people should be entitled to free further education and that it should be paid through taxes.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_04_11_bbcpoll.pdf

Interesting to note that in the upcoming Scottish election none of the four majort parties are planning on introducing up-front tuition fees up here, even the Tories.

Maybe that shows a different ideology in Scotland than in the rest of the UK but there is a considerable feeling that education, for a number of reasons, should be free.

@Jacquesmetat Said

I wouldn't call 8000 a tiny minority. politicians have been voted into Parliament with less than that.

I get this bulls*** about the tiny minority who rioted. I was in central London on the day the Millbank building was occupied and smashed up. I saw what happened all around the whitehall and parliament area first hand and that was no tiny minority. Rather, the cameras only saw a small minority of what went on. Even Sky news can't be everywhere. The arrests were few because the police had a policy of containment rather than trying to haul large numbers out, which they would have been perfectly justified in doing.

A graduate tax wouldnt work because half of them bugger off abroad to work after graduating, plenty to the US, which might interest the yank who seems to think he's got some sort of god given right to tell us how to run our own country. It makes me laugh to think how anyone is going to get a graduate tax out of graduate accountants!!!

Besides this, its not as though the government is expecting them to pay it up front. Nobody is saying you have to pay £9000 a year up front. The money is paid after graduation, by deduction from salary once you start to earn over £25'000 or something like that. They are not getting stung while they are students. That is just a bit of disinformation put out by the NUS.

@mark_is_god Said

great response ignore what he says even though its valid, because hes foreign.