epetition to get student finance start this Sep

Blacksheep1979

Well there's always going to be someone upset - what if they started now, oh what about the people that retired last year? Or if they backdated it, what about the people who had worked the extra few years or paid the extra NI contributions to make it up to 39 years?

surfsister

why can't they gradually bring it in some way?

surfsister

figures for petition gradually creeping up! thanks guys gals

surfsister

Hiya more signatures needed please?

ooooooh

Thanks for this. I was totally ignorant to the changes. Hope more people can sign the petition. Come on all you soontobe Freshers- get signing

influence

Having spoken to some undergraduates in the open day, I actually had some opinions myself.

1) If alot of people are going for a 'gap year', are there enough jobs to satisifed the demand? There was a news report today that says students are lacking numeric skills nowadays and that's scary since it makes employers more reluctant to hire.

2) There had been some scenario that people started working never go back to their studies. This is very true when I actually chat with the students. They take a degree simply because of their salary (more precisely, the immediate salary). To me, I take my degree because of a longer term career prospect. I am not claiming all undergraduates but there are a handful and that;s sufficiently worrying.

On the other hand, I do have a very fair concern about the affordability of living and studying in UK esp for lower income group. I think it might be abit too harsh for them (not all students but mostly for this income group). I think there should be more incentives implemented specially for the group (say, needy bursary apart from loans etc). The university fee might increase but only increase provided that this group is well taken care of.

While I have no comment on the petition, I think it should also be reflected not only to the government but also to the university. They also should have part responsibility to provide necessary financial support to ensure each and every student to complete their degree based solely on merit and not money.

My view

melancholly

influence wrote: »

While I have no comment on the petition, I think it should also be reflected not only to the government but also to the university. They also should have part responsibility to provide necessary financial support to ensure each and every student to complete their degree based solely on merit and not money.

that's a really really good point, but sadly practically impossible. outside of a few universities who have very generous benefactors, a huge number of universities are struggling to break even. this seems entirely bizarre because of the fees (which have gone up a staggering amount since i started when they were just introduced). it seems that the fact that students are paying makes little/no difference to the total money a university gets as the government is just subsidising it a lot less. i don't think that's what the universities intended to happen!!

i can see why people support this petition - however, when i started uni when fees were just introduced, people in years above me went through without paying anything. i guess the government has had a policy of introducing a change for people entering from a certain date - they did that when people in higher years still had a free education while i had to pay. sometimes people benefit from this method, sometimes people lose out, but i do think that they have to use the same policy of introducing changes every time or it really would be unfair.

influence

I also do agree that some university are having some financial difficulty to meet ends needs. In order to stay competitive, there is a need to raise fee from the university's point of view.

If you look at the US system and I hope I get this right, there are 'private' university and the public university. Havard and the ivy leagues tend to charge high fees to ensure best quality education while there are also the public univ to keep the fee managable for the general public.

I guess there might be some points to learn from such. Also while international students might be gaining alot of positions in the university, they are no doubt a good source of finance to ensure the current educational system will not tumble.

Also only the strongest survive. I have heard dept being closed down due to a lack of fund. These dept tend not to be the 'best' in the country. It might be to build 'specialised' university to ensure funds are more appropriately allocated rather than spreading across a list of (hundreds) of disciplines.

melancholly

influence wrote: »

Also only the strongest survive. I have heard dept being closed down due to a lack of fund. These dept tend not to be the 'best' in the country. It might be to build 'specialised' university to ensure funds are more appropriately allocated rather than spreading across a list of (hundreds) of disciplines.

unfortunately it's not just that less good departments have to close - it's more to do with less popular! there is very little danger of any psychology department closing as so many people want to do it (i'm a psycholgy phd student so i think it's a great subject - i'm not trying to belittle it here!), but chemistry, physics and maths are under threat as more people move away from those subjects. modern languages are also at risk because of low student numbers. in recent years that have been a number of closures or threatened closures fo chemistry and physics departments that ranked very highly in league tables.