Be Excellent To Each Other

Live on TV, students fighting the police and burning stuff, outside Millbank Tower. Student Grant and his Spunkbridge Uni chums from deLionfart Hall self-catered flats aren't happy.

The news just had to cut away after a placard showing Cameron bumming Clegg!

I'm supposed to be there for a conference tomorrow. I rather hope they've gone by then....

Students can't possibly be poor if they can afford a daytrip to That London.

WTF are bank IT people doing at Millbank? Are you fuckers asking for more money?

A shiny new donkey for whoever puts Craster's head onto a screengrab of that bumming placard.

ZOMG there was just a student being restrained by a mate on the news, and he had a flat top!!

I'm surprised the arts students are up this early.

Poor guy. The cutbacks must really be biting.

Nah, there's a conference suite at Millbank tower that's got nothing to do with the Conservative party.

Yeah, that's the PR line and you're sticking to it. Benefit cheats.

Fucking students. Nobody cares about what they think or what they do and evidenced by protests in the past.

I remember the fees march around 99/2000. About 3 of the arsey students from our year went, everyone else shrugged their shoulders and got on with it

I remember when the local union declared a 'lecture strike' as part of their anti-fees campaign, the idea presumably being students should not go to the lecture they were probably going to miss anyway. I was looking forward to crossing their picket lines but most lecturers had unsportingly rescheduled.

Quite. Also, young people as a whole usually don't vote.

Anyone know if they've stormed the Lib Dems' building?

We had a few sit-ins, which were similarly rather pointless.

The 99/00 march was quiet well attended overall, however. I and my mates didn't go on it, but we watched from a nearby pub.

In my last year there was a lecturers strike. Outside the media block there was one lecturer huddled in a camping chair with a flask.

One of the other lecturers (who was part time) rolled up in his Merc, got out and walked past the "picket line" with a cheery "morning Ken". It had to be the most pathetic picket line I've ever seen. It looked like he was train spotting.

I can't see the point in going to uni after 2012, racking up a £50,000 debt in three years, which is highly unlikely to be serviced with a position remunerating enough afterward.

Even at minimum wage from the age of 18-21 not going will lend you an £80,000 headstart.

Shouldn't they be studying towards their english lit or history or human geography degrees?

As one of my mates pointed out, "I'm paying x for these lectures, I'm hardly going to miss them".

By year 2 the same mate was bunking TV studio systems with me and having radio station management meetings down at Maccy D's every Monday instead.

We want more free money! Higher education should be free for as long as you want it! We will demonstrate how civilised we are by setting fire to stuff, smashing windows and fighting with the police!

Woop woop, leaders of tomorrow!

[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IsIVb_6uIco/SyVJxNhXLTI/AAAAAAAAAbg/izh8NcerAbo/s1600-h/studentgrant1.jpg

[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IsIVb_6uIco/SyVJxNhXLTI/AAAAAAAAAbg/izh8NcerAbo/s1600-h/studentgrant2.jpg

[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IsIVb_6uIco/SyVJxNhXLTI/AAAAAAAAAbg/izh8NcerAbo/s1600-h/studentgrant3.jpg

(image tags don't like these for some reason)

That could almost be describing the Bullingdon Club.

But not as well-dressed.

How are they going to pay for this damage....?

Oooohhh.... raising the fees. Got it.

They can just take it out of the money the banks owe the protesters.

Wait... so they're complaining that they're getting an even bigger 0% interest loan?

Yeeeeees, but they don't get any of that cash, the universities do.

No, they're complaining the loan will be much higher. This isn't just about how students receive the funds they have -- it's also about how much the Universities charge them for being there, which is to increase considerably.

When asked by the students union if students could be excused from lectures to participate in this protest, the grand high vizier of my distinguished seat of learning replied with what amounted to "get stuffed you lazy oiks"

It amused me.

How about this for an idea: Get a first, get 25% off your loan. Get a 2:1, get 10% off. Hopefully, that'll cut down on the number of people that go to university to doss around.

There's still the issues of doss degrees, though.

The "theatre lighting" degree of Student Grant aside, DocG can back me up on my own pointless Journalism degree (which at the time he used the exact term "doss course" to describe it). Reading Neuromancer, attending lectures taught by my sexy goth lecturer/tutor (imagine Joy from Drop The Dead Donkey on her way to a Cure concert) where we'd watch and discuss things like Xiao Xiao stickdeath, the intro to Pharoah which she'd just bought for her PC, or my essay on online fan communities.

About halfway through second year I vividly remember coming out of a lecture, phoning my mother and declaring I realized I was wasting my fucking time and their fucking money on this worthless nonsense. That's a big part of the problem here in my view: thousands of people going to university to piss around and do some derisory coursework.

Without the money none of the little shits would go to uni. So suck it up and just "pay" it.

Who asks to be excused from lectures?!

You wake up hungover and text a mate to pick up a set of notes for you then fall back to sleep.

Some courses will fail you for non-attendance over a certain amount, if it isn't approved. My LPC was like that. Despite the fact I had to pay £8,000 of my own money for it.


Pulling the ladder up after you, eh?

It says Grand Vizier on the back of my iPod.

Pfft - If you're not still up when lectures start the next morning, you're doing it wrong.

We impose penalties for persistent non attendance. Radical, I know

Not really. But foreign students come here and pay on some courses £12-15k a year and no-one bats an eyelid. Universities are businesses at the end of the day. And if they are losing income in one area then they need to find it somewhere else, and raising the fees so that less people want to go and have "degrees" is good for society IMO as if everyone has one, what's the point of them.

This country is going to the dogs.

What can be nicer than a doggie dog world?

Meanwhile, other students take a subsidised education from the British government and then leave the country.

That's because they're foreign students, and the taxpayer, quite reasonably, shouldn't be funding the cost of foreigners using our education system.



No. They're. Not.

And -999 bananas for use of "at the end of the day".


FEWER.

Yes they are.

I'll pay it back.

Not really fair on the people around you for you to be lolling about in the lecture hall trying to stay awake, reeking of beer, cigarettes and last night's vagina.

No, they're not. Saying it doesn't make it true.

Really? The true cost, including whatever the government paid to the University for your course? Note: this is a lot more money than the value of your loan.

Oh, and Universities aren't businesses. Not even slightly.

Oh forget it. I can't even be arsed to argue with you "clever" people.