Welp, turns out I was slightly mistaken about the wealth of Oxford University. Our special correspondent Sarah Barrett (aka Saz) has the inside scoop...
"Oxford certainly could NOT survive without its students, as it barely is with them, and is currently in massive debt, especially colleges which don't have massive traditions of 'old boy' networks to keep them... alive on private donations. Hence why certain representatives are fairly keen to see tuition fees rise, and why we love International students so much especially at postgraduate level (they pay higher fees). However not all the dons want higher fees, in spite of the fact currently on average Oxford falls short of about £8000 per undergraduate.
What is the real problem is the government's ridiculous idea to more or less cut funding from all of the Arts, and only provide for what they deem 'valuable' ie the sciences (and i suspect only really physics and chemistry), engineering, medicine and 'some' modern languages."
Oh those poor Internationals. "We don't hate foreigners if we can exploit them", you might say. And how on earth is Oxford falling short of £8000 per undergraduate? It's a bit cheeky of Universities to tell you how to "manage your debt" when they can't do it themselves. If I'm correct, that's a debt of... (multiplies 8,000 by 300) about £2.4m per college. YOWSERS.
Incidentally, this article from 2004 on how neck-deep in debt Oxford is does explain a lot, and also explains how colleges are actually run as financial organisations. Who knew, eh?
Whilst we're on the topic of Oxford and politics: if Bigotgate didn't humiliate Gordon Brown enough for you, the Laura Spence Affair almost certainly will. Ye daft cloon, Broon...
The Evening Stanners
Showing posts with label Universities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universities. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Your... tuition fees... THEY'RE OVER 9000!!!
In which Goku is Lord Browne, Vegeta is head of the NUS, and Nappa is a fresher. Obviously.
Ah, nerdy times.
I am slightly bending the truth, mind: it's up to 9000, not over. Still, makes for grim reading if you're a student, I imagine... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11677862
So, the idea is: more loans to pay off the fees, but then you only have to start paying them back once you're earning £21,000 a year, which is an improvement on £15,000 a year. But annoyingly, better off students will be able to avoid the loan. Which makes universities less exclusive... how?
Then again, Universities were not exactly designed with inclusiveness in mind. They were designed for the elite, and therefore for the wealthy. Even super-smart people like Dr Samuel Johnson weren't allowed to stay on brains alone: the good doctor had to drop out because his family were to poor to pay the fees. Indeed, with the most powerful social networking site around belonging to a college dropout (Mark Zuckerberg), maybe the way forward is to not complete your course. Still, seems unlikely.
The extremely frustrating thing is that places like Cambridge and Oxford seem rather keen on the idea of squeezing every last penny out of their students. This is probably because both places could actually survive rather nicely without students: they would simply become research facilities. One would like to think the top two universities in the land would take better care of their students, instead of just assuming that's up to the Student Unions, or if/when the Government tells them to.
In any case, judging from the fact that Mr Vince Cable had to call off a visit to Oxford last week because of protests, I doubt this is the last we'll hear of higher tuition fees. Especially as it seems to have cross-party support.
Widespread student discontent, anyone?
The Evening Stanners
Ah, nerdy times.
I am slightly bending the truth, mind: it's up to 9000, not over. Still, makes for grim reading if you're a student, I imagine... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11677862
So, the idea is: more loans to pay off the fees, but then you only have to start paying them back once you're earning £21,000 a year, which is an improvement on £15,000 a year. But annoyingly, better off students will be able to avoid the loan. Which makes universities less exclusive... how?
Then again, Universities were not exactly designed with inclusiveness in mind. They were designed for the elite, and therefore for the wealthy. Even super-smart people like Dr Samuel Johnson weren't allowed to stay on brains alone: the good doctor had to drop out because his family were to poor to pay the fees. Indeed, with the most powerful social networking site around belonging to a college dropout (Mark Zuckerberg), maybe the way forward is to not complete your course. Still, seems unlikely.
The extremely frustrating thing is that places like Cambridge and Oxford seem rather keen on the idea of squeezing every last penny out of their students. This is probably because both places could actually survive rather nicely without students: they would simply become research facilities. One would like to think the top two universities in the land would take better care of their students, instead of just assuming that's up to the Student Unions, or if/when the Government tells them to.
In any case, judging from the fact that Mr Vince Cable had to call off a visit to Oxford last week because of protests, I doubt this is the last we'll hear of higher tuition fees. Especially as it seems to have cross-party support.
Widespread student discontent, anyone?
The Evening Stanners
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