It’s a testing time to be a student

If you are reading this, then you are most likely a student and one who has been affected by the coalition government’s educational policy. In recent years such policies seem only to have served to penalise the young. A 300% increase in tuition fees, limiting student visas for non-EU citizens, scrapping EMA, threatening to deport international students at London Met and messing around with exams and grade boundaries to name a few. This attack is damaging not only the futures of young people but the economic future of the UK itself.

You will surely have noted Nick Clegg’s recent apologetic YouTube ramblings over breaking his party’s pre-election pledge not to raise tuition fees. This apology came in the week that thousands of Freshers started university becoming the first students to pay £9000 tuition fees – almost exactly two years after he scuppered scores of young people’s aspirations. An auto-tuned parody became a viral hit that reached 104 in the UK singles chart, which is similar to the number of members left in the Lib Dem camp.

This fee rise was voted through parliament by a cohort of MPs who didn’t pay a penny for their higher education.

Freshers needn’t be reminded how they are affected by this government. Raising the tuition fee cap to nine-grand is the biggest betrayal of British youth in a generation. This fee rise was voted through parliament by a cohort of MPs who didn’t pay a penny for their higher education. In fact they received non-repayable grants to support them during their degrees on top of free tuition. They also could claim housing benefit and even unemployment benefit over the summer months. So much for “all in it together.”

International students have been affected too mainly because of a political crackdown on immigration. This culminated in the debacle ensuing London Metropolitan University; it’s license to sponsor students from outside the EU was revoked in August. Many students faced an imminent threat of deportation, until the courts forced the government to back down. Some of these students have spent their families’ life savings to study in the UK. This fiasco has caused irreparable damage to higher education sector in the UK – in a global education market this is a catastrophe.

Those yet to start University face just as much uncertainty as the current cohort. Whether that be GCSE students whose English Language grade boundaries were arbitrarily moved halfway through the year or future schoolchildren that face the uncertainty of an untested English Baccalaureate qualification to replace GCSEs.

Clearly this government doesn’t care about young people. You’d hope that cold hard economics would be enough to persuade them to invest in education. The UK university sector contributes a net of £3.3bn to the exchequer. For every £3.5bn spent on research at universities, an extra £45bn output is added to UK business. Is it any wonder universities are under the Business Secretary’s brief?

Increasing fees has no upfront benefit to reducing the deficit; in fact the government has to fork out more in higher tuition fee loans. It is a purely ideological ploy to limit the number of people seeking to better themselves through education. Young people have been left amongst the most marginalised in society by this coalition. With unemployment amongst 16 to 25 year olds running at almost 20%, that’s over a million young people out of work.

As under 16s don’t have the vote and most 18 to 24 year olds don’t vote, the government has no electoral motive to help out young people. This is why the student activism is so important. During your time at university you should let your voice be heard, more so than ever.

Fight for yourselves and future generations of students right to education at a fair cost. If you shout loud enough, they’ll hear you in Westminster.