So I could sit here and rant about student fees and how back in the day university was completely free for students but I’m not going to. I could whine and complain about the fact that the £3000 a year ‘bargain’ stopped the year BEFORE I was due to start uni and how with no change within the system, an extra £6000 a year was suddenly required from all students but, I can’t be bothered. I could even go into how I’m yet to see the breakdown penny by penny of what the fees are even used for but, let’s not get into that.

I was just chilling in my room today when out of nowhere, I hear these loud chants coming from outside of my window, and not just making-noise-but-can-block-you-out-with-my-earphones loud but more of a, can’t-concentrate-and-can-hear-you-all-the-way-from-the-9^th-floor-when-I’m-in-the-middle-of-trying-to-do-nothing-with-my-day loud. I open my curtains and see a large number of people marching down the road with decorated banners and flags and other ‘I’m protesting’ type stuff. Shouting something like ‘LABOUR PARTY SHAME ON YOU…WE WANT FREE EDUCATION’, something something(they should learn to chant in sync, without reading the banners you’d really mistake the crowd of that bit in Lion King when the animals are stampeding down).
But anyway, by reading the banners I realised that it’s not even that they were protesting against the fact that students currently pay £9000 a year. They were instead protesting against the fact that the Labour party have promised (…’cos that means anything to us) to drop the fees to £6000 and in their eyes, this still wasn’t good enough. I do agree but my main concern when I think of things like this is really the rather simple and still unexplained yet ever present and relevant slight question of basically uhms WHAT ARE THESE FEES BEING USED FOR?

…WHAT. Yeah I said earlier that I wouldn’t bring this topic up but really you should thank me for preparing you for what life is about (people not keeping their word am I right or am I left?). They’ve been £9000 a year and now SUDDENLY a couple thousand from EACH student can be slashed just like that? I’d genuinely prefer it if they were £9000 a year and even with protests and news coverage and riots and general national disturbance, the fees remained £9000 because they genuinely could not be reduced. Yeah it’s a lot but if it was actually the cost of going to university whether we like it or not then fineeee. However, it clearly can’t be. These fees are just moving up and down in correlation to the level of public popularity whichever party is looking to gain. To reduce them having not changed anything would mean to say that currently the government have like…spare billions of funds just ready to be wasted on random road works which are about to disrupt my pedestrian walks in city centres.

Oh but the money allows us to have access to university lectures and seminars and the library on campus and we get our own log-in and… SO WHAT. The fees don’t even cover the costs of the ‘highly recommended’ textbooks we’re expected to buy within the first week of term that cost about an eyeball and large intestine. About another £15,000 (trying to make a point okay) PER book PER module PER term is what I’m expected to pay for random information I’m just going to temporarily memorise for the purpose of an exam- give it 2 weeks I will have forgotten how to define the introductory basic terms again. Okay that’s not true- I’ve usually forgotten what I even wrote by the afternoon. All I’m saying is, at least let me invest all this money and come out with something to show for it. Back in the day, a degree GUARANTEED a job-GUARANTEEEDDDDD. Now it’s just proof of, oh yeah I’m smart by society’s standards. I’ve spent 3 years postponing having to live in the real world and reached the intermediate level of procrastination and unhealthy cramming.

For me personally I’d just like to pay my £9000 a year, come to university and have lecturers that actually TEACH. You can spend the first lecture detailing the number of doctorates you have and the textbook you’ve written that you want us all to buy oh not because you’ve written it but because it’s actually a good one but like, I’m not about to go and buy information when the person who knows it is right…there. Just TELL ME what I need to know. TEACH. Delegating out an unhealthy amount of wider reading is not the same as teaching. I don’t doubt that lecturers are smart but people forget that just because you know it, it really doesn’t mean you know how to relay that information to others.

I need textbooks that read to me when I’m tired, lecturers that don’t reply to my emails with ‘check the lecture slides’ (I have, you didn’t explain it which is why I’m emai..), I just need SOMETHING that justifies these uni fees. Anyway, I’ve said enough. May have ended up ranting but like I said, people lie guys. Trying to prepare you for what life brings (…you’re welcome). Next post is going to have to be something more uplifting. All this money talk is not good for the soul.

Stay Tuned!

And in the meantime, let’s be confused about why Lidl have reduced the price of their One Direction Easter eggs by 1/5 to mark 1/5 of the gang leaving. (…not going to get into that. That’s a whole other post, not to be written by me.)