'Why the Critics of University Expansion May Have Had a Point'
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For someone who thinks they know their own mind and has a clear view of their beliefs and what matters, there are a range of issues which I've struggled with all my life. Should people have the right to send their children to private schools, should borders be open, what rights come with what responsibilities?
One particular dilemma has bugged me for decades. It's whether significantly more people should go into higher education, which has been the case since New Labour effectively made a target of half of us 'enjoying' that experience from 1998? I still don't know what I really think - and here's why.
What drives me politically more than anything is how the talent and ability of people is wasted, primarily for themselves but also for society. The fact that we exist at all is a miracle and our lives can be long, full and beautiful, or short, empty and ugly. But all of us are capable of the most amazing feats of ingenuity and creativity, when given a chance and the support needed to realise our incredible potential.
How French Activists Are Leading an 'Urgent' Fight Against the Surging Far Right
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Melissa Chemam
University, or more precisely for me Trent Polytechnic, was a vital stepping stone on the journey to unlock the modest potential I could boast. I came from a family in which no one had ever got near a sixth form, let alone a university. My mum, one of those smart working-class women who left school at 15 and worked in shops and offices all her life (while running the home and the family), somehow thought that college might be good for me without any direct knowledge of what it actually meant. She asked Dave, in the big house over the road, to talk to me about it and to give me a nudge. Duley prodded I eventually found myself emersed in Frankfurt School Marxism, student politics, football and endless joyful fun. Not least, I see retrospectively, because I was given a grant to live off. For those under 55 let me explain - the state or more precisely your local council gave you the money for rent and food. And there were no, I repeat, no tuition fees. Can you believe it?
This public largess was deemed financially feasible while only 10% of the country went to university.
As an interregnum between youth and adulthood, it provided not just three golden years, but a lifetime of brilliant friends and stepping stones to jobs and opportunities my mum could only dream of (but would have succeeded in given half a chance). For me it was priceless. So why shouldn't everyone who wants to go, get to go?
When New Labour launched its plan to open up universities to half the country I was instinctively opposed. Tuition fees sounded the death knell of higher education as a place in which the public good was paramount. Fees simply embedded the commercialisation of both the student and the institution. The learn, to earn, to spend treadmill was now complete. People would increasingly see themselves as their own individualised private company and brand, worthy of investment to guarantee a return on themselves. Meanwhile the institutions would expand dramatically and recklessly and along with it, the pay and prestige of their once humble administrators.
"The economy is the means, the goal is to change the soul" Mrs. Thatcher famously remarked. She also crowed that her greatest achievement wasn't the conversion of the Conservative party to Thatcherism but the conversion of the Labour Party. And so, with tuition fees, her claim rang true.
I thought tuition...
To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.
Help us build the better media Britain deserves
For someone who thinks they know their own mind and has a clear view of their beliefs and what matters, there are a range of issues which I've struggled with all my life. Should people have the right to send their children to private schools, should borders be open, what rights come with what responsibilities?
One particular dilemma has bugged me for decades. It's whether significantly more people should go into higher education, which has been the case since New Labour effectively made a target of half of us 'enjoying' that experience from 1998? I still don't know what I really think - and here's why.
What drives me politically more than anything is how the talent and ability of people is wasted, primarily for themselves but also for society. The fact that we exist at all is a miracle and our lives can be long, full and beautiful, or short, empty and ugly. But all of us are capable of the most amazing feats of ingenuity and creativity, when given a chance and the support needed to realise our incredible potential.
How French Activists Are Leading an 'Urgent' Fight Against the Surging Far Right
Melissa Chemam details the multifaceted resistance mobilising against far-right groups, Islamophobia and racism across the Channel
Melissa Chemam
University, or more precisely for me Trent Polytechnic, was a vital stepping stone on the journey to unlock the modest potential I could boast. I came from a family in which no one had ever got near a sixth form, let alone a university. My mum, one of those smart working-class women who left school at 15 and worked in shops and offices all her life (while running the home and the family), somehow thought that college might be good for me without any direct knowledge of what it actually meant. She asked Dave, in the big house over the road, to talk to me about it and to give me a nudge. Duley prodded I eventually found myself emersed in Frankfurt School Marxism, student politics, football and endless joyful fun. Not least, I see retrospectively, because I was given a grant to live off. For those under 55 let me explain - the state or more precisely your local council gave you the money for rent and food. And there were no, I repeat, no tuition fees. Can you believe it?
This public largess was deemed financially feasible while only 10% of the country went to university.
As an interregnum between youth and adulthood, it provided not just three golden years, but a lifetime of brilliant friends and stepping stones to jobs and opportunities my mum could only dream of (but would have succeeded in given half a chance). For me it was priceless. So why shouldn't everyone who wants to go, get to go?
When New Labour launched its plan to open up universities to half the country I was instinctively opposed. Tuition fees sounded the death knell of higher education as a place in which the public good was paramount. Fees simply embedded the commercialisation of both the student and the institution. The learn, to earn, to spend treadmill was now complete. People would increasingly see themselves as their own individualised private company and brand, worthy of investment to guarantee a return on themselves. Meanwhile the institutions would expand dramatically and recklessly and along with it, the pay and prestige of their once humble administrators.
"The economy is the means, the goal is to change the soul" Mrs. Thatcher famously remarked. She also crowed that her greatest achievement wasn't the conversion of the Conservative party to Thatcherism but the conversion of the Labour Party. And so, with tuition fees, her claim rang true.
I thought tuition...
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