That T Shirt

Some things have been whirring round in my ticker for the last couple of days and I think I need to get them down on virtual paper.

1. I think students do need to pay higher tuition fees. I dislike the argument that it will put poorer students off because the whole point of going to Uni is to educate yourself so that you will earn more - ergo, you will no longer be poorer if you've been through the system. If you don't believe that with your degree you'll be capable of getting into a high enough pay bracket to pay back 9k over 5-6 years then potentially you should rethink University.

If you don't believe students should have to pay your own University fees then what you're saying is that everyone else should pay them for you. People that didn't go to University should have their taxes put towards someone else's education, is essentially what you're saying. The Government won't pay for the education if students don't, because the Government just allocate your money.

If we don't raise the tuition fees then Universities will continue to be under funded and will continue to churn out far too many moderately educated people. University is not supposed to be for everyone - we need to break the social opinion that other forms of education are less worthy. An apprenticeship is just as good as a degree, some careers require learning on the job.

As for the life experience, why don't we just work out other ways to get people of the same age to socialise nicely without them all having to go and play drunkards on a campus? If the stereotype of people who don't go to Uni are less worthy was dropped then we could all just play nicely. You don't have to go to campus to learn what moving out is like, you don't need a 3 year degree to learn independent study and you don't need a tutor to hold your hand until you're 22. Why don't we just make it easier for people to move out at 18 and move into shared houses without having to be studying?

2. I saw a T-Shirt today that said "I don't need to have sex - this Government fucks me everyday." Which I thought was ungrateful. Then I thought, if you can think of two previous Governments that you have lived through and thought things weren't right, maybe it's not the Government you hate - maybe it's democracy. However, if you can think of two previous Governments that you thought weren't right and have lived through, chances are you don't living in a dictatorship. So chances are you ought to stop blaming other people and take responsibility for why your life isn't how you'd like it.