I still don’t understand what the students actually want: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/what-do-the-students-want/ -They don’t want universities to be private, so they need to be financed by the state. They don’t want to pay fees, so they need to be financed by taxes. They don’t want any of the proposed cuts to other parts of the budget, so could they please say where the money should come from?

Yeah, that’s what students really need – a small bunch of Trots masquerading as the voice of campus opinion. Why not go somewhere else to practice your 1968 Re-enactment Society fantasies?

Most students see you as gobby, self-indulgent and pointless. You’ll hold a demo, mouth off about ‘the feds’ (so street!) but change nothing and then go home to mummy and daddy for a nice, warm middle class Christmas.

Maybe then you’ll grow up and stop pretending to be revolutionaries.

@1 The lecturers’ union UCU would increase corporation tax to the G7 average, which would raise more than enough and still leave the UK corporation tax lower than the US, France and Japan

http://www.ucu.org.uk/bet

@Mndreas Moser The new system of funding the government are setting up will perversely cost us more. We may aswell ask the government were will this cash come from? although obviously alternatives like taxing the rich more or clamping down on tax evasion come to mind

@Colin … lol

@1

Like many people on the right, you repeat the same mantra “I don’t know what they want”. The thing is, you do know what they want, you just don’t want to admit it to yourself. Furthermore, I would wager that you’re deaf to the demands that have been articulated by your fellow students.

“you’re deaf to the demands that have been articulated by your fellow students.”

Your fellow students?! If you’re such a Marxist revolutionary, you’ll know what ‘substitutionalism’ is.

Most students think you and your NCAFC chums are tote moist.

Ed Bauer

The new system of payment means that students pay nothing while they are students, pay nothing while they earn less than the median wage, pay only a small, manageable sum by modest installments deducted through PAYE until they earn substantial salaries (by which time it will feel like paying a slightly higher rate of tax). Many (maybe most) will never pay off the full amount. The only ones who will pay in full are those often called ‘the rich’ – who you think ought to pay more anyway. It seems a perfectly ‘progressive’ arrangement. So what’s the problem?

Riiiight. So students are going to walk out and not do any studying as some kind of protest.

Wow!

What a crock!

The Police in America know how to deal with these demonstrating students:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjnR7xET7Uo

[1] “so could they please say where the money should come from” – where it used to come before Blair introduced tuition fees.

Why, oh, why can’t we have more strong principled politicians like, er ………
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc8i8ujDHHI

[7] so why on earth wit til they are 18? – surely we can start getting money out of them as soon as they are old enough to work – why should the poor old tax payer subsidise A-level students, eh – I mean there must be some way to increase the size of the bonuses bankers are busy awarding to themselves (post bail out)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12131092

Shouldn’t these students be spending a bit more time studying and a little less time protesting?

Just a thought….

“1968 Re-enactment Society”, that’s depressingly accurate. At least those guys had a bit of soul though.

Even if we ignore the unimaginative and disproportionately noisy SWP (who are being purposelessly sidelined by lefties on campus because they caucus everything, sort yourselves out swoppies), the left definitely take action before getting people on side. Occupations happen BECAUSE THATS WHAT STUDENTS DO. Flash mobs and more consciousness raising are the way forward IMHO, rather than unilateral moves. That doesn’t mean don’t take direct action when appropriate, but make it relevant.

@ 12 Anon E Mouse

“Shouldn’t these students be spending a bit more time studying and a little less time protesting?”

Last time I checked, undergraduate programmes did not take up 100% of your waking hours. Even for science students.

@7 – It means that they’re in serious debt through most of their working life, that they’ll pay more than the fees, on average, without clearing the debt, that it’s ECONOMICALLY NEGATIVE to go to University.

It’s called a sucker-trap.

*purposefully

Leon Wolfson

It means that they’re in serious debt through most of their working life

Err….no. A debt is something you are legally obliged to pay.

This is something you only have to pay (in part) if you are earning a lot. More like a tax than a debt.

[17] “A debt is something you are legally obliged to pay” – so students are debt free so long as they remain unemployed forever, or work for a wage that will never be sufficient to afford your own home ….. hooray!!

@17 – It’s a debt. A legal debt. Please go argue with the entire legal profession.

@ 18 a & e charge nurse

The odd thing is that before the Coalition government announced the new scheme – when all that was rumoured was a fees hike – the students, the Left and even Vince Cable were calling for a ‘graduate tax’ as the fair way to sort it.

That NUS fellow Aaron Porter even said so on Newsnight, if I remember aright.

But as soon as the government announced the details of the new scheme (a de facto ‘graduate tax’), suddenly a graduate tax was NOT the way forward and out they came to riot in the streets.

No wonder many of us feel that student indignation on this topic is entirely synthetic.

….oh yes, and the graduate tax the NUS was backing kicked in at earnings of >£15k rather than the >£21k the government plumped for.

[21] “No wonder many of us feel that student indignation on this topic is entirely synthetic” – you have the luxury of arriving at such view unencumbered by a tasty debt liability.

I notice you remain coquettish on others of working age who receive education without being made to pay for it.

@21 – DEBT is not a graduate tax. It’s nothing LIKE a graduate tax. It’s one of the few ideas worse, and I oppose any form of graduate tax entirely…you’re encouraging this country to cripple itself.

@20 – So, when did you fail your university course? First year?