The great tuition fees robbery

The last few weeks have seen this winter of discontent in the U.K boil over to violent protests from angry students over the tuition fee rises in 2012.

Now I don't condone violence, but the younger generations of this country are very angry, and rightly so. At a time when unemployment amongst young people is sky high, jobs for graduates are very limited and getting on the property ladder, especially in London is nigh on impossible, they are faced with the prospect of even more debt.

And for what?

If I am paying through the nose to go to university then I expect a world class institution, with smaller classes, one-on-one tutoring, state of the art laboratories for our future scientists, well stocked libraries and innovative research programmes...but that's not what we're getting is it?

University budgets are being slashed, with the polite term being 'efficiency savings' which in affect means another 20-30% of the budget being reduced. Why should students pay £9,000 a year to attend an institution that is running on a shoestring?

The fact that EU students bar English ones can attend university in Scotland for free is a travesty. This is surely discrimination? They apparently fear an influx of 'fee refugees' from England...what absolute rubbish. I was under the impression that there were admissions criteria to get into a university? Or do you just turn up at the door at the University of Edinburgh with a suitcase saying 'Gizza place!' and they're obliged to let you in?

Knowledge is power, as they say. These fees limit people from poorer families from gaining access to the best universities, and I wonder, perhaps cynically, that this is exactly what suits this government. The nation is becoming over qualified to do the necessary menial jobs, jobs that have been taken by cheaper eastern european labour. However the money they earn is often being sent to their home countries to support their families, rather than going back into the economy. Now, a future unskilled British workforce living in family units (rather than single men overcrowding a house) spending their hard earned pennies in pubs and shops etc means more money back into the British economy, more money in the banks and more people back in their places, cleaning up after the Chelsea-tractor-driving bright young things.

I'm in danger of sounding like a bitter old socialist but this policy reeks of lazy elitist muck. The government needs to reduce the deficit...why? Graduates now live with thousands of pounds worth of debt, what's a few billion to a country? These sorts of cuts do nothing to stimulate our sluggish economy, which surely should be our number one priority?