I look online everday, I had to get my dad to employ me as no one would take me on. Even getting rejected from primark…

The very fact that you are looking everday and even thought to ask your Dad for a job is a testament to yourself and your commitment, and I applaud you for this, you should be very proud of yourself and for your efforts so far.:)

If only your commitment and determination could be passed onto others…

As per usual, a battle of my own here as i’m obviously a dumb young kid …

Don’t belittle yourself heslop01, you’re only standing up for what you believe is right, and you’re entitled to raise your issues and opinions as you see fit, but your certainly not “a dumb young kid”, in fact you sound like a nice, switched on kind of chap and I am sure you have a bright future ahead of you and I would like to wish you all the luck and success possible.

…the fact that I know people who can’t even barely afford a course now, let alone it going to rise, but I’m obviously assuming that other financial help will be set.

Do any of these people that you know have part-time jobs at all?

Why am I asking this you may be thinking…?

Well, one way in which these people that you know could potentially afford to go to university to study the course they want to do would be to work somewhere on a part-time basis in between their studies and set a small amount aside from each pay packet that they get which can then be used towards the costs of going to university. I know it won’t cover the whole cost, but anything is surely better than nothing, and it will allow them to make the most of their time.

For example, and I know its hardly the most glamourous job of all, but I spent two and half years working in a McDonalds restaurant whilst studying for my A-Levels and for a period of time whilst I was at university too. Unfortunately, I had to leave this job in order to take up the offer of doing a work placement at Gatwick that was part of the course that I studied, but had it not, I would almost certainly have stayed and continued to flip burgers if it meant that I had something to do, and earnt some money so that I could help support myself and yet still enjoy the luxuries in life. Sadly there are far too many students out there that simply rely on getting a student loan to help support themselves throughout their time at university, and when they get this money deposited into their bank accounts, they simply use it for the wrong reasons. A classic example would be the two people that I know that used their student loans to help fund their online gambling habits…

Not only did this job give me something to do during my free time, it allowed me to meet new people, but more importantly it gave me that first ever important job that has helped to build up my customer service skills and experience that I have developed over the last few years.

Thanks to a bit of determination, hard graft and carefully budgeting/saving up along the way, I came out of university with a relatively small amount of debt, and I do not really think that much about it because I make regular payments to help pay this off, and its deducted directly from my wages from my current employment.

There are a lot of people out there that are given absolutely everything by their parents and they are not taught the necessary basics of budgeting/saving money so that they are then able to afford the things that they want to be able to do.

As for other financial help, it has already been outlined in the same plans that I referred to in my previous post, and in my opinion its more than generous; not only do you not have to pay any fees upfront at the start of each academic year, you are also not required to begin paying back anything until you are earning £21,000+ (£6,000 higher than current level!), and I even heard Vince Cable saying whilst addressing the House of Commons the other week that they are introducing a system whereby if your wages fall to under £21,000, then you will not have to continue to pay contributions until it rises above that figure…thats more than fair, and “progressive”, and quite honestly, I really seriously struggle to see why there is so much anger towards these increases. And if people think that being violent and disorderly is going to help win them sympathy, then they need to take a long hard look at themselves.

I am appalled and in a way, disheartened, to be called “selfish” as that is something I most certainly am not. If I have to pay for that price for an education – well I accept that, I can’t change it.

I know in my previous post that I called you “selfish”, which may have come across as being too personal and/or a tad harsh, but it was your comment about the fact that you feel that education should be “free” that made me rather angry and perhaps I lashed out a bit without knowing anything about yourself or your circumstances, so I would just like to say that I am sorry for this and please feel free to PM me if you wish to take it any further!

On the whole though, those people who do think that everything should be given to them on a plate (and its not just students, there are plenty of other examples!) are rather selfish for thinking this, but this is just my opinion.

…with the fees of courses suddenly jumping from £3000 to £9000…people in the country in my “age” aren’t wanting to go for a higher education due to the simplistic thought of the cost of a course now being £9000 a year.

And this is what all the scare-mongering has managed to achieved…a complete mis-representation of the facts.

If people in general, but more specifically “students” actually took a few moments to sit down and read the proposals, they quite clearly state that universities will only be able to charge up to a maximum of £6,000, and not £9,000 as has been quoted above.

Whilst it is true that a university can potentially charge up to £9,000 for a specific course, if they wishe to charge anything over and above the £6,000 threshold they have to be able to comprehensively explain to a specialist panel from the Department of Education how/why they feel that this is necessary. They are also required to outline what financial assistance they will give to those students that wish to do these courses in order to to help them with the funding of it, whether this be through bursuries or other means.

I for one think that no matter what stage it is, education should be free; just like it is in Scotland for example, or if there was a fee to pay, it should be lower than the current £3000. People shouldn’t have to feared away from learning something, it should be offered to give people a better chance at making a better career for themselves.

Absolutely disagree, nothing in this world is and/or should ever be “free”, and frankly I think you and many others are very selfish if you think otherwise.:mad:

Just as universities will have to comprehensively justify themselves for charging anything over £6,000, perhaps you could comprehensively explain to me why it is that you feel that I should be made to work my a**e off each and everyday and pay my taxes, just so that you and a whole bunch of other people can be provided with a “free” education…how is that in anyway “fair”, compared to asking you to at least contribute to the cost of your own education?

Don’t get me wrong, I am very pleased that you want to better your prospects in order to get a good career, but in my opinion you have to be willing to put the effort in and at least contribute towards the cost of it and not feel that you have the right or expectation that others around you should have to pay it for you.:mad:

Two points to respond to:

Firstly, if you are right about the possibility of universities dwindling, that can only be a good thing and should happen regardless – too many students at too many third grade “universities” studying pointless subjects.

Quite agree there Sky High…well said.

And this is a point which needs to be raised and one that Labour needs to be held accountable for as they mistook university as a means to stop young people from being unemployed once they left mainstream education. It was a classic “pile them high, sell them cheap” idea that has spectacualrily backfired, and just because they are in opposition now, they feel they have the right to criticise the current Government for at least trying to rectify their mistakes!

And on the point of “pointless subjects”, why is it that people choose to go to university to study a specific course, but then end up getting a job doing something completley and utterly different to the subject matter that they studied for?

Secondly, education is not “free” elsewhere, or anywhere. The taxpayers pay for it and in the case of Wales and Scotland, English taxpayers subsidise the regional universities on top of the funding to their own universities.

I’ve made my point about this above already, but again I totally agree with you on this.

Great pic…a nice, clean and simple livery, can’t ask for much more.:)

As good news as the article is, it still says that they’re not fully up and running yet, does anyone actually know when their first revenue flight will commence; another article I read suggests that they are likely to start before Christmas, but whether that has been confirmed or not I cannot tell and its only a week and a few days away?!

This airline has been in the making since 2006, I know they have had a few issues to deal with already because they had initially intended to base an aircraft in Kingston, Jamaica, but the Jamaican authorities wouldn’t allow them due to its then issues with Air Jamaica (which is now under the control of Caribbean Airlines!).

So today I hear that “RedEd” has offered those Lib Dems that feel “ashamed” by the direction of the coalition a chance to help draw up Labour policy…:D

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11981011

You berate everyone else for their plans/ideas, and yet your somewhat lacking ideas/plans of your own Ed?!

He said he had asked Liam Byrne, who is heading up Labour’s policy review, to work with Richard Grayson – a former policy chief for the Lib Dems – to “draw up areas where our policy reviews can be informed by submissions and ideas of Liberal Democrats who want to contribute”.

Ah, so its the typical Labour ploy…get others to suggest ideas/plans and then try to pass them off as your own; brillant “vote-winning” plan there mate, top draw…errr…me thinks NOT!

And just think if Mr Byrne is in charge of Labour’s policy review, can you imagine what that might consist of…if its anything like the “There is no money, good luck.” note that he left for the Coalition in the Treasury just before he left, his policy review will no doubt read something like…”We have no ideas of our own. God help us!”

The location was the town of Ketchikan, located on an island in the Inside Passage along the coast of British Columbia and that thin bit of Alaska that juts down into Canada (and, yes, I was on a cruise ship).

Shame you gave the location away too soon as I would have said Ketchikan because I visited Alaska several years ago too, and I was on a cruise from Seattle and so I recognise that line-up of aircraft immediately, as I travelled on them…

We stopped over in Ketchikan, and I did a flight in a floatplane and stopped off somewhere to do some bear watching…saw a pair of them come out into the river we were overlooking and catch salmon that were trying to swim upstream…amazing and beautiful sight.

This was the company I/we flew with: http://www.taquanair.com/

Which route did you go on your cruise and which cruise line did you travel on?

I went with Princess Cruises on Sun Princess.

Laughable press conference being held at the University of London…

Panel of students (I think?), who said:

“The violence was not caused by the students, it was caused by the politicians and the police.”

So every single student that turned up with bottles, bricks, sticks, flares and any other item that they could throw all behaved in a rational and good-mannered way, really?:rolleyes:

As for the reaction of the police…the reason they have to “kettle” you is to keep you under control because left to your own devices and desires you’d run riot and destroy anything and anyone in your path.

As for the increase in tuition fees…I am all for it, and pleased to see/hear the vote went through!

As a former student myself, I had to pay £3,000 at the start of every academic year…under the new rules, students will not have to do this.

I have started paying back my loan already because I am now in full-time employment and earning over £15,000+, it costs me about £50 a month and is taken directly from my wages, so its not as though I have to factor it into my budget in anyway…under the new rules, graduates will not have to start paying back until they are earning £21,000+

So, students, just take a long and hard look and think for one second (surely this is possible?!)…you get to go to uni, you get to do the course you want to study, you don’t have to pay upfront and you don’t have to pay until you’re earning much more money than what previous students have had to.

What more could you ask for?:mad: