university applications

[fairkatrina]

Is anyone else sick of this drive to get the working classes into higher education at the expense of the middle classes? I have no problem with anyone carrying on with education who wants to learn, but what's with the desperation to get people into university when they would probably be better off going straight into employment?

[Bazile]

Suffragette's question ' have you never heard of irony ...'
reminded me of Blackadder's question to Baldrick in an episode , where he asked Baldrick if he knew the meaning of irony
Whereupon Baldrick replied ' yes , it's the same as goldy and bronzy '

I suppose those of you who consider yourself to be
' middle class ' - ( whatever that is ) - consider working class people are as thick as Baldrick , and dont derserve a university education ?

[crapmemory]

Completely agree with Mammar. My son finished a 4 year course in engineering at Warwick university last year. I paid for his tuition, rent etc, I come from a working class family and I would have love to go to University but I wasn't clever enough! It was a struggle financially for me but I think it was worth it. My son worked hard and got a 1st and a good job. He also has friends from University that come from all different walks of life,

[fairkatrina]

Wow, I was expecting this thread to be pulled, and instead it's been featured! People certainly seem to feel strongly about this issue (as do I), but I think we have strayed from the issue - I doubt anyone has a problem with anyone of any class going to university, as long as they are intelligent enough and the course is worthwhile (so that excludes David Beckham studies lol), but I feel that the government is pushing certain people into university at the expense of others, a situation I find untenable. Surely we should have an equal system of funding, so all people struggle equally?

Of course in an ideal world university would be free, as it was in the days of Tony Blair and his cabinet; but then of course people would be climbing the same ladder as he did, and we can't have that now can we??

[cartman99]

so this is about money then?

[joko]

who is pushing exactly? you say you 'feel' this but where is the evidence, where are you getting this feeling from?

i have never felt pushed

i went to university about 14 years ago and it didn't cost me or my family a penny - i got a grant.

i left college after a year due to ill health

i went back to college about 8 years ago, i was able to finish the course this time - i am now in 14 grands worth of debt and i had to pay my own fees because i was refused them because of the grnat i had been awarded 14 years earlier - even though i did not use it.

i was better off at college 14 years ago so how are the government making it easier and better for people who don't have rich families?

[minimonkey]

i think what she is trying to say is that by letting people with little or no money go to uni for free but charging people with some money (people with SOME money are i think what she means by middle class, LOTS of money = upper class??)anyway by charging people with SOME money to go to uni - it will have the idirect effect of putting those people off going as they cannot afford it.

[sense4all]

The wealth of a family should be irrelevant.. There are always exceptions to the rules. Not everyone who is well off is fairminded ,and sometimes ( shock horror) people who could afford to support their family choose not to, for a myriad of reasons. Which makes it unfair at both ends of the scale!

[Mammar]

You've sort of moved the goal posts slightly here as I thought the emphasis was on the opportunity issue rather than the funding issue.
The situation I am thinking of involves a bright girl coming from a home where ambition was nurtured, a single parent home, by the way, but regretfully the breadwinner was retired early through ill-health so income suddenly stopped. The girl, who had not enjoyed the A level process, didn't think she wanted the Uni experience so went to work. Believe me, she couldn't have been "pushed" anywhere! During the year she experienced at work she realised she was not achieving her full potential and decided that, despite her circumstances, Uni it had to be. Wages were squirrelled away and when she moved "oop North" she managed to get a part time job with the same company that had employed her in her home town. She worked part time during the first two years only stopping work in order to concentrate completely during the last difficult year.
The only reason I tell this lengthy story is to illustrate that if the determination to get a Uni education is there, the cost of it will not deter anyone, upper middle or lower class. If it means enough to you, you'll find the money. Yes, she'll have a ruddy great student loan to repay but she'll also have the satisfaction of knowing that if she hadn't gone she would have always regretted it..
And, after the finals, the country will hopefully have gained a forensic biologist par excellence.

[Joe_the_Lion]

Just though I will comment that I studied for my degree at Sussex University (which is fairly middle of the road) and my post grad (11 years later) at Cambridge. What I can safely say is in my humble opinion there were more snobs at Sussex than there were at Cambridge.

Strange but true.

[pingping]

i suppose i could be considered 'middle class' as my parents are both teachers. I went to uni 10 years ago, and i didn't qualify for any student grants so my parents had to pay for my lodging and some pocket money so i could afford to eat.

I got a part-time job while at uni and took out 2 student loans in order to pay my way as much as possible and take the pressure off my parents. It took me 8 years to pay off my student loan and the repayments left me financially crippled for years. Had i left it 3 years later to go to uni, i would have had to pay tuition fees, and there is no way my parents could have afforded to fork out for that on top of everything else.

I believe that education should be accessible to anyone who shows the ability to achieve there. This shouldn't mean making uni inaccessible to a whole section of society, but thinking up new ways of ensuring that students (regardless of 'class') aren't straddled with massive debts.

[Bazile]

joe the lion - what a load of c**p
Are you for real ?

[naomi24]

University places should be given on merit, and merit only. Class shouldn't be a consideration. Rich, poor or middle of the road, only the brightest should be offered places.

[StudentGal]

Joe_The_Lion .................

How DARE you say that working class people don't belong in such institutions as Oxford and Cambridge! We don't have the right temprement? I don't think you can have been socialising with too many working class people recently or you would realise that we're not the primeates you seem to think we are. I don't think even the rich people have the right temprement to attend Oxford and Cambridge as they have the highest student suicide rates in the country.

Anyway, I have found this thread incredibly frustrating to read as I have recieved funding for my university education. I get my fees paid and I also recieve a grant each year. I don't think you all realise how much money students from working class families are entitled to once they get to university though.

Because I get my fees paid for and recieve a grant, I am not eligible to get any extra money off the university. I can apply for it all I want but it gets denied every time. However, students who have to pay for their own fees etc. often recieve grants from the access to learning fund and many other benefits like free prescriptions/optical care etc etc. I know of several people who have been awarded hundereds of pounds from the access to learning fund.

Maybe the middle class students just aren't money aware enough to realise what they are eligible for as they've never had to worry/be taught how to budget and find out what you can get for free.

So in conclusion, when your kids go to uni, if you are a middle class family, tell them to get their lazy behinds into gear when they get there and apply for all the free money etc etc they can get. Most of them will never even bother to try and find out what help they can get with their fees/living costs etc.

By the way, thanks very much for my university education all of you tax payers. I will be helping to solve crimes the country over once I have

[Joe_the_Lion]

Student Gal, without being flippant, I thank you very much for proving my argument about Oxbridge and why the masses should stay out.

I did not mention money once, but the working classes (presumably yourself included) seem to think that money, or the lack of it, equates class. This appears evident in your first paragraph.

Although there is a correlation with class and money, it is not great enough for it to be the reason of such division. In other words you can be working class and rich and middle class and poor.

The very fact you instantly relate class to money is why Oxbridge, Royal Ascot, Opera, Bentley motor cars and single malt whiskey is best reserved for the middle classes. And long may the division exist!!!!

[diamondrocks]

in answer to the orginal question most people go straight from school to uni as they get told theres nothing better to do... true

[divegirl]

Hello Wardy....Nice to see you're still keeping things lively ;o]

Lisa x

[prattler]

A favourite saying of mine:no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent!I'm from a working-class background and proud of it, although the profession I am going into may make me 'middle-class' eventually.Who cares!It's only a word, and people like joe-the-lion make me laugh!Intelligence and 'breeding' as he calls it are not correlated by any means, and that is evident wherever you look!He likes to shock and be controversial but at the end of the day he's no better than me and I pity him.No-one can push kids into higher education.As far as I'm aware its the middle class parents who do that to their kids-to save face!My son will have a choice and if he decides to go to uni, I'm glad he will have that choice and get help from the govenment to do so.Mummy might not have been able to send him to public school, but he has the right to strive for a decent education and a worthwhile career if he chooses.

[StudentGal]

This entire thread is about the working class going to university at the 'expense' of the middle class. The issue of money is inferred if not actually stated. The classes that have been referred to in this thread are in fact the sort that are linked to money. As far as personal class goes, I think my class shines through as I have not attempted to judge your class or personality, but you have mine.

I have been both middle and working class in my life and apart from a few un-needed luxeries dotted about here and there, I can't say they felt all that different. We still had a car, ok it wasn't one with leater seats that burned your legs in the summer and froze them in the winter, but it was a car. We had a house, it wasn't one with 3 reception rooms and 5 bedrooms but it was cosy, warm and welcoming. I think I was actually happier after our so called 'fall from grace' into the working class.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the class divides that this labour government has sucesfully manage to re-establish in their 10 long and ardous years in office. I was watching the news the other night and the news reporter managed to put the situation very well. Never have the class divides in Britain been so obvious.

Joe, just so you know I find your blatent disregard to acknowledge that people from a working class background deserve, and are entitled to, the same opportunities and level of education as people from different walks of life quite sad. It's also a shame that you couldn't manage to veer your post back onto the lines of what the thread was asking. I only spent one paragraph addressing my feelings towards your post and then reverted to adressing the question posed by fairkatrina. I am a little disappointed you spent your entire post judging me and working class people.

And now, after also dedicating an entire post to my feelings on your interpretation of my post, I will bring it to a close. Good