Oops...
Completely forgot to mention that Cambridge have already decided to do this. This makes it doubly important for Oxford to fo it too as it kind of completes the set. Being the oldest 2 universities in the country, as well as the ones whose heads seem to come out in favour of top-up fees most often, it really is important that we're there. Oxbridge does frequently come across as all white public school nobs, but I know that a lot of people [myself included] would not be here if top-up fees came in, and we owe it to future kids not to let Oxbridge pass back into the realm of the solely rich & badly dressed...

Caroline

I've not been to University, but I know that making people pay for their education is morally wrong, University is an investment in this countries future and not an expense!

What makes this whole bill so unbelievably hypocritical is that those who are proposing this legislation are the ones who have benefited from totally free Uni education.

If the Government can easily find billions for wars, they've got billions to divert to education for the sake of the countries future prosperity.

So your slogan should be "What's worth more?, Education or War?"

education for the masses not the middle classes :) deliberately provocative, yes.

the swss will no doubt wheel out their tired old slogans again. it used to be education for the masses not the ruling classes, carefully side stepping the issue of working class participation and experience of further and higher education. education is more than certificates and diplomas, its life long learning and sharing, it can't be tied down to the dominant (middle and ruling class) preconceptions of learning and then earning.

fuck the education system, we're more than another brick in anyones' wall.

The debate has been rageing on  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/283733.html your 20 reasons to stop top up fees have all been proven to be just mistruths. Working class opinion is against you, this is not even a working class issue. So when are the good-for-nothing students gonna get their finger out and pay their fair share?
On average a graduate earns %50 more than a normal person, they only have to do 16 hours of study a week - with those times they could get a second job to subsidise their "poverty". I know some uni students and i admit some are not exactly living it up but under the new measures they will be better off not worse because the fees will be charged *after* graduation and they could also get a fuking job and sell the car.
GET IT INTO YOUR THICK SKULLS THAT TOP-UP FEES ARE A GOOD THING FOR THE MASSES AND A BAD THING FOR THE MIDDLE CLASSES!

Again you anti-paying-for-your-future lot are making errors in your speeches. Teachers and Nurses will not be expected to pay more, in fact in those programs there is a huge amount of financial support available throughout study. Nurses can have their entire uni fees covered by the NHS. Newly qualified teachers benefit from a Repayment of Teachers Loans scheme, which means the gov will repay your loan for TEN years if you remain in teaching.

Yes we should make businesses pay their taxes. yes we should raise taxes on the wealthy. yes we shouldnt spend so much money making war. but these, although in some ways connected, are SEPERATE ISSUES. They in no way give excuses to those students who can afford it to not pay their way through Uni.

If you dont take the route of gcses at 16, alevels at 18, which most working class kids dont, due in many cases to financial reasons, then you are expected to work and fund yourself through college if you ever want to partake. If you're over 19, you have to pay fees. There are no loans available to cover your rent and other living costs, so you must wortk as well. What makes you rich kids in Uni so damn special? Why should you get a free ride?

Lets be completely honest here, while some of you DO care about the course you're doing, and some of you DO work hard, an awful lot of students seem to be taking an extended holiday, with plenty of drinking and having fun. All at the expense of the tax system. Dont even try to tell me thats bs and actually its very hard work. 16 hours Uni + up to 16 hours home work is only 32 hours. That leaves you maybe ten hours of part time job before you are anywhere near the full time work hours that less wealthy kids are doing. Add to that any time spent raising a family, dealing with bills and rent, helping out your parents/grandparents etc... i reckon you students have a bloody easy ride and i'm sick of being told differently.

And we havent even mentioned those lovely long summer holidays and all the other time you get off to visit mates and family, go abroad etc.


Face it, you have it EEEEASY. stop whining about paying for these priviliges. Maybe a month or two working as a care assistant living in a bedsit would make you realise just how lucky you are.

Since the early 90s those people that are classified as the middle class have been over 55% of the population (i.e. they are the masses... if you are talking the majority). Not that they deserve to be richer than other people... but I think translator needs to get off his "us and them" horse!
surely the aim is to give equal ops to all and give everyone a basic standard of living through a fair system of progressive taxation based on how much you earn not what services you use or need.

as a matter of fact, the MEDIAN WAGE in this country is around £21000. That means that 50% of the UK population earn less than that. The governments plans (look em up if you dont believe me) mean that anyone whose parents earn UNDER £20970 do not have to pay the upfront fee of £1125 at all. That means 50% of the UK population.

Then, students whose family earns less than £15201 will get a further £1000 grant, and students from families with income between this and £21185 will get a partial grant. That means 50% of the population.

Next, Universities will not be allowed to charge top up fees at all unless they provide extra bursaries for their poorest students, so there will be additional help here too.

Finally, when you do have to pay it back, the gov plan to move the marker. Currently you have to start paying your loan back when you earn £10000. Not only has this been changed to £15000, but the system has been rejigged so that in actual fact people will be paying £450 less per year than at the moment. So why will this leave anyone skint?

at £18000 you would have to pay back £5.19 a week. Hardly going to break the bank is it.

good point random, but i would also like to add that the top 50% of the countries population control *over* 99% of all assets. Let me explain wot that means, it means that the bottom 50% of the country control less than 1% of assets. So by these recent and reliable figre i can safely assume that at least 50% of the country are working class and it quite easibly be more. I admit that the tradition veiw of the working class factory worker or mine worker has all but gone and it has been replaced by shop assistants and such like (who are non-unionised).
so just-to-let you know - fuck off,
it is us and them or more like them and us,

Well I think university should be free for all. Fees will deter students from applying which is not fair. Everyone should have a non-means tested living grant.

Fuck anyone who collaborates with the state and wishes to work and be paid as part of it.

In sheffield back in 1994 a local anarchist Mark Barnsely was set upon by a group of drunken students in a pub who first insulted him then physically attacked him outside in the street, he fought back bravely against his attackers in the process injuring some of them. When the police arrived he was arrested despite numerous witnesses stating that he was the one being attacked. He was later tried and sentenced for GBH. He was tried and sentenced for GBH partly because he was a well known local anarchist who the police wanted had wanted to nail for something for a long time and partly because of the lying statements made in court by the group of students who attacked him.

Read the full sdtory here:  http://www.squall.co.uk/squall.cfm/ses/sq=2002061202/ct=2

Sheffield so-called "anarchist":

Shouldn't you be concentrating your fire on the coppers who set Mark up rather than students?

I know someone who was once beaten up by black people, but I don't go around saying "all black people are scum" - 'cos that would make me a mindless bigot.

As for the ultra-holy nobber who thinks that students are "collaborating with the State" - words fail me.

I don't see how a better world is possible if you all think that people shouldn't get a fair crack of the whip just 'cos you personally don't like them - very humanist I don't think!

Use your brains! For fucks sake!

Jeez.

Yes, there are plenty of people worse off than students, but that's not the point. We're squabbling over crumbs while the fatcats and arms dealers walk off with the cake!

Can we stop arguing over who's being fucked more by the system and get on with fighting it TOGETHER?

in solidarity,

okay then, a student, lets fight together.

are you going to march for a living wage?

are you going to march for fair rent for ALL citizens, not just student accomodation?

are you going to march for better facilities for less wealthy citizens.. such as access to regular public debates, or for libraries to stop censoring the web on their pcs?

are you going to march against the anti social behaviour bill?

are you going to march against our drug laws, the cause of an awful lot of broken lives?

are you going to march for equal opportunities?

are you going to help raise public awareness about rape?

are you going to march to get the police and the government to recognise that most violent and sexual crimes are committed on under 18s, and get them to reflect this in the National Crime Statistics?

are you going to support the UKs underground music scene, (and recognising graf as Artistic Expression, rather than dismissing it as vandalism), these the only hope of leaving poverty for many UK artists?

as you can see, there are many more important issues than your fees for us to be thinking about, life altering issues. some of these involve minor changes on your part (such as buying independently produced UK music, dont buy eminem buy something local, it'll make more sense). these things here are off the top of my head, given any amount of time i could come up with more and better. tell me, have you ever given any thought to ANY of these things? is your free education more important than our homes, our wages, our opportunities, our LIVES?

Just a few comments on what people have said:
1. "they only have to do 16 hours of study a week" - 16 hours? 16 hours?!? I know far to many people, mostly on science courses who find themselves often doing 16 hours a day! It's an unfair assumption that uni students do no work - science students especially. But even arts students have to work hard & too often last year one of my friends was regularly going 2 nights without sleep in order to get his work done. 16 hours... honestly...
2. "If you dont take the route of gcses at 16, alevels at 18, which most working class kids dont, due in many cases to financial reasons, then you are expected to work and fund yourself through college if you ever want to partake. If you're over 19, you have to pay fees. There are no loans available to cover your rent and other living costs, so you must wortk as well. "
"And we havent even mentioned those lovely long summer holidays and all the other time you get off to visit mates and family, go abroad etc." - again, many uni students have to work a lot as well, especially in the south of England where the maximum amount of loan available and actual living costs are often quite different. Last summer was the hottest on record in Britain, but I didn't notice because I spent my entire holiday working in a freezing cold factory, clocking in around sunrise and often not getting out before dinnertime. And I'm still going to have to apply for hardship to make ends meet. And I know I'm not the only one in that situation.
3. "the top 50% of the countries population control *over* 99% of all assets" - quite true probably, but what you've forgotten is that the top 10% of the country's population controls over 90% of all assets. Yes the middle classes have a bit more than the working classes, but they're not exactly living in luxury as you seem to be trying to suggest by that stat.
4. "everything in random's last post" - yes. Believe it or not [and I realise you probably don't] but students are not all self-obsessed drunkards out for what they can get and the easiest lifestyle possible. Students are just the same as everyone else and they do give a damn about the problems that everyone else has.

The point about this whole argument is not "why should we subsidise students?" especially ones who don't want to get off their backsides and earn a living. The point is that education should be free for everyone, so that everyone can everyone can have the opportunity to indulge in the golden lifestyle that people seem to assume students and graduates have. If this system was funded fairly then all you lot who seem to hate students and think they're all a bunch of tossers who need a good kicking into the real world, would not be paying more for education than you already are. The money would be coming out of rich people's bank accounts. And you can also say "why should we spend that money on students, rather than pensioners, pre-school, health etc etc?". The point is that there is lots of money out there - more money than any rich person could possibly spend in a lifetime just accumulating interest in their bank accounts, and doing its best not to be taxed. If our government had the balls to go and get that money there would be plenty for lots of things.
But hopefully, not for war.
And this isn't just idealistic dreaming - it's very easily done. The Conservatives of all people had the guts to do it, so why can't we make a so-called Labour government do it too?

1. Always the argument about science students, who yes do work exceptionally hard but make up a tiny minority of the student population. I know loads of students who've worked really hard, towards the end of their final year, after two and a half years of dossing. Im sure your mate did work all night, people tend to when they put work off till the last possible minute.
2.aw you had to work for a few months? gee thats too bad. dont moan to me sunshine, round our way thats a lifetime occupation you're talking about, not some summer job. oh yeh, and again with the pointing out the problems with the CURRENT SYSTEM, and not the planned one.
3.Actually, you know what, I think they are living in luxury. Im not going to go into the same rant I already had in another thread, but ffs, will you spoilt gits stop telling me we're not that different? You are seriously deluded if you think our lifestyles are comparable.
4.Never said they all were, just the great majority. And Im right about that, and you know it. How can you pretend you care about any of these problems when you've just denied that there are any differences between us??

Stop telling yourself education is free for all. It isnt. It costs a lot of money, and that is paid for by all of us. But only a few benefit. Stop saying FREE. It isnt free, and YOU KNOW THAT. whats the difficulty with this concept?

Your final point loses me completely. You seem to accept that should the money be made available, there are much better ways to spend it. So do you agree with top up fees, or not??

yes, random, I will fight for all those other causes, if I can. In fact, in some of the cases you mention, I already have been. Your assumption that I only care about student issues really pisses me off. In fact, you know absolutely nothing about me, and have no right to try and fit me into your standard student stereotype.

I realise student fees are not a priority for many activists, and I can understand that. There may be other causes more worthy of our energy, but just because opposing fees isn't a priority for *you*, doesn't justify you supporting fees! Or criticising us for opposing them.

> is your free education more important than our homes,
> our wages, our opportunities, our LIVES?

No, it isn't, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for both.