Can I see some ID please?

**Said the bistro barman. Having waited fifteen minutes to be served in the empty bar, I explained that I was 22 and came here frequently with my family. He glanced over my oversize coat and multicoloured nails. “Sorry, it’s always been our policy,” said his goatee, but he didn’t look very sorry at all. I flounced home and returned with my driving license to find he had decided to stop serving half an hour early. What is it about the student aesthetic that engenders blatant derision from barmen, bank managers and ticket inspectors? I understand the Ritz may be sniffy about scruffy trainers and straggly beards, but even in situations where a dress code is not demanded this distaste for students still prevails.**

We are living through a period in which any consumption is heralded as good consumption: this festive period saw financial commentators reassuring us that though shoppers were deserting the high street, internet shopping still greases our economic cogs.

Marketing has become increasingly skewed towards encouraging the public to buy, through whatever means necessary, rather than the quality of the product advertised. We are somewhat desperately encouraged to spend, spend, spend more than ever. Though the coins exchanged for a cup of coffee by a man in a suit or a student in a tracksuit are the same their contrasting receptions mean you would never know it.

The petulance of this complaint masks a trend towards image motivated social interaction that has far darker implications. A social experiment a few years ago saw an actor in a suit collapse outside Liverpool Street Tube station in London and several passersby call the police and ambulance services. A man who appeared homeless in the same predicament at the same station received absolutely no help, everybody simply walked on by.

Those who appear wealthy being courted by both the public and institutions may be worryingly unsurprising, but why the animosity towards those of student status? Working in an office on my year abroad and dressing accordingly proved to be a sort of personal social experiment. People in cafes, shops and even certain friends of friends treated me with far more respect and interest when dressed for the office and when describing my job, rather than my studies. The sense that inwardly and outwardly, continuing study in your early twenties is not a valuable contribution to society is as depressing as it is misguided. But then, I am studying for a ‘useless’ Humanities degree. I’m sure Warwick Business School students never have this problem.