Justice to The Reverend

My student debt is massive. So massive I see it as a completely different financial entity to the rest of my monetary life. The figure on it is so out of proportion with every other part of my financial dealings, it feels like there is no way it can really be anything to do with me. But it is. And it continues to slowly grow like some festering tapeworm, slowly sucking up small portions of my fragile disposable income and subtly strangling me from the inside. This month I paid off £25 of it. The interest charged on it was £22. So at this rate, I will have paid off the full £10,000 in 278 years. I imagine, Rev, that yours is more or less the same.

So boo hoo for me. And boo hoo for every other graduate whose salary crawls below the 20k mark. It’s an ugly situation for sure, but incredulous murmurings from the Confederation of British Industries suggest even uglier times ahead. The crux of the CBI report is that Universities need more money and the students should pay for it. Tuition fees should rise and grants should be cut. If a university education seemed out of reach for the UK’s poorest young people now, this would expand that disenfranchised group massively.

The reasoning given by the CBI spokespeople is that there is just no other way to raise the necessary funds needed to run these institutions at the standard required. Many universities are running large deficits and will undoubtedly need more money. But I just can’t accept that the only way to save the higher education system is to raise prices; intentionally fueling the disproportionate number of middle and upper class students who are able to go to university. Not only would this be unjust, but flawed and self-defeating on so many levels. Firstly, the CBI points out that the taxpayer can’t shoulder the costs due to the current state of the nations finances. I have two problems with this. By denying so many people the opportunity to realise their full potential, the long-term impact of this can surely only lead to a diminished output in years to come. My other grievance is concerning the prioritisation of how the contents of the national kitty is used. Now, I’m not going to get into the justification of our war in Afghanistan here, I just want to look at it in regards to its prioritisation. The figure put on the cost of this war is billions. Billions and billions. I would gamble that if you asked Regular John of the streets of the UK if he would rather his tax money went into securing an education for the next generation of Britain or for funding our war in Afghanistan, there would be overwhelming support for education. If we really want our nation to progress, education must be always be right at the top of spending priority. And always, always above war. I realise that the current situation is not quite as straight forward as this; we are at war in Afghanistan and by cutting the amount we spend on it would be condemning many British soldiers to death. But it is certainly a good argument for accelerating the progress of our exit strategy. Also, there’s always Trident to look at if freeing up cold cash is on the agenda.

There are also other potential revenue streams that should be tapped before shaking students by the heels until their lunch money rattles out. The largest of these must be revenue from big businesses. It is they who benefit so hugely from the higher education system, so it seems only right if they have more responsibility in funding it. This, in fact, was brought up by the CBI in a BBC interview, but unsurprisingly in very vague and half-hearted detail.

So the future of the UK’s entire higher education system is hanging very much in the balance. Any decisions made on how this is handled will have massive consequences on many socio and economic levels in the future. Which is why I curse the empty sickness in my stomach when I hear that neither the Labour Party nor the Conservatives intend to release any manifesto on the topic until after the next general election.