Progressive? Tuition fee rises are anything but...

In the just approved changes in University funding, the buzz word throughout the coalition campaign has been 'progressive'. So here we are approaching 2011 a date that as children some of us dreamed of a futuristic time with Star Trek inspired utopian aspirations. Yet the reality, the sad tragic truth is our government seems to have lost even the hope of such ideologies.

Flavors of these ideals are the values that are natural to us all - to want to achieve and aim to better our health, happiness, safety and of course education. Unfortunately we don't live in a world where the government strive to increase the education and knowledge of the masses and promote a broad spectrum of subjects. Instead we find out selves in the perverse situation that our children will have to incur massive debt just for the right to study. As a consequence of the debt, most students will have to consider a degree that will benefit them the most financially in the future, not what interests them. What hope is there for subjects like arts and humanities?

For me, it's not the fact that these fees are now legislation, it's that hardly any politician even aspires for education to be free. They have lost sight of societies goal as a whole, to better it self, to improve our standards of living, our well being and our knowledge. Instead much like anything these days everything becomes swallowed in a money obsessed world.

I am so enormously proud of the student protests. We complain of apathy yet as soon as we stand up for something the media distorts the truth and portrays the whole thing as riots. Isn't it funny that for every nutter smashing a window in, there are 30 journalists and photographers standing next to them. Not telling the guy to stop, but masturbating his already inflamed anger with flash photography - what a joke. To see how the media distorts the truth check out this page which shows the same photo used on every newspaper in the last student demo
http://politicalscrapbook.net/2010/11/nus-protest-front-pages/

Yet here is the photo zoomed out, notice the gaggle of photographers enjoying the show
http://www.caiwingfield.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Screen-shot-2010-11-11-at-8.03.09am.png

The coalition complain about misinformation. What about the fact that this whole friggin deal is about reducing our deficit yet the reality is the government will have to borrow BILLIONS to fund the new loans. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) economic and fiscal outlook for November 2010 says

“Increasing tuition fees will mean the Government will have to borrow more to fund student loans. The additional cash needed to fund the loans increases the Government’s cash requirement in any year and adds to the public sector net debt. Assuming that student numbers remain at their current levels, the OBR estimates that increasing tuition fees will require the Government to borrow £10.7 billion to fund student loans in 2015/16 compared to the £4.1 billion it borrowed in 2010/11. If the Government’s plans are voted through, they will add a whopping £13 billion to public sector net debt by 2015/16."

These new fees will also make us charge more for an education here than anywhere in the world according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.(http://www.oecd.org/document 35/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_45897844_1_1_1_37455,00.html)

Doesn't it make you proud to be British..?

Politicians use the word 'progressive' when discussing these changes and it makes me sick to my stomach. They are not progressive, they are not even conservative. It's a huge backward step, and a damaging pitiful reflection on how the leaders of our society have lost their way.

Beam me up scotty