Yesterday, fifty thousand students marched through the centre of London to protest against the cuts on education, the raise in tuition fees and the hypocrisy of the Liberal Democrats. The raise in fees may not affect current university students, but it's going to affect thousands of other people of all ages who dream of going to university but that will be put off by having to pay extortionate fees in exchange for a poorer quality of teaching, particularly in the arts where funding will eventually be cut completely. What makes the arts less important than the sciences? They both help us to move forward in society, and whilst science helps to move forwards in medicines and discoveries, art helps us to move forward as people. It gives us something to talk about, and it helps us to escape from the real world, it helps us to express ourselves and can teach us lessons and provoke epiphanies. Many artistic degrees are misjudged as being flaky or irrelevant, often by people who know nothing about them, and this isn't fair, just like it isn't fair to isolate the poorer people in the country from the unique educations and experiences that each university and college offers.
Nobody wants to leave university aged twenty one with £27,000+ worth of debt. Or at any age, for that matter. Why should we be made to pay those kinds of prices for an education? It's expensive enough to live in the twenty first century, let alone with that kind of debt floating over our heads. That kind of money could buy several cars, be a deposit on a house or help to raise a child.
Education is more important than cars and it's something that everyone has a right to, but because a few bankers sitting around a table screwed up, the poorer people are going to have to suffer for it. Where's the democracy in that?
This blog is going to allow students, and those that disagree with the cuts, to voice their opinions in an intelligent and articulate way before it's too late.
- Kristina Proffitt
3rd year Creative Writer, University of Derby
