Student protests – a modern Don Quixote

It is simply hopeless. We have seen this story play out in the same way every time, yet another iniquitous burden is placed on the back of students. The more vocal among us launch campaigns, protests and demonstrations – summoning a potent paroxysm of passion that soon fizzles out to no effect.

In fact, the entire history of student movements disinclines me to have any great confidence in the push to reverse the latest perfidy. The government, a few months ago, changed the terms of student loans. It is worth noting here that we all agreed to allow alteration of the loan conditions at any time. It was in the small print of the contract.

One can question the foundational legitimacy of such a provision – especially as there was little option but to sign if one wanted to attend university and didn’t happen to have nine-thousand pounds handy – but that is a foray for someone with more incandescent rage than I can muster.

The entire history of student movements disinclines me to have any great confidence in the push to reverse the latest perfidy

This neat little piece of legalistic ju-jitsu has enabled the government to modify the nature of repayments. Whereas it was previously that the £21,000 a year income threshold, above which payments began, would rise with average earnings – it is now the case that it is fixed at this level for the next five years.

The real source of ire has been how this change, in an extraordinary display of legerdemain on the part of the government, has been retroactively applied to all debtors since 2012. This, understandably, has provoked much action. Protests have exploded in front of the Houses of Parliament. An e-petition has garnered over 120,000 signatures. Money-saving expert Martin Lewis is even personally financing a judicial challenge to the loan alterations.

The real source of ire has been how this change, in an extraordinary display of legerdemain on the part of the government, has been retroactively applied to all debtors since 2012

Yet does anyone have any real belief that these will have any material impact? Cast your minds back to the colossal uproar following the tripling of tuition fees in 2010; do you remember the government promptly recognising the error of its ways and reversing the changes? For all the panoply of rallies there has been not one iota of reform, response, or reconciliation.

In all likelihood these retroactive loan changes will not be abandoned. It may be futile to protest against these developments – but such demonstrations never fail to fill me with optimism. These campaigns possess some of the simple beauty of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. For, like the eponymous hero, students are nobly fighting for a reality long since passed – searching for an era of honour, an epoch of intergenerational justice which no longer exists. Their unsullied belief in the possibility of a better world is enchanting.

It may be futile to protest against these developments – but such demonstrations never fail to fill me with optimism

It reassures me to see a generation so often labelled apathetic engaging in impassioned campaigning. Yet on a more prosaic note, it is encouraging to hold onto the thought that, should the time come when an intolerable assault on student finances occurs, a potent response will be amassed. Change may be unlikely, but I shall remain the Sancho Panza to these modern Quixotes, and observe with quiet reverence their tilting at windmills.