University Fees

As first year University students face tuition fees of up to £9,000 per year University applications from UK students for courses starting in the autumn are down 10% in England on last year, according to the figures reported in the press from the admissions service.

Clearly the decision of the Conservative led government to treble tuition fees to £9,000 is hitting young peoples plans to go to University. All this from a government that being propped up by the Liberal Democrats who for years believed and campaigned that University education should be free.

I use to be a  Liberal Democrat and I believe in free University education, but I understand that is not possible given what the Government have done to higher education. We have increased the numbers of people going to University to the point that many popular degrees are worthless. They aren't worth the paper they are written on yet alone up to £27,000 in tuition fees plus interest. The government policy has created this situation.

The higher education needs looking at and what we want of it as does the whole system. Over the years because of the repeated governments push of the value of University education qualifications less than a degree have become perceived as valueless. The result is we have university graduates working on the checkouts in the CoOp in Oakham.

I feel for them they were expecting a good job because that is what the government told them to expect. The fact is the UK only needs so many University graduates and if you produce more than you need some of them will never achieve what they have been promised in terms of jobs and pay. We are at the point now the job market is flooded with graduates. The system has failed them.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the education system in this country and I can't put my finger on what. I know it is not he teachers and lectures that are at fault they just do what they have to do and that is teach and they do it well. It's not the qualifications the students sit for, they might have changed but if so from outside pressure. The system is heavily interference by government that is where I fear the problem lies.