Student Demonstrations

[DamianURS4]

I am watching the Live Desk listening to representatives of the NUS defending yesterday's appalling behaviour in London - I guess the support of the general public isnt sometihng of concern -

My question is this - can i fit Rhino bars to my S4 and does anyone fancy coming to the next demonstration to 'play with the traffic' and mow down some snot-nosed little gits?

[Error404]

f**king students They piss me off something chronic :corey:

I went to uni, paid through the ****ing nose for it, still paying off ££££s of debt and these lazy c**ts want me and you to pay for them to go too?

Get ****ing real you bunch of lazy, road furniture obsessed ******s. Maybe if you were actually studying something worthwhile rather than "drama therapy" you might not resent paying for some worthwhile education.

I'll ****ing educate the ****ing lot of them with my breaker bar

[Christophski]

As above says. I think it's right to try to make it more of an elite thing. I came out with a degree 3? Years ago n just sorted out my job using it. My brother is still struggling though so is throwing it in n doing something different to his degree completely. Make it elitist again n stop flooding the land with degrees in rubbish!

To many degree level people flood the Market. Make it an elitist thing again!

[s2driveruk]

i'm not even sure how many actually understand what the changes even mean to them..they see, £9k, debt and 'its not fair' and using that as the argument for demonstrating and violence. Totally out of order to trash and graffiti everything, afraid they won't win supporters or influence with that approach.

Unfortunately, the NUS leads and other 'figureheads' in their camp all come across as wet and clueless infront of a camera, quite funny actually

Personally as a non Uni educated ludite, if they want to go, they should pay for it, simple as that.

[spink]

if they want to go, they should pay for it, simple as that.

damn right

and get the rubber bullets/tazers out is what i say.

[Dan]

Alright, I'm sorry, but f**k students. Seriously, f**k them. F**k them all.

Firstly: Before this whole charade even began, students were already bitching and whining about how they were "poor" and had no money. Funny that, because despite this, they managed to be out on the p*ss every f**king night of the week. My student friends are spending more on luxuaries than I do. Most of them have a nice new laptop, a big TV and get takeaway more than a couple of times a week.

Fact is, student loans allow plenty of room to pay fees and live comfortably.

Secondly: They're complaining about the reforms without properly considering them. Yes - the total fees will go up, but this won't "stop the poor from being able to go to uni" as they say, because the poor, just like anyone else, will get a student loan to cover it.

In fact, since the threashold of earning, before they pay back even one f**king penny, is going up to £21k, the poor will actually be better off since they'll have a chance to get their earnings up to a good level before repayment.

Thirdly: Students protest against the "burden of debt" that they'll have to pay off... (and let me remind you, pay off only when they're earning £21k or over and at only 9% of their salary over that amount). At the end of the day though, they're just denying why they're there.

Students would love us to think that they're at uni so they can be better people and lead the next generation out of the good of their heart.

F**ing bullsh*t

Students go to uni so they can earn more money for their own back pocket. Going to uni allows them to earn more, so I say it's damn fair that they pay back to what allowed them to do so (and at a pretty low rate all said and done).

Student loans are a pretty damn good deal compared to when the rest of us want to borrow that much - I'm sure those of us with a mortgage can attest to that!

Finally: Students tell us that we're disadvantaging "young people" here. They're so f**king arrogant to presume that they're the only "young people" around.

What about those of us who left education to get a job? What about young people running their own business? When have we ever seen anything like the generousity of student grants and loans?

The spoiled brats are just pissy because they had an amazingly good deal, which has sensibly been cut down to a very good deal.

Maybe if students and the uni system wanted to save time and money, it'd compress its courses and work students twice as hard (so about 1/3 as hard as anyone with a job, still) so a degree would last 1.5 years instead of 3. It'd halve the residential fees over a course - but I'm sure the poor students would suffer inhumanely from having to do some "work", rather than playing X-Box in the day and boozing at night.

As a side note, I saw some of the students hanging off the flags on the Cenotaph and defacing a statue of Churchhill. Way to go - desecrating the memorial to those who died so you had the freedom to protest.

[Dan]

Okay, that turned out longer than I thought.

Also, bonus point: I like how everyone derides the police for the riots - let's not forget that it wasn't the police who brought cans of petrol with them!

[Rusty]

If my experience is anything to go by, I'm suprised by several things:

1. None of them can be Engineering students, I can't remember having 5 mins off a week, let alone a day to go to London without an organised trip to see a Museum.
2. There is a group of students who were not sleeping, drunk or stoned, that are capable of organising a march rather than going for a pint and some footie.
3. There are students who remembered the day that demonstration was to be held on.
4. Of those who remembered, there were some who managed to not be too hung-over, lethargic or tired to get out of bed.
5. Of the remainder, there were some who managed to get out of bed - a personal triumph for sure.
6. Those who travelled to London obviously remembered their student rail cards (mine was free from HSBC) - no student has ever paid full price for a train ticket.
7. Those who drove managed to agree their share of the petrol money based on a number of criteria - weight; car engine size; loan amaount; bank balance; flatulence production.
8. Of those that turned up, some managed to not just head straight for the local pub and forget why they were there, get drunk and go clubbing with some other students (aka their new best friends), who they'd just met.
9. And finally, those who turned up were fit enough and motivated enough to be arsed to run about the place making trouble.

I must therefore conclude that most of the protestors weren't in fact students but were ringers drafted in from a combination of Danny Dyer's Hardest Men and Steve Mcfadden's (aka Phil Mitchell) Britain's Hardest series on Sky.

[s2driveruk]

Rusty

i think the bit that really fecks me off is the fact that they don't understand debt. This debt is not personal debt and doesn't stop them or reduce their ability to get a mortgage. I wish my debt was structured in that manner with a 30yr payback or written off.

This is the 'on a plate' generation, we see it with some of the grads in our organisation they need a reality injection believe me...

[Rusty]

reality injection...

Where can I buy this for my S2 and will it give me 400bhp without changing the internals I can't be bothered doing things properly and want the easiest route.

[s2driveruk]

ah its just a facebook page, if you get 10 mates together who all want the injection then the government will HAVE to listen and give you it for your car and their too for free

[Dan]

pfft, it's a lousy mod.

Takes 3 years to come onto boost and then blows up when it doesn't know what to do.

[Fat Audi 80]

If my experience is anything to go by, I'm suprised by several things:

1. None of them can be Engineering students, I can't remember having 5 mins off a week, let alone a day to go to London without an organised trip to see a Museum.
2. There is a group of students who were not sleeping, drunk or stoned, that are capable of organising a march rather than going for a pint and some footie.
3. There are students who remembered the day that demonstration was to be held on.
4. Of those who remembered, there were some who managed to not be too hung-over, lethargic or tired to get out of bed.
5. Of the remainder, there were some who managed to get out of bed - a personal triumph for sure.
6. Those who travelled to London obviously remembered their student rail cards (mine was free from HSBC) - no student has ever paid full price for a train ticket.
7. Those who drove managed to agree their share of the petrol money based on a number of criteria - weight; car engine size; loan amaount; bank balance; flatulence production.
8. Of those that turned up, some managed to not just head straight for the local pub and forget why they were there, get drunk and go clubbing with some other students (aka their new best friends), who they'd just met.
9. And finally, those who turned up were fit enough and motivated enough to be arsed to run about the place making trouble.

I must therefore conclude that most of the protestors weren't in fact students but were ringers drafted in from a combination of Danny Dyer's Hardest Men and Steve Mcfadden's (aka Phil Mitchell) Britain's Hardest series on Sky.

Brilliant!

[Fat Audi 80]

FWIW and contrary to a lot previous posts, I do support the principal of education being free at the point of use. From society's point of view it is a good way to create the type of people that will be able to invent and create wealth for the country in the future.

I do think a large debt (regardless of how it is serviced) puts lower income groups off Uni. I was lucky enough to go to Uni just before it became fee paying. However my parents forked out for ALL my living costs and it was certainly hard living on £150 a month for everying (ex rent).

I like Rusty did Engineering which was 35 hours a week in lectures alone, rather than every other Tuesday 2 till half past....

That said noddy courses like underwater basket weaving are a waste of everyone's time and money.


On the subject of the rioting, I agree with Rusty that there must be loads of "rent a mob" jumping on the student protest bandwagon that fancy a day throwing missiles at the police and large expanses of glass.

A shameful way to protest and has ruined any chance of getting the real message across IMVHO.

[Rusty]

[polite round of applause]

One of the more sensible and considered things I've seen written today about yesterday's appauling scenes. No member of the NUS would condone violence or rioting to make their point, it's the age old issue of a small fraction ruining a valid protest by the masses.

As for all this 'I hate students' attitude. Simply put, without those who went to university, at their own expense, and who now run the industry that makes our GDP, we'd be nothing as a country. We are renowned for our innovation and world leading industries, something that is being eroded by poor banking practice and the proliferation of service industries that are so volatile. In many, if not most, cases these world leading industries are run by highly educated and motivated individuals or groups of people of whom most, if not all of whom have been 'students' at one stage or another. Sure there are exceptions but they are few far between.